Security top issue in Iraq, UN relief coordinator tells donors in Madrid

A top United Nations humanitarian official today told the Iraq donors’ conference in Madrid that security is “the single most important factor” shaping the world body’s work in that country.

“Insecurity...is severely hampering our ability to operate and monitor our assistance,” Jan Egeland, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said at the International Conference on Reconstruction in Iraq.

He said the UN had beefed up security measures since a bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad took 22 lives, but “The security environment will remain the single most important factor that will determine our ability to initiate, monitor and carry out new assistance programmes.”

The United Nations has withdrawn much of its non-Iraqi staff since the August bombing.

“It is our hope that the security situation will allow a gradual and careful return of additional staff, not only to Baghdad but also to the governorates in the north and south,” Mr. Egeland said.

He said the two top priorities for UN work in Iraq were to “ensure that the basic needs of the most vulnerable parts of the population are met and that essential services like health, water and sanitation continue to improve” and “to help build the capacity of the Iraqi institutions to service the needs of their people.”

The Under-Secretary-General said, “For us humanitarians, helping to build the capacity of national and local institutions is the best reconstruction assistance and guarantee that we will one day make ourselves obsolete.”