Humanitarian Assistance to Lebanon

MR. GARVELINK: I can probably make a few comments, but you know that. I don't know if you want to just go right to questions or --

Let me just -- we’ve been providing humanitarian assistance through the United Nations, through the NGOs and through ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] since about mid July. The fighting began on July 12^th, and that first week we were very focused on getting out American citizens. As that was going on, we were mobilizing our resources. We have stockpiles in Italy and in Dubai, and we were moving commodities to Cyprus and we moved a team to Cyprus. So when they finished with the evacuation of American citizens our team went into the embassy compound in Beirut and we’ve been coordinating our humanitarian assistance programs since then from our -- with our disaster assistance response team, or DART team, that's based in Beirut. And we've been working through a number of international NGOs and as I said, the UN.

And as the situation has evolved and the displaced population has moved back into southern Lebanon, our teams have moved with them, I mean our assistance. We work -- the NGOs that have been providing water, sanitation, food and that sort of thing to the NGOs who had moved north and were living with families or in schools, as these populations move south into southern Lebanon, our assistance moves with them. The NGOs ensure that water, sanitation, food assistance, those sort of things went along with the NGOs -- or went along with the IDPs [Internally Displaced Persons] because they’re going to need that basic assistance wherever they are. So it may not be quite so visible, but we’re providing a lot of assistance to the displaced population in southern Lebanon through our NGOs, particularly Mercy Corps and through the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

So we’ve been very active in providing a fair amount of assistance from the very beginning, and we continue to do that now even though the populations have shifted quite a bit. And perhaps you have some questions?

QUESTION: At the beginning of the conflict we heard some complaint about the delay in the evacuation of American citizens. Can you give us some idea about what happened in the evacuation?

MR. GARVELINK: That I really can’t. My responsibility is providing humanitarian assistance to the victims of the conflict. I really don’t know a whole lot about the evacuation of U.S. citizens, although it was a large evacuation of some 15,000 people. So I -- it just strikes me to pull that off, to do it in a week is rather -- there wasn't too much of a delay, but I can’t really answer that question.

QUESTION: The second question is about the number that President Bush announced yesterday, the two million thirty --

MR. GARVELINK: Right.

QUESTION: -- thousand -- $230 million?

MR. GARVELINK: Correct.

QUESTION: And he said 42 for the military of Lebanon. Is it part of the 230 or an extra?

MR. GARVELINK: Well, I’m not sure how that works. Right -- the number is assistance that will be provided for humanitarian assistance, reconstruction assistance and rehabilitation assistance. And as the assessments are done and are underway right now, the exact numbers of how that will break down will be determined very shortly. But we don’t know that answer right now. We don’t have our assessments of reconstruction needs, our assessments of humanitarian needs, jobs programs, rehabilitation needs. Those aren't quite finalized yet, so we don't know quite how that number will be divided up.

QUESTION: What's the US -- USAID money that goes to Lebanon yearly?

MR. GARVELINK: Boy, you’ve got me there. I’m not a hundred percent sure. You know, we’ve had the aid mission there for, what, almost 30 years almost continuously. I think it --

QUESTION: I want to know the annual budget usually.

MR. GARVELINK: I think it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 million a year. It has been for a period of time. But I can get that for you. I just don’t have it. You caught me by surprise on that one. I don’t have the number.

QUESTION: And regarding the way that the money is going to be allocated, how is it going to be allocated in the south especially that we know that there's a large, you know, Hezbollah presence there and they have their own programs? How are you going to work in the south?

MR. GARVELINK: Well, again, I'm not 100 percent sure because when we -- we try to begin our humanitarian assistance, our rehabilitation assistance, which is the bridge between that and reconstruction, and reconstruction assistance at the same time. As I mentioned, we're continuing with the humanitarian assistance wherever the IDPs move to because a lot of the IDPs that moved south are now either living in houses that are damaged or they're living with friends and relatives, and they're going to need continuing food, water, sanitation, health care, that sort of thing, for a while until they can fix a portion of their house or the houses are completely fixed.

And some of our NGOs will be engaged in that activity and I'm not sure exactly to the extent of their proposals yet, so we're waiting for that to come in. They're fairly recently have just gotten into the south, Mercy Corps in particular. So they have to take a look at the situation, look at the damage of the housing, because there are three or four definitions that shelter people use for the categories of houses and you fix them in different ways. And so an NGO that wants to get involved in shelter repair has to decide which of these categories it's going to work in and how many shelters it's going to repair. And Mercy Corps is looking at that. The United Nations is looking at that right now. And we just don't have the numbers yet, so we don't quite know the breakdown of funding.

QUESTION: But the funding is going to be used to rebuild houses, apartment blocks.

MR. GARVELINK: It will be used for those sorts of things, road and bridge repair, all the basic infrastructure activities, you know, in conjunction with the United Nations and the other donors. The infrastructure repair will be divided up among the donors under the coordination of the government, and I think each donor prefers to work to their strengths. So whatever they're best at they would prefer to do, and that's being sorted out right now.

QUESTION: Iran also announced that it's going to help in rebuilding houses and bridges. Are you going to cooperate with Iran on this matter or what's going to happen on ground?

MR. GARVELINK: Well, if they're working through the United Nations, we cooperate with the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross and the government, and they're the umbrella that coordinates all donor assistance and they call donor meetings and all that sort of thing. And you know, we’re a part of that group that works with the United Nations.

QUESTION: The $230 (million), is it for this year? What’s the date?

MR. GARVELINK: That's a hard technical question. I'm not sure if -- I suspect it's this year and next year, but it's this fiscal year. So for us, our fiscal year ends September 30. So we're at the end of the fiscal year, so it would be virtually impossible to do -- spend the resources in the next month and a half. So I suspect it's those two years -- this year and next year.

QUESTION: What is the major problem you are facing on ground in helping Lebanese?

MR. GARVELINK: What we're finding on the ground from our assessments is that the major requirement right now -- there's an overall requirement for shelter and fixing houses and infrastructure, but right now people are very short of water and sanitation. The electrical grid has been damaged and fuel now is not so much a problem. So we can get fuel to run the electrical grid and power plants and hospitals, but the grid is damaged so there's a shortage of water and sanitation. Food is required and particularly cooked food because people don't have a place to cook. So you know, you can't send in grain or flour or anything like that if you can't get to your stove and cook your food. So it's water and sanitation and food.

Now there's healthcare and all of that, but it seems that medicines are in pretty good supply in the country except for specialty medicines for diabetics and those sorts of things. Those are short and we're working on that with the World Health Organization. But the basic medicines and medical supplies seem to be okay, but there's a shortage of clean water and that will manifest itself in water-borne diseases and diarrhea and that sort of thing down the line if water isn't provided. So our NGOs, the United Nations, International Committee of the Red Cross, are focused on water and sanitation issues as the most immediate. I mean, shelter obviously is a longer term thing.

QUESTION: Do guys give funding to -- can non-American organizations apply for funding or local NGOs or is it only American NGOs?

MR. GARVELINK: No, no, we fund any NGOs. There are a lot of American NGOs we work with quite naturally, but we fund European NGOs. And the way we fund local NGOs is usually through -- we'll give a grant, for example, to Mercy Corps and they'll subcontract or provide funding to local NGOs that they know and have worked with in the past. So it runs through an international NGO or the International Red Cross.

We have kind of strict accounting procedures, and that's why when we judge whether we work with an NGO, one of the main factors is their accounting procedures. And if they’re organizations we haven't worked with before but our aid mission or Mercy Corps says, you know, these are ones we want to work with, we hold Mercy Corps responsible for the accounting of funds. So that's one of the biggest factors for us.

QUESTION: Just a question -- I don't know if this is necessary in your area of expertise or not. But do know how much Lebanon requested? Is this number based on -- what is the number based on?

MR. GARVELINK: Well, we have done preliminary assessments and, again, on additional humanitarian needs, rehabilitation. And that's livelihood, jobs creation, that sort of thing, and reconstruction assistance. This is always coordinated with the host government. We don't provide assistance unless the host government asks us for it.

QUESTION: But the number, the exact number?

MR. GARVELINK: Again, I'm not 100 percent sure. I'm sure our aid mission on the ground there has been in discussions with the government and they've talked that over before the President made his announcement, so I'm sure that's been coordinated. I'm assuming because that's the way it works every place so I can't say for sure, but I would bet that they talked to the government before the announcement was made.

QUESTION: Are you put in any aid through Syria or --

MR. GARVELINK: No, most of it -- because it would coming in by sea so it would come in from the other side, because most of our resources come -- our commodities come from Pisa, Italy, where we have a warehouse, and in Dubai. And then the NGOs would buy in country or nearby and so most of it would come by ship.

I think I kind of started out the point that I would make is sort of from the beginning is that sometimes our assistance isn't as visible as other folks, but working through NGOs and the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, we're spread out across Lebanon in providing assistance through those organizations which are the ones we fund.

The way we usually -- just the way we start in responding to a humanitarian crisis like this is we know pretty much some of the basic requirements: You're going to need blankets and you're going to need shelter and you're going to need health care and you're going to need water and sanitation. We have all that stuff in our stockpiles, so immediately when this began we started shipping our commodities to Cyprus as a staging area.

Then we fund the United Nations, the World Health Organization for medical, UNICEF for water and sanitation, the World Food Program for food, UNDP to help the local government. We get resources to them so they can get to work with the government and get the international response system going. And that gives a week or ten days for NGOs to get into the country, look around and decide what role they can play. The UN focuses countrywide usually; an NGO focuses on community. They're much more targeted and it takes a week or ten days to figure out where they're going to work and what they're going to do. So we provide our commodities, we fund the UN, and by the time we got the money moving to all those organizations the NGO proposals start coming in. It's Mercy Corps, it's CARE, it's World Vision, it's the International Rescue Committee. These folks now have gotten up into high gear and we have their proposals. So that's kind of the way we operate our assistance and provide our assistance, but it's always through other organizations so you may not see much of us but we're very involved in funding throughout the country.

QUESTION: I think that's it.

MR. GARVELINK: Great.