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.

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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