Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Human Rights
Issue 10 - Evidence - June 9, 2014
OTTAWA, Monday, June 9, 2014
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights met this day at 5 p.m. to examine and report on how the mandates and practices of the UNHCR and UNICEF have evolved to meet the needs of displaced children in modern conflict situations, with particular attention to the current crisis in Syria; to study the international mechanisms toward improving cooperation in the settlement of cross-border family disputes, including Canada's actions to encourage universal adherence to and compliance with the Hague Abductions Convention, and to strengthen cooperation with non-Hague State Parties with the purpose of upholding children's best interests; for the consideration of draft budgets; and in camera for the consideration of a draft report on issues relating to human rights and, inter alia, the machinery of government dealing with Canada's international and national human rights obligations.
Senator Mobina S. B. Jaffer (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, welcome to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights.
[Translation]
The Senate has given our committee the mandate to examine issues related to human rights in Canada and abroad.
My name is Mobina Jaffer, I am the chair of this committee and I am honoured to welcome you to this meeting.
[English]
Before I continue, I will ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves.
Senator Unger: I'm Senator Betty Unger from Edmonton, Alberta.
Senator Seidman: Judith Seidman from Montreal, Quebec.
Senator Hubley: Senator Elizabeth Hubley, Prince Edward Island.
The Chair: On May 6, 2014, the Senate passed the following order of reference:
That the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights be authorized to examine and report on how the mandates and practices of the UNHCR and UNICEF have evolved to meet the needs of displaced children in modern conflict situations, with particular attention to the current crisis in Syria. . . .
[Translation]
The conflict in Syria has triggered one of the most appalling humanitarian and refugee crises in modern history. A particular distress is the impact the situation has on children. An estimated 3 million children are internally displaced in Syria and 1.2 million are refugees abroad.
Millions of children are out of school, separated from their families, in need of protection and in need of medical care, both physical and psychological. Displaced children are also at greater risk of poverty, abuse, neglect, violence, exploitation, trafficking, child marriage and forced recruitment into armed groups.
[English]
Canada is a significant financial contributor to both the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the United Nations Children Rights and Emergency Relief Organization. Both of these organizations have been working on the ground to provide relief for millions of Syrians who have been affected by the conflict. The organizations have had to use their limited resources to respond to the changing humanitarian needs that have arisen from a modern protracted conflict. As a result, their mandates and practices have had to evolve accordingly.
What the committee is looking for is not specifically just what's happening in Syria; rather, since the world war, the mandates of the UNHCR and UNICEF have changed. We want your help with how you see the mandates having changed, whether the process has been correct, should the mandates have changed and how should the mandates evolve. That's really our study. Syria is a case study on how these mandates are evolving.
To begin our hearings today, I would like to welcome from Save the Children Canada, Cristy McLennan, Senior Adviser, Humanitarian and Emergency Response, by video conference; Andrew J. Tabler, Senior Fellow, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, by video conference; and from CARE Canada, Jessie Thomson, Director, Humanitarian Assistance.
I want to thank all three of you for making yourselves available on very short notice to make presentations to our committee and to answer some questions. We very much appreciate your being here today. We will start with Ms. Thomson of CARE Canada.
Jessie Thomson, Director, Humanitarian Assistance, CARE Canada: Good afternoon, honourable committee members. Thank you very much for inviting me today to speak to the committee about the situation of displaced Syrian children and in particular the role of UNHCR and UNICEF in responding to their unique needs.
[Translation]
I am going to do my presentation in English, but you may ask me questions in English or in French.
[English]
CARE is a non-governmental organization working across humanitarian assistance, recovery and development in over 80 countries in the world. We focus primarily on the empowerment of women and girls, recognizing that supporting women and girls to meet their own needs brings about transformational change for entire communities.
Today, I will speak to three key issues in need of your urgent attention.
First, I will outline CARE's important partnership with UNHCR and UNICEF in responding to the needs of the displaced. CARE is a key partner of UNHCR and of UNICEF, implementing programming in partnership with these UN agencies in Jordan, Kenya, Chad, Djibouti and South Sudan, just to name a few. CARE Canada is also this year's official rapporteur for the annual UNHCR-NGO consultations taking place in Geneva next week. In this capacity, CARE Canada will represent some 500 NGO delegates from 250 organizations at the consultations, reporting back to UNHCR's executive committee and member states in October. This year's consultations will focus on women's leadership and participation, recognizing there is still important work to be done to improve the way in which we, UNHCR's NGO partners and UNHCR itself, engage and empower women and girls in both emergency response and in longer-term displacement situations.
Both UNHCR and UNICEF have been working with NGO partners like CARE since their inception. Today, UNHCR works with over 750 NGOs from across the globe, channeling one third of their total protection and assistance budget through partners such as CARE. In 2012 alone, this represented US$709 million.
Almost half of all forcibly displaced persons globally are children — over 12 million girls and boys. Many refugee children spend their entire childhood in displacement, uncertain about their future. Whether refugees, internally displaced or stateless, children are at greater risk of abuse, neglect, violence, exploitation, trafficking and forced recruitment into armed groups. They may experience and witness disturbing events or be separated from their families.
At the same time, their family and support networks may often be weakened or disrupted and their education interrupted. These experiences have a profound effect on children, from infancy and childhood through adolescence. During emergencies and in displacement, girls face particular gender-related protection risks.
UNHCR's A Framework for the Protection of Children marks an important evolution in its policy and practice, recognizing both the centrality of children's protection to UNHCR's work and the growing body of practice and expertise in child protection, specifically. CARE welcomes UNHCR's focus on the specific needs of displaced children, noting the unique and often serious risks faced by children in the context of displacement.
Second, I will speak to the specific needs of displaced Syrian children. As you are well aware, there are currently some 9.3 million people inside Syria in urgent need of humanitarian assistance and some 2.6 million more refugees now displaced into neighbouring countries. Over 130,000 civilians are estimated to have been killed, with millions more deprived of basic services, livelihoods, safety and security.
The Syrian crisis represents the largest and most devastating humanitarian crisis of its kind in recent years, with refugee numbers surpassing those at the peak of the Rwandan genocide. In the face of these staggering numbers, we have a collective duty to respond to the urgent humanitarian needs of those affected.
Since the beginning of the conflict, over 1.2 million Syrian children have fled Syria for safety, and more than 4 million children remain displaced inside the country. By year end, an estimated 2 million Syrian children will be refugees. This is close to 40,000 school buses full of children.
A recent CARE assessment in Jordan found that 43 per cent of Syrian refugee children were out of school. In Mafraq, in northern Jordan, some 90 per cent of teenage boys and girls are out of school. Many children have been out of school for up to three years, having left school in Syria before fleeing to neighbouring countries.
In light of these staggering figures, CARE is deeply concerned that we risk losing an entire generation.
Families we spoke to in our survey indicated they were not sending their children to school due to an inability to pay associated costs, such as transportation and schooling materials; concern over the poor quality of education in Jordan and overcrowding in schools; and harassment, particularly of young girls. Families are increasingly keeping their girls out of school due to perceived risks involved in travelling and the need for girls to help with household duties at home.
CARE Canada is particularly concerned about the specific and often different risks faced by boys and girls. CARE has noted with particular concern that families are reporting an increase in early marriage of girls, which is being used as a coping mechanism with the hope of better protecting girls in the absence of a male family member or with the view to lessening the financial burden on the household.
In our recently published urban assessment, we found that 9 per cent of girls in families interviewed, between the ages of 14 and 17, were married, and 7 per cent of girls in the same age bracket were pregnant at the time of reporting. Further, refugee women and girls have indicated that with increasing financial pressures, unemployment and lack of livelihood opportunities for male head of households, they are facing increased intimate partner violence at home.
In the absence of sufficient humanitarian assistance and the severe lack of livelihood opportunities for adult family members, CARE's urban assessment in Jordan also found that child labour is increasingly being used as a negative coping strategy. This is in large part due to the fact that it remains illegal to work and children are seen as more able to work without being arrested or harassed by the police. It means that many families are keeping children out of school in order to meet their basic needs.
Another key concern highlighted in our survey facing Syrian refugee children in Jordan is the lack of safe spaces for boys and girls, particularly in urban areas, where refugee families are often living with multiple households in the same apartment. Some 80 per cent of refugees in Jordan are living outside of camps, and as such, this is a very urgent concern; 80 per cent of the refugees we surveyed stated there's no safe space for boys and girls in the neighbourhood, nowhere to play, and 84 per cent thought that teenage boys and girls did not have any place to meet outside the home.
To this end, there is an urgent need to increase the availability of safe spaces where Jordanian and Syrian children can meet, exchange experiences and build community support through activities to enhance their capacities to deal with the crisis.
Third, I will speak to CARE's response to the Syrian crisis. CARE's response, with UNHCR and Government of Canada support, has enabled us to respond and reach more than 290,000 beneficiaries in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Yemen. We're focused on supporting both host communities and refugees living in urban areas, providing cash assistance, case management and referral services, water, hygiene and sanitation, shelter, food aid and psychosocial support. To date, CARE has received C$7.6 million from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development in support of our refugee operations in Jordan and Lebanon. The generosity and commitment of the Government of Canada to support partners in responding to this crisis with life-saving, neutral, impartial and independent humanitarian assistance should not be underestimated.
CARE's response has not only sought to meet the urgent, life-saving needs of the displaced but, as noted, has also sought to find ways to promote self-reliance and livelihoods in order to protect and rebuild the resilience of communities. CARE's response seeks to tailor assistance to meet the unique and differential needs of displaced men, women, boys and girls as well as their host communities, recognizing that these are equal needs but require different approaches.
To conclude, UNHCR and UNICEF play an essential role in meeting the needs of displaced children, particularly in the face of complex and often protracted conflicts around the world. Their partnerships with non-governmental actors like CARE Canada are fundamental to their ability to meet the needs of the displaced, ensuring a community- based approach that is both cost-effective and efficient. CARE Canada is deeply committed to continuing its work in support of the Syrian crisis in partnership with key UN agencies. However, this will require a long-term financial commitment of key donors, recognizing that this is a protracted emergency, one that will not be resolved quickly and will only be resolved with a political solution.
Specific attention is urgently needed in order to meet the unique protection, assistance, education and psychosocial needs of Syrian children, particularly if we want to ensure that we do not lose an entire generation to this hideous war. The boys and girls of Syria deserve a future, and one that offers not only safety and security but also hope.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We will now go on to hear Ms. McLennan from Save the Children.
Cristy McLennan, Senior Adviser, Humanitarian and Emergency Response, Save the Children Canada: Honourable committee chair, committee members, clerk of the committee and other esteemed colleagues, I'm honoured to appear before you today.
I would like to begin by thanking you for the opportunity to speak here today. Save the Children is always prepared to speak and enhance awareness of the dire situation facing children and their families affected by the Syrian crisis and to speak to our engagement with other humanitarian actors, including our United Nations partners. Thank you for engaging us in this.
In all types of emergencies, as has been noted previously, natural and conflict-based, children remain the most vulnerable. In 1919, Eglantyne Jebb founded Save the Children in the U.K. In the midst of World War I, Jebb realized that although no child is guilty in war, they're often the most affected. Without protecting children in times of conflict, we're denying them their individual human rights. This realization drove Jebb to develop and advocate for a charter on children rights, which was adopted by the League of Nations in 1924 and is the basis for what is now known as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Today, Save the Children works in over 120 countries to bring immediate and lasting improvements to children's lives that will allow them to reach their full potential. The use of the term "potential" is vital because currently in many insecure contexts, war and strife are determining children's futures.
Now in its fourth year, Syria's civil war has had a devastating impact on the children. Some of the statistics have already been noted. In July 2012 we launched a global emergency appeal in response to the global refugee crisis in the region. Our aim is to raise US$50 million for humanitarian interventions in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt with a goal of reaching 1.7 million people. So far we have reached 1.4 million people, including approximately 1 million children. We are reaching them with access to nutritious food and clean water, shelter and non-food items, education and protective services and a host of other interventions, both directly and through our UN partners and local partners.
Despite the dedicated work from a number of actors, more needs to be done and there's a serious need for greater humanitarian access within Syria. To give you a picture of some of the current realities facings children in this conflict, I'd like to focus for a moment on the impact to the health system in Syria. The collapse of the health system is a stark illustration of the urgent need for greater access. Today children are dying not just from bullets but from a lack of basic medical care. Prior to this conflict, Syria was a middle-income country with a functioning health care system that provided a consistent standard of care, including high vaccination rates for children, universal coverage of skilled birth attendants and institutional delivery. The picture of maternal, newborn and child health in Syria today couldn't be more different. An estimated 64 per cent of public hospitals and 38 per cent of primary health centres have been damaged, destroyed or closed due to the insecurity, and those are just the ones being reported on.
Not only is the health system collapsing as a result of the conflict, but in many cases it's actually being targeted. Doctors have reported being attacked for treating the wounded, including civilians. Save the Children and its partners are trying to address some of these critical needs. We are rehabilitating primary health centres, providing equipment, drugs and staff training where communities can access services, including treatment for disease, anti-natal care and where women can give birth safely. We've also supported our partners in vaccinating 274,000 children against polio, a disease eradicated for nearly two decades prior to this conflict but that has resurfaced. We've also delivered clean water to over 43,000 people and distributed 13,000 hygiene kits in Syria.
To speak to the refugee issue more broadly, those who have left Syria and fled to neighbouring countries are experiencing a different set of challenges. We could say that when someone moves from Syria into neighbouring countries, in many ways their situation goes from acute to chronic. No longer in the war facing immediate threat of violence and insecurity, they're now facing a day-to-day struggle where they may lack community and family support, may not speak the language or have access to basic services or a secure place to live. This becomes a much longer-term problem.
Facing one of the largest refugee exoduses in recent history, humanitarian groups and host communities are struggling to meet the needs of the growing refugee population. Pressure on resources is high and the numbers are astronomical. For example, over 1.5 million refugees are now in Lebanon. That's over a quarter of the population. The equivalent here in Canada would be to experience nine million refugees crossing into our borders within a few years.
In this sector of health but also across the seven sectors in which Save the Children works, we work in close partnership with several UN agencies: UNHCR, UNICEF, the World Food Programme and others. One example of this is through the No Lost Generation initiative, which was launched together among UNHCR, Save the Children and other partners. Unless we reach children now with integrated assistance to protect them from violence and abuse, to educate them and to foster their minds and their resilience and to support in healing the wounds of conflict and strengthening social cohesion, the hopes of an entire generation, as my colleague just said, could be lost forever, with profound long-term consequences for Syria, the region and beyond.
We have called for $1 billion through this initiative to give Syria's children the chance to resume their education and rebuild their lives. The initiative aims to reach 6 million children across the region through increasing learning and skills, providing a protective environment for children and broadening their opportunities. The approach is one of partnership across these agencies I mentioned, which all bring experience and skill sets to the education and protection sectors.
Donors have responded generously to this, and Canada was one of the first to fund this initiative, providing $50 million. Its leadership here ought to be applauded, particularly in supporting two often underfunded sectors in humanitarian response. But the needs are outstripping resources, and higher funding levels are required to address this situation and reach the number of people in need.
I wish to conclude by addressing this need for greater humanitarian access within Syria. It has been mentioned already that inside Syria, over half of the 6.5 million displaced people are children and well over 4 million children are in desperate need of food, shelter, medicine and psychosocial support. The recent adoption of the UN Security Council resolution at the end of February sends a strong message that the international community is united on the importance of humanitarian access. However, we are still waiting to see a change in the current situation or broadening of this access. We're calling for this resolution to be implemented immediately, providing access for humanitarian organizations to provide the necessary life-saving assistance.
As organizations, we must be allowed to move freely and safely to get to areas where aid is needed most, and we need the support from partners and governments that can use their leadership to push parties to agree not to prevent life-saving aid from reaching all children in need wherever they are.
Thank you for your time.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. McLennan. We will now go on to Mr. Tabler.
Andrew J. Tabler, Senior Fellow, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as an individual: Good evening, Chairperson Jaffer and ranking members. It is a pleasure to testify before the Canadian Senate Committee on Human Rights on the worsening crisis in Syria.
In over 20 years of dealing with that country, I've had the opportunity to share perspectives and policy prescriptions with a host of Canadian officials, in Damascus, Ottawa and Washington, on Syria and the Middle East in general. I have just returned from a trip to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, where I received briefings from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees' office in Amman and visited Jordan's recently opened Azraq refugee camp.
Though it came as no surprise that your committee would be focusing on the plight of children, in fact only when one visits a UNHCR operation directly does one understand how large a percentage of children are represented among Syria's displaced and refugee population.
Some have lamented these children represent a lost generation of Syrians in terms of human development, with deep implications for regional and world security in the decades to come. Whatever their future, the response of the international community to the war in Syria is now more vital than ever before. I know the committee has been probing into the response of UN agencies to the crisis with a special focus on the UNHCR and UNICEF. My brief remarks, informed by my recent trip to Jordan and other border areas of Syria, aim to provide some context to your discussions and deliberations.
With that in mind, I would urge you to keep the following points in mind for a much more detailed description and discussion on the role of children in the Syrian crisis.
The first point is that the Syrian crisis is not going to go away any time soon. Over 160,000 Syrians have been killed, close to 700,000 injured, and, depending on the estimate, up to half of Syria's population has been displaced. I realize those numbers sound high, and numbers on Syria have never been good, even before the Syrian crisis, but the conflict that's generating the death toll continues apace. At its core, a minority-based Assad regime continues to attempt to pound Syria's majority Sunni population into submission. Despite the regime's use of the full lethality of its arsenal, resistance to the regime continues. Conventionally, the Assad regime does not have the forces to retake and hold all Syrian territory, a fact that is only cemented by polarization in the region between the Islamic Republic of Iran, which backs the Assad regime, and the Arab countries that back the Sunni rebels in particular.
Now, if this regional situation weren't so bad, no international consensus exists in addressing the crisis either. The United States and the Western countries, which back the opposition, and Russia and China, which support the regime, remain at loggerheads over how to address the crisis in terms of humanitarian relief and a political solution, the one that everyone says is the solution and the outcome in Syria but that has remained elusive until now.
Even in areas where common positions exist, most notably on chemical weapons, the Assad regime's recent refusal to fully implement the agreement struck and Security Council Resolution 2118 have thus far failed to bring the West and Russia closer on implementing the agreement fully. I think this is something to watch in the days ahead and as we approach the June 30 deadline of that implementation.
Next, death and displacement of Syrians have dramatically increased during recent peace talks, not decreased. During the talks in Geneva earlier this year, the Assad regime began a campaign of barrel bombing that led to the highest death tolls during any period in the Syrian crisis, many of whom were children. This has led, of course, to a huge spike in Syrians being displaced, having to run to regime areas in order to receive food, also into neighbouring countries.
Next, governmental policy response has been remarkably slow and far short of the mark in dealing with the Syrian crisis. As recently noted by former U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, Washington's policy response remains behind the curve, both humanitarian assistance and mitigating the security threats emanating out of Syria, particularly extremists fighting on behalf of the regime and the opposition.
Next, actual funding for relief dealing with the Syria crisis, either inside or surrounding the country, is falling short of need. In particular, in the case of Jordan, only around a quarter of the funds requested by the United Nations in Jordan to deal with the Syria crisis have been received as of the end of April, which is particularly worrisome given that the crisis seems set to worsen in the year ahead.
Next, the UNHCR response in Jordan should be commended. I had the opportunity to tour the recently opened Azraq refugee camp, which is located out in the desert but is probably one of the best planned refugee camps I've visited in all the border regions of Syria until now. That will help deal with the influx of refugees that is expected if the Assad regime pushes into the south in particular to retake territory, although an increasing number of those that are going into Jordan are coming from other areas of Syria besides the south and the areas adjacent to Jordan.
Until now, about 600,000 refugees have registered with the UNHCR in the Hashemite Kingdom, but it's believed that up to a million or more Syrians exist outside of that formal structure without relief, and those known-unknown Syrians are the ones that are particularly worrisome, both in terms of the children that the persons in these families perhaps have with them inside of Jordon to date as well as possible security threats that might come from those communities as well and as they slip outside of the net of Jordan and the international community.
In terms of the mandates that you are set here to address, one of the biggest obstacles that the United Nations has had to overcome is that the international system set up to deal with these affairs, not only the UN but other organization as well, still has to deal through the channels of the Assad regime; and in these particular cases, assistance that is provided via UN channels via the sovereign power in Damascus is used to award certain Syrians among the opposition for coming over to regime-controlled areas and surrendering to forces there. That's created a lot of obstacles to fully reaching all of those inside of Syria who are in need.
However, the UNHCR and UNICEF and the organizations they work with have done a laudable job in trying to reach these populations. One of the ways this has happened is, frankly, many Syrians have had to run for their lives into neighbouring areas or other areas inside of Syria where this assistance has been distributed to them free of charge and in a very organized manner.
The problem lying ahead — and I think this comes out of the more recent London 11 meeting, the Friends of Syria meeting — is that getting more cross-border assistance will be necessary in dealing with the Syria crisis now and in the coming months and years ahead.
I would be happy to go into these points in more detail. Thank you very much.
The Chair: We will go to the deputy chair of the committee.
Senator Ataullahjan: Thank you for your presentations. My question is to Save the Children and CARE Canada. The majority of the refugees are living outside refugee camps in urban areas or in informal settings. How are organizations reaching displaced children in need of assistance?
Ms. Thomson: It's a really good question. I'm glad you raised it, because what we see in the media images is primarily the tree camp, which represents a small proportion of the refugee population. The vast majority of refugees are living in urban areas, which makes it much more complex to find refugees because they purposefully seek to blend in, keep a low profile and fit into the crowd, if that makes sense.
We have to be innovative in how we identify refugees and how we reach out to them. We are using a lot of new technology — SMS notifications and telephones. In our recent Jordan assessment, something like 90 per cent of those registered refugees with CARE had mobile phones. Forty per cent were using an app called WhatsApp to communicate with Syria, and the vast majority had Facebook accounts and used Facebook and Skype to communicate.
Our old-school methods of a complaint box and a poster board outside of the office with beneficiary entitlements and basic information around assistance don't make sense in terms of targeting this population; we have to adapt and be innovative to meet their needs, and that's been really important.
We are finding refugees are really innovative, and they are reaching out to us. In our recent survey in Jordan, refugees had reached out to three different agencies in the month we interviewed them for assessment; they are actively seeking out support. We know the housebound — those with disabilities, the elderly, single-female-headed households — are not able to reach out, and so we are doing a lot of outreach in order to identify those households, using volunteers from the Syrian community, the Jordanian host community, to be able to reach out and identify the most vulnerable. It's absolutely challenging and a daily effort in our operations.
Ms. McLennan: Thank you for the question. The fact that both Save the Children and CARE and several other organizations are dual-mandate organizations in the sense that they carry out emergency response but also longer-term development programming means that oftentimes we have had a presence in countries for a long period of time, and we have been working in areas that are not necessarily struck by an emergency or a refugee influx. That presence of having worked in these countries and starting to see the patterns of these influxes has helped us to respond more quickly.
Aside from that, like my colleague at CARE has said, we use our community mobilization teams, often with support from local staff and volunteers, to carry out needs assessments, go and visit communities, and see what the situation is on the ground for them. We're talking about incoming refugees but also host communities and what they are experiencing in terms of stretches on resources or other burdens that they have to now cope with. We certainly rely a lot on partners, and it's UN partners and others who are gathering information and sharing it in a coordinated way, which is so critical for all of our organizations to be feeding that information back to one another.
Senator Ataullahjan: You mentioned UNICEF's No Lost Generation initiative. Why is this initiative important, and what kind of impact do you think it will have on Syria's children?
Ms. McLennan: What I can say so far is that through this particular initiative, about 327,000 children have been given remedial education and psychosocial support through school clubs over the last year inside Syria. In testing almost 2,000 school club participants, an improvement showed in many subject areas. There was a 22 per cent increase in Arabic, a 17 per cent increase in English and other increases in math and science. Almost 500,000 Syrian refugees and vulnerable children have been supported to access education, particularly through this initiative.
It is important because the initiative addresses the close links that we see between education and child protection. If a child is in school and has access to education, quite often, at least we hope, that also means that they're in a protective environment. They have a right to be in a protective environment when they are in school.
Also, if children are out of school, they may lose a sense of normalcy and may become hopeless, so not only are they not becoming literate and numerate members of their society, but they may also begin to develop apathy and not see their way out of this particular situation, which, as my other colleague said, there is no end in sight to at the moment.
This is an important initiative, and it speaks to how closely several agencies are working together to address these issues.
Senator Ataullahjan: My question is for Mr. Tabler. In the article you have in The Atlantic, April 30, you encouraged military action by the U.S. administration in order to support the opposition in Syria, stating that:
The most effective and least costly way to contain Assad's advance, as well as the influence of jihadists, is through greater lethal support for the moderate opposition . . .
Why is that the case, and why has the U.S. been reluctant to go that route?
Mr. Tabler: There are a number of reasons. First, the reluctance of the Obama administration has to do with the downside risks of providing weapons to the opposition, given the number of extremists. It also has to do with the realities on the battlefield there. You have a lot of forces that coordinate with each other, and that could allow more sophisticated weapons such as anti-aircraft weapons to slip into the hands of extremists as well. Those are downside risks, and those have been real throughout the conflict.
The particular problem we have in Syria is that, as you probably have been able to ascertain from the press, President Assad is using what I have described as the "forced solution" in Syria, one that is in conflict with that of the international community and led recently to the resignation of Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN representative. That's where they use not only barrel bombing, which I talked about earlier, but also siege and starve tactics and other counter- insurgency tactics to roll up the opposition. That has worked for him, but he does not have the forces to carry it out on his own, and the regime itself is unable to deploy those forces. They are not as reliable. It is very hard to get people, soldiers in particular, to shoot on their own people, so he has had to call in members of Hezbollah, also members of Shia militias from all over the region to back up his forces. In doing that, he has retaken a little over 50 per cent of Syrian territory and upwards of 80 per cent of the Syrian population.
For President Assad to push into all areas of Syria and retake them not only from the opposition but also from extremists, Iran or its backers would have to substantially double down in terms of allocations to the regime, which I don't think they are going to do, and they haven't indicated they are going to do that. Their primary strategic interests are in the West.
The question is, how do you deal with extremists in these other areas of Syria where the regime does not have the capability of taking and holding those areas militarily? It can shell and bomb those areas, but it can't go in and root out extremists, and it can't govern those areas.
Many theories have been put out there. One is drone striking certain extremist groups in those areas, and that's part of the policy mix, but you can't bomb everything all the time. You need to have your own force on the ground there, one that shares an anti-extremist bent and shares, I think, the West's interests in containing that extremist threat. That's where the idea of policy support for moderate rebels has resurfaced recently, not only in terms of my article, but since that time, we have had a number of members, even from the former national security staff here in Washington, who have openly advocated in pages of The New York Times and others for such a response. I think I would look at the Lakhdar Brahimi interview in Der Spiegel from a few of days ago, and I would read it carefully. The problem we have in Syria is there is no state-centric solution. It is a failed state, and how do we deal with that failed state going forward, whether it's through the efforts to support children or civilians as well as to deal with the origin of the crisis itself?
Senator Hubley: Thank you, each one of you, for your presentations today.
You have given us some evidence that boys and girls experience conflict differently. Given that fact, how are humanitarian relief organizations responding to the different needs of boys and girls displaced by the Syrian conflict?
I'd have a further question on the number of children that may suffer from disabilities, and, indeed, is that situation being addressed? How are displaced children with disabilities being treated in Syria and the refugee-hosting countries? I'll leave it at that.
Ms. Thomson: Those are really good questions, really important questions.
We are seeking to respond to the differential needs of boys and girls by first asking them what their needs are and asking them what their needs are in sex disaggregated groups. That means talking to boys about what boys' concerns are separately from talking to girls about what their concerns are.
Very often, we make the mistake, especially with children, of talking to children altogether and not asking them about their specific needs separately. Of course, girls won't talk about concerns around sexual and gender-based violence in front of boys. We know from experience that you have to have those opportunities to speak separately and have women speak to girls or other girls speak to girls and men speak to boys to give them an opportunity to speak freely.
Then we're tailoring our response to those specific needs. One of the things that CARE does, which is really practical and basic, is provide sanitary materials to women and girls as part of our hygiene kits, recognizing that if you don't provide sanitary materials, often girls have nowhere else to get it. Often it means that girls stay home from school, if they are attending school, for one week of the month, and they have obviously a lot of discomfort and dignity issues associated with not having sanitary materials.
Interestingly, we just did a gender assessment in South Sudan with women and girls displaced by the conflict in South Sudan. We were talking to women and girls about sanitary materials, and one of the women said: "Whoever decided to provide sanitary materials without underwear was obviously a man."
So we are constantly having conversations with girls and women about their specific needs and adapting our programming and hearing from beneficiaries around silly things like this that you might exclude from a non-food item package or a hygiene kit package that is sort of obvious once you actually ask women and girls or boys what they specifically need and want.
Maybe Cristy can speak to the issue of disabilities.
Ms. McLennan: Thank you. On the difference with boys and girls, I'll also echo that any programming that we do, and I'm thinking particularly of our child-friendly spaces or youth-friendly spaces, will be designed in a way that boys and girls have separate places, whether it's to play or learn or to speak with the partners running and training in these centres. There may be counsellors or educators.
Once you see these programs starting up and running for a while, they may look quite different between what the boys are doing and what the girls are doing, and that is based on consultation with what they want to see and what they need. Do they need particular skills, for example, vocational skills if they're older? Do they want a particular educational focus? We'll find that, all stereotypes aside, there may be different types of vocational training that interest girls as opposed to boys. At the end of the day, it is really important and critical to take their needs and desires into account, because this is a protective space that is essentially preventing them from engaging in unprotective types of activities, be it child labour, joining armed forces and things of that nature. These spaces need to be a place where they're cared for and that are interesting to them as well.
The question around how children with disabilities are being reached and treated is a very good one. We do, as NGOs and other partners, try to make sure that our programming is accessible, so it means the child-friendly spaces or distribution points are accessible for people with disabilities of any age, as well as education centres. You can imagine that a lot of these resources are at capacity or stretched, so we need to be extra diligent that we can still provide that type of an environment to children with disabilities. It's certainly a challenge but also something that we're trying to address.
Senator Seidman: Thank you to all of you for your testimony today.
There is no question that there are a lot of NGOs and governments involved in providing the kind of services that are necessary, in this particular crisis, in Syria, but in general in providing the kinds of services necessary for the needs of displaced children in various conflict situations in the world.
I'd like to ask you to please help us understand your general relationship with UNICEF and UNHCR, and I'd say in general with respect to oversight and coordination, but you may have other aspects to tell us about. Then, more specifically, tell us in regard to Syria and the current crisis how their oversight or connection with you, their relationship with you, helps and what challenges or gaps you might be finding.
Perhaps we can start with Ms. Thomson and then move along to Mr. Tabler and Ms. McLennan.
Ms. Thomson: We have a very active relationship with UNHCR and with UNICEF and work very closely with them. We often look to them as a donor, as they fund us to do activities; as a partner because we work side by side with them with our own resources; and as a coordinator as the mandated agency, particularly in the case of UNHCR, responsible for coordinating and ensuring a response to refugees.
From our perspective, they have a number of hats, but we absolutely depend on them to identify gaps, to identify strategic direction in terms of the response, to prioritize needs, and to coordinate. We participate in the working groups that UNHCR runs in countries like Jordan, and we co-chair the Cash Working Group, for example, in Jordan alongside UNHCR to help set direction and policy in response to the refugee crisis, hand in hand with them as partners.
In terms of challenges and unmet needs, we traditionally respond to refugee emergencies as humanitarian emergencies alone. UNHCR as a humanitarian agency receives annual funding for one year and is often only receiving funding in order to meet life-saving needs. But we know most refugee situations become protracted. The vast majority of refugees spend an average of 17 years in displacement, in exile. CARE has been working in Dadaab, Kenya, since 1992, alongside UNHCR, with no end in sight for those refugees. Three generations of refugees are now living in those camps, some born there having never been outside the walls of the camp.
As a double-mandated organization that does both development and humanitarian assistance, we are always looking for ways to do more development-oriented approaches in refugee situations, particularly once the initial crisis phase is over, and what we see with Syria is that this is a protracted emergency. Refugees that I spoke to when I was in Jordan last said, "We originally came here thinking we would leave in a few weeks. Now we don't think we'll ever go home. We have no hope of ever returning." People's needs in that context change, and we have to be talking about livelihoods; we have to be talking about vocational training, education, opportunities for self-reliance, because the humanitarian assistance won't be enough to meet people's needs, and we know that self-reliance and livelihood also comes with some dignity because it allows people to come back a little bit to normal and to restart their lives.
I see that as a key gap area that needs attention. Of course it's very politically sensitive. The Government of Jordan has very real and reasonable concerns because they're hosting a massive number of people and have high unemployment rates for their own citizens, so it's a sensitive topic. It requires nuance and delicate conversation with the Government of Jordan and respect for the burden they are facing as well.
Ms. McLennan: I'll go ahead and respond. I just wanted to speak to answer those two questions as well, but I think I mixed up the order. I apologize.
For Save the Children, we are working closely with UNICEF and UNHCR, and specifically UNICEF is a close partner of ours in our child-friendly space, child protection and education work. Quite often we will combine our resources and work together, or we actually become an implementing partner and receive funds from the agencies to do the work.
We also are an implementing partner with UNHCR, in this case specifically in Egypt where we're working with them on child protection and refugee migration programs, as well as carrying out vulnerability assessments of beneficiaries.
I think that the coordination role of the UN in any humanitarian situation is extremely vital and extremely important. Unfortunately, coordination is always harder to do in conflict areas than it is, say, in a natural disaster, and I would say particularly this situation, which is not contained within one country but is spanning across a region, just makes it all the more difficult, but several steps are being taken to try to improve those coordination challenges. For example, there was a recent signing between the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, and UNHCR to help clarify their roles and mandates in this particular situation. We look a lot to our UN partners to help in the coordination of information and in terms of devising sectoral responses, so humanitarian responses among different sectors, be it education, food, health or nutrition.
Just to answer your last question about specifically within Syria, there are challenges there, and it's clear that the UN is operating in areas that are government-held, where needs are high across the country, but sometimes those aren't the highest areas of need. We certainly encourage donors and other policy-makers to look at a funding of the whole-of-Syria response. Not simply through the SHARP, or the Syria Humanitarian Assistance Response Plan, but also looking at NGO operations happening within Syria as well.
Mr. Tabler: Just to quickly conclude, I think that NGOs, given the crisis in Syria and the way it has evolved, will play an increasingly vital role in overcoming the rigidity of the international system when it comes to the provision of aid to weakened states like Syria. I fully expect this: I think that no matter what happens, which side controls what territory, I think we will look at Syria as one of the biggest failed states across the globe. It depends on how this goes; it depends on how long. It would be very difficult to put all the pieces back together again.
In that context, as some of my colleagues have pointed out previously here on the panels, responding to that will mean going beyond the traditional UN deliveries to Damascus and to Idlib where the regime controls territory. It will include having to work in opposition-controlled areas of Syria, and really these NGOs should be commended for what they have been able to do so far, but much more needs to be done.
I think it's only fair to Syrians that we actually find new ways to do this. The problem until now has been that the regime has said to NGOs that operate inside of Syria or organizations that operate inside of Syria, "If you directly distribute to opposition-controlled areas outside of our direct regime channels, we will cut you off in terms of your other operations inside of Syria." I know this is a real fear by those who operate UN agencies as well. They have told me candidly throughout this process that they were worried about their overall activities being cut off if they were actually going to try to reach out to those who were most in need.
Instead, that assistance, which the West pays for, is used to distribute via regime channels and reward Syrians for submitting to the Assad regime's rule. It is part of the "siege and starve" techniques that the regime has used to recapture recent territory. We'll see if they're able to hold it.
One of the downsides of the Assad regime's approach until now is that they used scorched-earth tactics. A lot of the areas they retake are destroyed. The levels of destruction inside Syria are simply astronomical. By one estimate of ESCWA, a UN agency in Beirut, around a third of the Syrian housing stock has been destroyed. That means that even if the conflict ended tomorrow, which it's not going to, even if it ended three years from now, which it might not, most of those Syrians who live in that one third of Syrian housing stock won't be able to return home. With that go all the other complications you've been discussing over the last few days, whether it's registration of birth, provision of basic needs for individuals, and keeping that population from becoming radicalized, which is very difficult under the circumstances and will be difficult for the foreseeable future.
Senator Seidman: Thank you. Could I ask one follow-up question? You've all talked about the necessity to constantly adapt and readapt as things change. We move from humanitarian efforts to more development efforts.
Ms. Thomson, you specifically spoke about that. What you didn't mention and that I'd like to ask you about are the channels of communication, specifically with UNICEF and UNHCR.
Is there an opportunity for ongoing evaluation, re-evaluation and adaptation? Do you have regular meetings? Is there a built-in communication process so that you can adapt and change perhaps in your programming?
Ms. Thomson: Yes, there is, absolutely. We have regular sector-specific meetings. You may hear talk of the fact that the refugee crisis is not a "clusterized" response, which means that traditionally the OCHA cluster system doesn't apply. But basically the same kind of mechanism is being used, just calling it working groups instead of clusters, by sector, in order to talk about needs gaps, how we need to adapt, what needs to be changed, either in the water sector, shelter, education or protection. Then there's also a humanitarian country team that meets to talk about the needs more at a global or strategic level.
UNHCR does have a planning process that is on an annual cycle, which includes its implementing partners. They do needs assessments with communities, but also including their partners in those assessments, in order to see what needs to be changed or adapted.
The other way in which we engage with UNHCR other than at the field level is in Geneva. Next week is UNHCR's annual consultation with NGOs. It's the largest consultation ever. There are almost 500 participants and 250 organizations participating from all over the world. That's an opportunity to speak to regional issues, as well as to speak to thematic issues with UNHCR at very senior levels, including as high up as the High Commissioner for Refugees. We see that annual dialogue with UNHCR as fundamental.
Senator Seidman: Thank you. That's very helpful.
I'm not sure if you would have something to add, Ms. McLennan.
Ms. McLennan: Maybe I'll just highlight that, particularly with UNICEF, which operates in emergency but also development contexts, we do have strong means of communication and ongoing partnerships in working with UNICEF outside of emergencies. We've already started doing longer-term programming in some of the host community areas that are less about humanitarian provision and more about helping to restore livelihoods or build capacity, and we do that with some of these partners.
Certainly in the immediate term, yes, it's definitely the humanitarian country team and the sector-specific meetings that my colleague was talking about.
Senator Andreychuk: Thank you. I have one question to Mr. Tabler.
You indicated that you think that arming the less — I can't remember what term you used, but those who are moderate — would be an answer. Then you went on in your exploration of the issue, saying that the Assad regime isn't going to allow movement into areas they do not control. If a moderate group takes over, they will then have problems with the less moderate groups that are there, the aggressive groups, fighting them and the Assad regime, which makes the civilians even more vulnerable. I'm at a loss as to why you think that might be an effective solution when in fact everyone is saying that a political solution in the end is what will be necessary because of the disparate situation. You seem to say it's a failed state and will continue to be a failed state. We said that about Somalia. We came to the conclusion that there will have to be some political solution amongst the actors if it's going to go. You might marginalize, disarm or eliminate some of the groups, but in the end, to build back a country or parts of a country, you're going to need the political will. I'm asking you the political question of why you're going the route you are in your assessment at this time.
Secondly, does it not make the children, particularly, and the communities more vulnerable?
While you're pondering that, I might ask the other two participants: What troubles me about the UN system now is that we keep talking about emergency aid, and that always implies to me the unknown, and we respond. These political conflicts have been erupting around the world. We're monitoring them from a political point of view.
I'd like to know to what extent your agencies — and, therefore, the UN, which you feed into — monitor these situations and have plans and contingencies to go in there.
Secondly, when you get asked to come into a situation like Jordan, Lebanon, et cetera, and to some extent inside the country, do you go in on a short-term basis? Inevitably, as you say, it turns into long term, 17 years being the average.
Do you start out with one set and transfer it to another? How do you determine what resources? I say that because on an emergency basis, short term, you're not going to talk about schooling; you're going to talk about health, security and reintegration. Where does that point come where you say, "This is for a long time, so we have to replicate a community"?
Knowing the Kenyan one as well as I do — and the chair knows — in the north, sometimes the services there become much more attractive than going back home, and then you're caught in the conundrum of whether it is resettlement, continuance in the camps or attempting to get them back to their communities, where they rightfully belong, but they've been in the camps so long they can't remember what life was like there.
My whole point is that this study was to determine are we realistically looking at today's conflicts, which seem to be internal country conflicts? Are we prepared for the variations that could appear for the benefit of the children, which we see to be the most vulnerable in this? I don't know if Mr. Tabler would want to take me on now.
Mr. Tabler: In terms of Syria policy, we're trying to avoid a Somalia situation until now. That settlement has become elusive. The problem we have at the moment, quite frankly, is that the Assad regime, which attended the negotiations recently in Geneva, refused to talk about the political transition as it was outlined. The opposition that attended did want to talk about the transition.
Ultimately, it depends on what that political transition looks like. Right now it seems as if the regime is trying to impose a forced solution on the areas that it controls and on Syrians. Part of that has involved using barrel bombs and other kinds of explosive devices dropped from helicopters. That certainly has put a lot of pressure and killed many more children than have rebel activities inside Syria.
Looking forward, in terms of arming rebels, this is where it gets into the realm of a security debate that is raging currently in the West and also in Europe. The question is, what do we do about the fact that we have large swaths of Syria that are outside the government's control and that seem to be outside the government's control semi- permanently, if not permanently? What do you do about the huge spike of extremists in those areas? I think it's there that those who have advocated arming rebels in those areas have done so not only for military reasons but also for political reasons in order to support those forces vis-à-vis the extremists. No matter what happens here going forward, I think it's very difficult to say that anything we do is going to save children or cost more children's lives. It's very hard to predict these things, unfortunately.
What we do know is that policy until now has failed to arrest the decline of Syria. Death tolls are going up. The numbers of displaced persons are going up. The numbers of orphaned children are going up, as is the number of those permanently or semi-permanently displaced — and that depends; one of my colleagues gave an accurate account. I think many Syrians don't think they will be going home. This is getting worse. One of the problems is at what point do we deal with the origins of the crisis and not just the symptoms? That's currently being debated.
There are no easy answers. I wish there were. Earlier in the conflict I think there were easier answers, but hesitancy, dithering and failure to act sometimes lead to a worse situation. In this case there's a strong argument that it did. We'll have to see where it ends up.
Ms. Thomson: I think it's a really good question around the relevance of how we work and needing to be innovative in how we work in some of these more protracted emergencies.
I would say four key things. First, for me, it's not about UNHCR becoming a super organization that does everything from relief and development in terms of this massive piece of work that needs to get done but about how the UN agencies and their partners are working together. One of the impressive things with the Syria response is that UNHCR, from the very beginning, said, "This is not a job for humanitarians alone. The development actors, UNDP, the international financial institutions, have to come to the table today — not in five years or in 10 years but today — because we know this will be protracted and we need the development partners to be part of the efforts at the beginning." That's innovative. It may seem like common sense, but it's incredibly innovative. We haven't seen that kind of effort happen before. That's exciting from my perspective.
Second, we've seen an emphasis on supporting host communities. Again, we've been screaming about the need to support host communities as well as refugees in Dadaab, Kenya, and the surrounding areas since 1992 and it often fell on deaf ears. We heard, in the context of the Syria crisis, a real recognition that if we don't support host communities, particularly the most vulnerable living side by side with refugees, we're missing the point and we're not meeting the needs of people affected by the crisis.
Third, we have to start talking about multi-year planning and multi-year funding. One of the things that limit us in how we respond is how we are funded. For emergencies, we often receive anywhere between one month and six months to one year of funding. We've been receiving annual funding in Dadaab since 1992. We know the needs. We can project the needs. Sure, things change and we have to adapt, but we need to think about multi-year funding, particularly in emergencies. It's more efficient because it means you don't have start-up costs over and over again for things like retaining staff, because you're not firing people and ending their contracts on an annual basis; and it means that you can be more strategic in how you reuse your resources. That's an area where I see opportunity for innovation. UNHCR has been asking for multi-year funding. I would challenge them by saying if they need multi-year funding, then they need to make sure they give their NGO partners multi-year funding as well.
Finally, on return, we absolutely need to be talking about how to make returns sustainable. It's not just about safety and security. It's about basic services like education, health, livelihoods. People are not going home to Somalia not just because of safety and security but because of the lack of other opportunities. That requires the development actors to come to the table early and to be there, able to start the development interventions in that initial phase of recovery and not leaving a gap between relief and development. That's where humanitarian and development actors really need to work hand-in-hand if we're going to be effective in bridging this gap and deal with these kinds of issues.
Ms. McLennan: I'll add a few supplementary comments; I hope I'm not too repetitive. When talking about determining resources in these kinds of political conflicts that are going to endure, we do set ourselves up for long-term response and that continuum of perhaps it's a first-phase emergency response, but you also have your early recovery phase, right into long-term development. Of course, it doesn't all play out like that on a nice line. You're doing all of those things at any given time.
One thing that I think all agencies have learned is from your first 48 hours of planning, you already need to be thinking about the longer-term intervention and your longer-term strategy. Usually, we'll have maybe three- or five- year strategies devised.
Like my colleague said, the funding cycles don't quite match those. It's hard to see exactly how your strategy will be funded from the get-go, and that can be a real challenge. It can also be a challenge to cover off those gaps that may exist between what we see as traditional emergency response, such as the handing out of items and immediate health care, and those longer-term capacity-building needs. Sometimes there's a gap in funding of those two things, as if they sit very separately when in fact they can be quite integrated and can be achieved at the same time sometimes.
You asked about monitoring. Especially in conflict situations, where safety and security are an issue, because we may have been on the ground prior to the conflict or because we may have worked with local partners before, we certainly do rely on partners who may have greater knowledge, or more acceptance, or more access to certain areas. We will work sometimes remotely with those partners to support their efforts in delivering the assistance that's needed.
Senator Unger: Thank you to all of you for your presentations. I'd like to ask about the mandates of UNHCR and UNICEF. Are there any parts of their mandates that you think could be more effectively addressed by other agencies inside or outside of the UN, say in the last 10 to 15 years?
You have spoken and told us ways that, as NGOs, you've been adapting and planning, so your roles have changed. I'm just wondering about their roles. If there are changes, do they affect your planning looking forward?
Ms. Thomson: I'm happy to speak to that. One of the biggest changes that happened within the UN system, and in particular it had an important impact on the mandate of UNHCR, was the humanitarian response review in 2005 which introduced the famous cluster approach but basically was trying to respond to the plight of internally displaced persons. It was in direct reaction to the situation in Darfur, where it was felt that in the absence of a dedicated agency responsible for the protection and assistance of internally displaced persons, there was a gap in that the IDPs, internally displaced persons, were not receiving the protection and assistance that they needed and deserved.
In 2005, a lot of the reform was introduced in an effort to respond to that gap. Basically, instead of creating one new, mandated agency, it divided up the accountability and responsibility for different aspects of the response to IDPs between agencies. In that context, UNHCR assumed responsibility for protection of internally displaced persons in armed conflict, shelter of internally displaced persons in conflict and camp management and coordination, which meant that their number of persons of concerns increased from something like 10 million to 35 million in a one-year period. That is why we've seen a massive increase in UNHCR's budget but also what's had a significant impact on UNHCR's overall focus. The mandate of UNHCR, from a legal perspective, has not been changed to incorporate internally displaced persons, but, operationally, this has implications for their mandate and means that they are trying to serve three times, in most cases, as many beneficiaries as they were less than 10 years ago. That has had a huge impact on UNHCR. I think they've risen to the challenge in an incredibly impressive way, but, in December of this year, a large number of actors came together in Geneva for the High Commissioner's Dialogue on Protection Challenges to talk about how, 10 years later, humanitarian reform has affected our response to internally displaced persons. There was a feeling that while there has been significant progress, there are still important gaps and still work to be done. That isn't to say that UNHCR has failed. In fact, I think UNHCR has achieved great results, but the needs are very significant. There are still gaps in the response to internally displaced persons, despite that important progress. I do think that merits attention.
I think that increased responsibility of the agency merits attention as well, both from a funding perspective and in their ability to carry out all of those important responsibilities in the face of growing humanitarian needs.
Senator Unger: Do you think there are other agencies that could step in to fill some of these gaps that you've identified?
Ms. Thomson: I do think that the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons needs to be more empowered. Currently, he's a special representative and doesn't have a very strong voice in advocating for the protection and needs of internally displaced persons. I think there needs to be a dedicated figure like that position, with that strong mandate and voice. Right now, it's 50 per cent funded, and he does most of it in his spare time. A strong voice to raise awareness about the needs of internally displaced persons and make sure their needs are not getting forgotten is very important. I would certainly advocate for a strong mandate for the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons because that mandate has lost funding and authority within the UN system within the last few years.
Senator Unger: Thank you. Ms. McLennan?
Ms. McLennan: Perhaps I'll just add that, whereas the mandates of those agencies perhaps haven't changed, we've seen that the ways they're working have changed. I would say that's similar for NGOs. We continue to have the same vision. We want to support the delivery of impartial and independent humanitarian assistance, but with the evolving nature of conflict and other scenarios, we also change the way in which we work.
I would also agree that the 2005 reforms of the UN and a much greater partnership and focus on complementarity between UN organizations, NGOs and the Red Cross family, which all play important roles in these situations, have really served to help to address some of those gaps. Rather than wondering if other agencies are better placed, it's more discovering who is doing what, where their expertise lies and how that can be put together in a coherent and logical way so that, when the next emergency or conflict happens, we're not struggling in the first days and weeks just to figure out that apparatus. We have that apparatus now, and I think all partners are doing their best to try to make that work.
Senator Unger: I'm sorry, Mr. Tabler. Does he have any comments?
The Chair: Mr. Tabler, do you have any comments?
Mr. Tabler: No, I don't. I think both of my colleagues have addressed this very well.
The Chair: You all have given us great information. I just want to end with one question to all of you. This afternoon, you have all given explanations. Ms. Thomson spoke a little bit about displaced people. Should the mandates of the UNHCR and UNICEF be expanded, or should they be narrowed?
Let me tell you how I see it. The mandate for the UNHCR was originally emergency, and then they got involved in camps and now IDPs. For me, UNICEF was emergency, and then it became involved in developmental aid or helping people build schools and other things.
Should their mandates be expanded? While I'm looking at it, should UNHCR be looking after natural disasters? We'll start with you, Mr. Tabler.
Mr. Tabler: I'm not an expert in terms of the workings of the UN. However, for most of my professional life I've dealt with the Middle East and watched UN agencies like UNHCR and UNICEF and so on struggle with the problems coming out of the region, which are substantial.
I think the real question going forward will be how do we deal with failed states when the international system and the mandates created for the international system are no longer able to address the problems that come from those areas. There has to be an active debate and discussion with the United Nations about what happens in those instances. I think, in the case of the dealings with the victims, if not the causes of the conflict in Syria, this is a large discussion. It is an opportunity to have this discussion. That being said, I think what they've been able to do so far has been extremely admirable. I really commend their efforts. I think it will take all of us thinking very creatively to deal with the threats coming out of Syria in terms of humanitarian assistance, as well as security threats.
Ms. McLennan: Thank you for the question. I think for an NGO like Save the Children, the fact that these agencies are expanding their focus of work is to be commended, and it allows us and our partners more opportunity to work alongside these agencies.
In particular, with UNICEF, we have quite a bit of collaboration, and we feel that there have been several positive outcomes from that. That has come not just in emergency but also in development.
In terms of natural disasters, I think there are other organizations that are managing that, in particular the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the International Organization for Migration. My colleague made quite a bit of reference to how, despite no change in mandate, the evolution of work of that agency is to be commended. Again, I think it allows other actors working in the same spaces more opportunity to collaborate and to work together in a stronger way.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Ms. Thomson?
Ms. Thomson: I think, as Christy mentioned earlier, it's more about how we effectively work together among the various agencies, NGOs and the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement than about expanding the specific mandates of UNHCR or UNICEF. I think we've made very significant progress since 2005, and I think that we can continue to build on that.
In relation to responding in natural disasters, we have also seen that the cluster system and the more recent transformative agenda have produced results. In the context of the Philippines, we saw quite an effective response and coordination amongst agencies, and that's because of very important learning and very clear lead agencies. In the context of the sectors that UNHCR leads in conflict situations, other agencies lead those in the context of natural disasters, and that's working very well.
I think, for me, it's a lot about how we work together in improving and continuously advancing that effort as opposed to focusing on the mandate expansion.
The Chair: Thank you very much to all three of you. We really appreciated your presentations and have certainly learned a lot from you and look forward to working with you in the future. Thank you very much.
(The committee continued in camera.)
(The committee resumed in public.)
The Chair: We will go in public for the budget.
We will look at The Hague study budget, and in front of you is $10,000 for graphic design. Is that acceptable to everybody for The Hague study?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Then we also have the second study that we are doing on Syria and you have the budget in front of you. Once we have had further hearings here in Ottawa, we would like to proceed to do further work in Syria. As we heard from one witness today, no matter what we read and hear, it is when we are on the ground that we will get an idea of what is really happening in the camps. The committee as a whole believes it is important that we do visit Syria. The budget is before you and it's $167,128. May we make that —
Senator Andreychuk: Could I just add something? I think you also have to say that Adam — knowing Adam from another committee — he puts in what the costs are when you go on a computer today for business class if it's that, and the minute the study is undertaken that you undertake to find the most reasonable cost and everything else that follows through from that. You have to have the outside costs, but you don't anticipate you'll use them. I think if that's going to be in your submission, that's helpful also.
The Chair: We did that; we said we had fully ensured committee, so the travel was substantial but once we were sure of the dates then we would have more restrictive tickets, which would reduce the price substantially, and we will do that again. Thank you.
Senator Andreychuk: The other thing they asked was how many committee members will be going. In our committee we asked anyone who knows they do not want to travel or can't travel because of family matters, no matter when, to let the chair know so we can drop down from the nine to eight or seven. That is also helpful.
The Chair: We will do that today. Anybody who cannot travel, if they can please let me know, and we will also send out a memo because there is one member who isn't here. He can travel though, so we will not send out a memo because I know Senator Eggleton can travel.
If there is anyone here who cannot travel please let me know, and then we will submit the budget again.
Are there any other issues? Thank you very much.
Next week there will be no meetings because the Senate is sitting. This is our last meeting until we come back.
(The committee adjourned.)