The members of the UN Secretary-General's High-level Panel on UN System-wide Coherence in the areas of development, humanitarian assistance and environment expressed concern over gaps identified in policies and implementation in transition phase between relief and reconstruction in earthquake affected areas.
They stressed that for humanitarian aid and disaster relief efforts to be effective it has to be lead by the people of that country. As an immediate step the organisations working in the field should be empowered to take decision at their sites for effective execution of the projects.
On this occasion, the panelists said there are number of thing that we have heard repeatedly in our consultations stressing more upon the importance of the leadership provided by the government, people, village leader and the people living in villages themselves.
The panel after having two-day deliberations here on Thursday finalised their recommendations which would be presented to secretary general Kofi Annan and then to the general assembly session in September this year.
They said "Our time-frame is to come up with the recommendations for September session and it's not to look at specific situations but at the overall framework of UN response in development, humanitarian and environment areas. During summer, we will try to put together those recommendations for further discussion and consultations."
The UN Panelists praised the country and people's efforts and said that they had learnt a lot from Pakistan during October 8 earthquake. They realised best practices including co-ordinating humanitarian assistance and recovery plan during these odd hours.
Addressing a joint news conference here, Josette S. Shiner, under Secretary for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs, US Department of State, Robert Greenhill, President of the Canadian International Development Agency Deputy Minister, International Co-operation; Ruth Jacoby, Sweden Director-General for Development Co-operation, Hina Rabbani Khar, Minister of State for Economic Affairs and Amin Aslam minister of state for environment said that the recommendations will be presented to the Kofi Annan UN secretary general.
Hina Rabbani Khar, State Minister, EAD said "This particular regional consultation was based primarily on fields of development and humanitarian assistance. As we all know in the field of humanitarian assistance the recent experience of October 8 earthquake. Pakistan had some valuable inputs and some suggestions on how to make humanitarian assistance better and a more effective."
Josette S. Shiner said "We have come to Pakistan to listen and to learn. Pakistan has tremendous amount of wisdom to offer to the world on these issues and couple of the panel member travelled to earthquake affected areas to consult with people of Pakistan about their experience of earthquake in Pakistan."
"We are here to learn form Pakistan experience and to bring their wisdom through our deliberations in to the UN. I think we all share the same goal whether we are from east, north or south or west. We will see the results of this deliberation in the final report because there is tremendous amount here that one can learn from. We thank the people of Pakistan for opening their doors to us" she added.
Robert Greenhill, President of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) said that experience coming out of the tragedy of the earthquake and extraordinary response from the people of Pakistan and international community, along with the number of best practices such as the cluster approach that was tried for the first time here in Pakistan for co-ordinating humanitarian assistance in disaster response will serve as a guideline. Furthermore , most recently ERRA - UN Early Recovery Plan from which also we have done a great deal. Its an attempt by ERRA and UN to deal with this tricky and challenging transition period between relief and reconstruction.
Malik Amin Aslam, Minister for Environment said "We have full panel meeting in Geneva next week and we hope that is whole process move into the direction where at the end of the day results in better UN system and which will be better for world and better for Pakistan."
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