Review
of the Assessment of Needs in the Conflict Affected Areas of the
North East
-- Muttukrishna Sarvananthan
Multilateral organisations such as
the United Nations (UN), World Bank (WB) and the Asian Development
Bank (ADB) jointly prepared an Assessment of Needs in the Conflict
Affected Areas of the North East in April 2003 to be presented
at the forthcoming Sri Lanka Donor Forum in Tokyo (see www.peaceinsrilanka.com).
This document was based on a number of sectoral and sub-sectoral
reports, which should be made available for public consumption
as well. This note will briefly comment on the process (of preparation)
and the contents of this document.
There was a fundamental problem in
the process of preparing this document. This exercise was meant
to assess the needs of the people of North&East (N&E)
in a pause-in-conflict situation, but there was hardly any consultation
with the people themselves. Of course it is not practical to consult
each and every person in the N&E. Nevertheless some focus
group meetings at the district level (at least) could have been
arranged. Further, in a democracy the elected members of parliament
and local government could be reasonable proxies for the people.
Hence, the needs assessment exercise should have consulted the
elected representatives in the N&E as well.
Instead, the consultation process involved
meetings with the LTTE, central government representatives in
the province (Government Agents and kachcheri staff), N&E
provincial administrative staff, local government staff, representatives
of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs - local, national and
international) working in N&E, academics and representatives
of local businesses. Many local NGOs and trade associations in
the N&E are politically manipulated, and therefore cannot
be regarded as independent and objective. The need assessors bent
over backwards to accommodate the needs of the LTTE that is unrepresentative.
Although most of those consulted may have expressed the needs
of the local people the consultation process is not complete without
meeting the people themselves and their elected representatives.
This is a major drawback of the needs assessment exercise.
As regards the contents of the needs
assessment document there are two elements. One is the identification
of needs and the other is the costing of the identified needs.
The needs identified in the document are by and large real. However,
there are some key missing components. For example, originally
the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) was expected to
identify needs on the issue of governance in the N&E. Governance
transcends human rights that have been covered in the needs assessment
(Section 3A). We understand that due to the objection raised by
the LTTE the proposed needs assessment on governance was left
out. This is an instance where the needs of the people were sacrificed
in order to appease the LTTE. This is very unhealthy because sound
governance is a prerequisite for reconstruction of a region/country
in the aftermath of conflict (see Needs Assessment for Recovery
and Reconstruction in Afghanistan prepared jointly by the ADB,
UNDP & WB in January 2002). Besides, the extent of identified
needs cannot be authentic given the time limitation.
Capacity building is obviously the
overarching need in the N&E, which is clearly acknowledged
in the needs assessment report. For capacity building to take
place sound governance is sine qua non. Even a year after the
signing of the MoU qualified professionals, administrators, managerial/finance
personnel, et al are hesitant to work in the N&E primarily
due to poor governance in those areas, especially in LTTE controlled
areas. Capacity building cannot be implanted from outside; it
has to indigenously develop within the N&E by retaining human
capital. Retention of human capital is not possible without a
dramatic improvement in governance throughout the N&E particularly
in LTTE held areas. Therefore, sound governance is central to
reconstruction efforts, which is unfortunately not covered in
the document.
The costing of the identified needs
is at best guess-estimates. It is simply impractical to do a proper
costing in just two months. More time could not be given for the
exercise because the people expect tangible benefits on the ground
in the shortest possible time. The original cost estimation was
more than double that is presented in the document. We understand
that this is because the government wanted the original estimation
to be slashed by half for reasons best known to it. First of all,
there is no guarantee that the donors will pledge whatever is
asked for. Secondly, there is no guarantee that whatever is pledged
at the Tokyo Donor Forum will be actually paid. Most of the foreign
aid pledged at a similar Tokyo Donor Forum for the reconstruction
of Afghanistan in early-2002 has still not materialised for a
variety of reasons. Under these circumstances the decision to
downsize the original cost estimation was a blunder.
Economic infrastructures (roads, railways,
ports, telecommunications, power, irrigation, water & sanitation)
are expected to consume 46% and social infrastructures (education
& health) 12% of the total reconstruction cost (pp4). Therefore,
almost 60% of the total reconstruction costs are apportioned for
economic and social infrastructures. In a region emerging out
of two decades of conflict it would be prudent to use labour-based
technologies (as opposed to heavy machinery-based) as much as
possible (in so far as there is no trade-off on time taken to
complete the work and the quality of such work) for rehabilitation
and reconstruction of economic and social infrastructures so that
maximum employment opportunities could be created. For example,
these labour-based technologies have been quite successful in
the post-conflict reconstruction of Cambodia. Perhaps the cost
of infrastructure rehabilitation / reconstruction could be considerably
reduced if more emphasis is placed on labour-based technologies.
The second largest component (after
economic infrastructures) of the total cost of needs is for housing,
which is 18% (pp4). There is a dearth of data on damage to and
destruction of houses in the N&E. Hence, data presented on
housing needs (Section 3D) should be treated cautiously.
The assessment of needs in the agriculture
sector (including livestock, fishery and forestry) (Section 3F),
the primary economic activity in the N&E, is very disappointing
to say the least. Further, the assessment of needs in the industrial
sector is submerged in the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Development
part of the ‘livelihoods’ section (Section 3G), which is a serious
lacuna in the needs assessment document. Industrial development
should have been given greater prominence.
It is amusing to note that ‘livelihoods’
have been identified as a separate sector (Section 3G) in the
needs assessment document. Livelihood is a crosscutting theme
and therefore cannot logically form a separate sector. Furthermore,
the section on ‘protection and resettlement’ (Section 3A) has
partly covered livelihood issues. This is a demonstration of donor-driven
character of this document. The employment and skills training
component of Section 3G should have been covered as a separate
section because of its overarching character like capacity development
(Section 3H).
It is a pity that the section on management
of donor funds, which is of immense importance, is not made available
for public scrutiny. The Sri Lankan experience of management and
utilisation of foreign aid has been rather poor. Now in the present
context of the reconstruction of the N&E the management of
donor funds would acquire greater significance because of the
anticipated flow of foreign aid to a region, which is largely
unaccountable and non-transparent.
---------------------
Muttukrishna Sarvananthan is a Research
Fellow, International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Colombo, Sri
Lanka. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author
and not of the ICES. Corrections, comments, and suggestions are
welcome to 02, Kynsey Terrace, Colombo-08 or sarvi@slt.lk
HOME
