28 October 2004

USAID's Winter reviews U.S. assistance being extended to Darfur

By Kathryn McConnell
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The United States has broadened its foreign aid policy to include providing more protection to civilian populations in countries where governments fail their citizens, says a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) official.

Speaking at an October 27 meeting of the agency's Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid, Roger Winter said an example of the new policy is the strategy now being implemented to protect internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Darfur region of Sudan from starvation and death. Winter heads USAID's Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance.

USAID expects the number of internally displaced persons in Darfur to significantly increase in coming months, Winter said.

The United States is the only government in the world with a specific policy for helping IDPs, Bill Garvelink, another bureau official, told the committee.

Updating the committee on the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Winter said USAID expects that the coming end of the annual rainy season, combined with an almost complete halt in daily economic activity among people living in camps for displaced persons, could result in growing numbers of people in the region being totally dependent on international aid for their survival.

Any prospect that people might be able to earn an income has dissolved because people remain afraid to leave camps even for short periods because of the risk of being killed or raped, he said.

"The prognosis for Darfur is not good," Garvelink said.

During the summer, USAID, working with the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), put in place a "robust" program to aid the estimated 2.2 million people in Darfur who are at risk of being victims of violence or disease, Garvelink said.

However, he said, the government of Sudan has imposed numerous obstacles that impede aid workers from getting food and shelter supplies to all the places where such aid is needed.

The United States has already spent more than $302 million for humanitarian assistance to Darfur, but more will be needed in 2005 if an unchecked system of "ethnic cleansing" continues, Winter said.

More aid also will be needed for neighboring Chad, the country into which a growing number of refugees from Darfur are moving, the officials said.

The "depopulation strategy" seems to be one of destroying entire villages as well as livestock herds, said Jeff Drumtra, a USAID senior advisor on internal displacement and protection. Livestock is the main source of income and nutrition for most Darfurians, he said.

With livestock herds dwindling because of theft, lack of adequate food and water, and people's rising desperation for income, a "new layer of conflict" could develop, Drumtra said.

A USAID disaster assistance response team has reported that the security situation in Darfur has deteriorated in recent months with violent situations occurring with greater regularity and the number of cease-fire breaches increasing "considerably," according to a USAID October 22 fact sheet. Underscoring that concern, Drumtra said that during a recent trip to Darfur he saw what appeared to be Sudan government helicopters bombing villages and fleeing villagers.

The Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid was established by presidential directive after World War II to serve as a link between the U.S. government and private voluntary organizations involved in humanitarian and development work overseas.