In times of great natural disasters, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) becomes the international focal point for disaster relief. It is tasked with collaborating with UN agencies and national governments for relief and recovery. In times of crisis, the head of the UN in that country acts as Resident Humanitarian Coordinator; in Nepal, that person has been Jamie McGoldrick . Darshan Karki spoke to McGoldrick about the UN’s work, its collaboration with the Nepal government, hiccups in meeting the funding gap, and the criticism aimed at foreign agencies, not least the UN system, which many claim undermine Nepal’s national institutions.

Can you explain what exactly the UN is doing in response to the Nepal earthquake?

We are trying to support what the government is doing—both at the central level and more importantly, at the 14 districts prioritised by the government. We are working closely with the Chief District Officers (CDOs) and other officials there to try and respond by giving assistance and recovery support to populations requiring assistance.

How does this coordination with the government actually work?

At the district level, the government has data on the affected population in terms of people whose houses have been destroyed fully and partially, the people who have been killed and injured, and the damage to hospitals and schools. So they’ve got a sense of the key needs. It is our job as the international community, the UN, and its partners, to go to these areas and work through the CDOs to find out how we can address the humanitarian needs, which are shelter, food support, treating injured and traumatised people, water and sanitation issues.

The monsoon is almost here and many places are still in need of food and shelter. What is the UN doing towards that end?

When we first started out, everything came through Kathmandu. Since those early days, a number of things have happened. The borders have opened up and many more trucks have come to Kathmandu and sometimes gone beyond. We have hubs in three places—Charikot, Chautara, and Gorkha—which are also called staging areas.

UNOCHA issued a flash appeal for funds right after the April 25 earthquake but so far, you have only been able to collect 22 percent of what you requested. How will this gap be met?

The flash appeal is only one mechanism for donors and UN member states to respond. Many member states have actually provided materials or resources outside of the appeal.

We need to find a way to track that money and reconcile what the donors and embassies have given and what we have. The issue is some of the key sectors—food, shelter, logistics, health, sanitation—are very underfunded. So we need to alert donors to the fact that it is very important to get money through the appeal before the monsoon.

How exactly do you track this money?

We have a financial tracking system where we ask donors to register international assistance for emergencies. But they have to do it voluntarily. It is very hard sometimes, as people keep forgetting and we have to keep reminding them. That is why the figures are incomplete at this point of time.

The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, recently mentioned that appeals for disaster relief funds are never met. What happens when such demands are not met?

We try not to think that this will be the case. More so, if we provide enough evidence and information to donors and member states, both neighbours and the wider international community, that this is a very important need, that there is only a short window and one opportunity to do this is now. Because it is a tourist destination, there is a lot of fondness and affinity for Nepal. At the same time, if we can assure that there is a system in place and there is support of the government to address those needs, we can expect donor funding to increase.

For about a month now, we have been writing critically about the work of our government. How would you evaluate the work of the UN? How effective has the UN response been?

It has been quite a challenge, given the fact that Nepal is a very mountainous country and thousands of people, not because of the earthquake, live in very high, extremely remote areas where even helicopters cannot reach. There are also challenges and restrictions in terms of transport, only one international airport and being a landlocked country wherein goods can only come in by road or air. All of that said, the fact that we have developed a strong partnership with CDOs and at the national level, an amazing amount of work has been done in a month given where we were.

It seems as though the UN is doing everything in coordination with the government. However, there has been much criticism of international agencies for undermining the capacities of our national agencies.

Well, even before this earthquake, we were working with the government on disaster preparedness. At the airport, you have a humanitarian staging area that was built by a donor—the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID)—for the World Food Programme (WFP) which is managing the logistics for the government for this type of eventuality. Also, there are emergency operation centres at the districts which were in full use throughout the quake, responding to the national emergency centre, which gathered the data. The simulation and training exercises and capacity building between American, Nepali, and other militaries and also the mass casualty training that had taken place in the hospitals, all of that showed that the government was very cautious even before the earthquake. It was obviously a massive shock to everyone. But I think we are now in a very strong position.

The UN’s response, especially immediately after the earthquake, has hardly been visible.  

I don’t know if the UN has not been visible. On the second day, in a small area in the compound, we established an operation centre to coordinate with the Army and the Multinational Military Coordination Centre. We established an information centre with the National Emergency Operations Centre, Ministry of Home Affairs. But what was overwhelming was the number of militaries that were here, large-scale assistance from neighbouring countries, and massive military assets. We don’t bring in assets, we bring in technical people and coordination mechanisms which are, for the most part, not visible but essential parts to ensure that there is a link between military and national and district and central level activities.

You speak of bringing in technical people and others to coordinate disaster relief. But a significant part of aid goes to paying such consultants. This much was reported by the BBC in an article where you’ve been quoted. Can you not do something about this, given the position you are in?

As I mentioned to the BBC, I think we should use as many national consultants as we can. However, as governments themselves have told us of their ability and capacity to respond to disaster and their emergency response, there clearly were not as many people as there should have been. I think bringing in international assistance, people who have experience in responding to earthquakes elsewhere helps. You bring in the emergency people very quickly only for the first two or three weeks. After that, those people go, you see the military and the search-and-rescue people leave and so do the technical experts. The normal system comes back into play once again and that is what we have seen here as well.

How difficult is it to coordinate, even with the UN agencies? A few years back, for instance, there were reports of rotten rice being distributed in Dailekh by the WFP? Do you monitor the quality of the goods you distribute?

I don’t think it is necessarily the UN. There are other agencies too and deliveries as well. Goods come in by roads, are offloaded and loaded in trucks, and stored at different places before being taken to a final destination or taken to other places with a different weather. It is normal for damage to take place. And food is a perishable good, it gets damaged easily. But the UN family has many systems in place to ensure that the bulk of what we deliver is correct. When we spot a problem we take corrective action. I haven’t seen this report nor has it been confirmed, but we do all we can to ensure that what we distribute is good. I am sure there will be small problems when you deliver huge amounts of rice.

Lastly, what challenges do you think Nepal will face in recovery?

I think the challenges in recovery will be the same as the challenges in relief. The sparseness of population, the communication, the literacy levels, and the topography of this country will cause difficulties. Even in normal times, we saw the difficulties while getting people to register for voting and while delivering ballot boxes. You think of that now in terms of a relief operation when you are running against the clock and you don’t have the materials and then you fast forward to the recovery phase, which requires transporting much heavier materials, be they cement, rods or corrugated iron sheets. Supplying these through the airports and road system to remote areas is going to be quite a challenge. It will be slow because of the landlocked nature of the country and the size of the problem.