Congressional Testimony
Save the Children President Charles MacCormack and Andrew Wilder, Director for Pakistan and Afghanistan Programs, testified on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan in front of the House International Relations Committee on November 1, 2001.
Save the Children’s Role in Afghanistan
Charles MacCormack: Thank you for inviting Save the Children to offer a perspective on the humanitarian situation inside Afghanistan, particularly with regard to children.
I hope I leave you today not only with a better understanding of what life is like for children in Afghanistan, but with some recommendations on how we might together address the continuing challenge of helping to meet Afghanistan’s humanitarian and development needs.
Mr. Chairman, before we proceed, I would like to share with you a publication that the Save the Children Alliance prepared for the United Nations (U.N.) Special Session on Children that was to have been held in mid-September in New York. In the wake of September 11, that session did not take place, but this publication, Afghanistan’s Children Speak to the UN Special Session, offers a glimpse – through words and pictures – of what it is like to be a child in Afghanistan. I commend it to you and your colleagues.
Save the Children-US, a member of the Save the Children Alliance, has programs in more than 40 countries and in 19 U.S. states. We have been working with Afghans since 1985. We currently implement health, nutrition, micro-credit, education, landmine awareness and drought response programs inside Afghanistan, as well as large-scale health and education programs for Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
Following the tragic events of September 11th, Save the Children withdrew its six international staff from Afghanistan, but 160 national staff are continuing to implement programs under extremely difficult circumstances from offices in Kabul, as well as centers in northern Afghanistan where Save the Children works in the most drought-affected areas.
I am pleased that Save the Children can offer the Committee an on-the-ground perspective from our Director for Pakistan and Afghanistan programs, Andrew Wilder. Andrew holds a doctorate from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University where he did his dissertation on Elections and Political Change in Pakistan; he was a Fulbright scholar, and he has spent more than 25 years in the region – the last five of those years with Save the Children. Thanks to MSNBC which has provided Save the Children with its satellite technology, Andrew joins us from Islamabad.
Our Priorities: Meeting Health and Food Needs
Andrew Wilder: Thank you, Charlie. Mr. Chairman, by now the grim statistics about life inside Afghanistan are all too familiar: one out of every four children dies before reaching age 5, and more than 40 percent of these children die of preventable causes such as measles, respiratory illnesses and diarrhea; school enrollment is among the lowest in the world and girls’ education has been particularly neglected. In addition to being at war for the past two decades, the country is suffering through one of the worst droughts in memory. Children engaged in daily activities are at great risk – in part because there are an estimated 10 million land mines in Afghanistan – one for every child. Children are suffering the consequences of displacement, disablement, emotional upheaval, and the loss of family members.
Yet, despite this bleak picture, we have seen first hand that Afghan children are remarkably resilient and optimistic in the most difficult circumstances, and they are cherished and nurtured by their families.
Save the Children has been working with communities in Afghanistan for more than 15 years to improve the conditions for children. Our work is primarily concentrated in northern Afghanistan, in the areas of the country most affected by the drought. Throughout those years, we have faced numerous challenges.
Since mid-September, however, the crisis in Afghanistan and the operating environment for humanitarian aid agencies like Save the Children has become even more complex. Before I describe some of the new challenges that we are confronting, I do want to focus for a moment on the positive – and outline some of what we have been able to accomplish despite the tough conditions.
In shaping a response to the current situation, Save the Children is focusing on two priority areas: first, to meet the food and health needs of the children and their families in Afghanistan, and second, to prepare for the potential that some Afghan children and families might become refugees. We have prioritized providing assistance inside Afghanistan because the more we can address the needs of Afghans living inside their country, the less likely that they will join the ranks of the millions of Afghan refugees living in neighboring countries
All of Save the Children’s offices in Afghanistan remain open, and our major life-saving programs remain operational. In the last several weeks, Save the Children has increased the scale of its food distribution program and completed a polio immunization campaign in which we vaccinated 20,000 children under the age of five. We anticipate completing a similar immunization campaign for measles in the next few weeks. Food shipments consist of wheat, provided through the World Food Program (WFP), and other complimentary foods, including beans, lentils, vegetable oil, sugar and salt, much of which is funded by the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance. We are transporting this food by trucks from Turkmenistan.
In October, we delivered a new shipment of essential pharmaceuticals, including items such as antibiotics, aspirin, and oral rehydration solution, to four hospitals in the capital city Kabul. This shipment will supply hospitals, which log a combined total of 6,000 children’s visits per month, with sufficient medical supplies for two months. We also are training 20 couples in Kohistan, an area in Faryab Province with no medical facilities and a population of 20,000 children, to serve as health care providers for the community. We are equipping them with the knowledge of how to identify and treat common ailments such as respiratory illness, diarrhea and scurvy. In addition, we are supplying fuel for heating hospitals in the capital city Kabul and in northern Afghanistan.
Other Challenges: Safety and Security of Staff and Refugees
Mr. Chairman, I would now like to offer a perspective on what we see as some of the main challenges in as we continue our work on behalf of Afghanistan’s children.
First, as needs have increased, the operating environment for aid agencies has become more difficult. More than 3.8 million Afghans currently rely on food from the international community and 3.4 million more will require food assistance during the winter months. The latest World Food Program information indicates that much of northwestern Afghanistan where Save the Children works has only 25-50 percent of the food required for a year, and serious food shortages exist across the rest of the country. WFP has doubled the amount of wheat it will supply, and NGO partners are planning to target a much larger percentage of the population for a longer period of time than earlier anticipated. Aid agencies have geared up to meet the challenge. However humanitarian organizations face huge organizational and logistical challenges: reduced staffing due to evacuations of expatriate staff, new security needs of our national staff who remain in Afghanistan; looting and/or confiscation of equipment, sporadic and monitored communications, closed borders; and the near arrival of winter conditions that will make some parts of the country inaccessible for up to five months.
A second concern Mr. Chairman is the plight of refugees and the need for Afghanistan’s neighbors to open their borders to Afghans seeking protection. If the situation continues to deteriorate inside Afghanistan and if Afghans have no exit, the consequences will be dire. Save the Children has been working for the past 15 years in the refugee camps in Quetta, and Haripur, Pakistan. While the reported number of new refugees arriving at new or existing refugee camps has been relatively small to date, there are still concerns that this number may increase. In cooperation with our Save the Children Alliance partners, we are preparing to respond to a potential influx of refugees into Pakistan. Building on our existing strengths, we will support health facilities, informal education for women and children and ensure that camps are protective environments for children.
Third, as an organization with a mandate to protect and provide assistance to children, we are concerned about the impact that the bombing campaign is having on Afghan children and their families. We know that the United States is making every effort to minimize civilian casualties. While we are not here to offer military advice, we do believe it important to share with the Committee some of what we are hearing and seeing regarding the bombing’s implications for children and other civilians.
The destruction of power generation plants has led to major health and sanitation concerns in cities like Kandahar, which require electricity to pump water. Our staff in Quetta report that many of their relatives who are leaving Kandahar are doing so because they no longer have water. Save the Children recently had to purchase storm lanterns for hospitals in Kabul that had no electricity. There is also concern about the danger of unexploded ordinance (UXO) for children. Data collected several years ago from our landmine and UXO education program in Kabul indicated that nearly 80 percent of the victims of unexploded ordnance in Kabul city were children. In the current context, there is the potential for children to mistake the colorful yellow bomblets released by cluster bombs for either air dropped food packets – which are also yellow – or for toys.
I must also report that in discussions with Afghan friends and colleagues, more and more are expressing their concern that the U.S.-led coalition is losing the battle for the hearts and minds of Afghans as a result of the ongoing bombing campaign.
This relates to a fourth concern -- the blurring of the military and humanitarian missions. We acknowledge that there are circumstances that may call for cooperation between military and humanitarian agencies in delivering assistance. However, during this period of military action, we believe that it is important to keep a civilian face on the humanitarian work. Blurring the distinction between the two could endanger the lives of our staff on the ground.
Our Recommendations for the Future
Mr. Chairman, I would like to offer for your consideration some recommendations about how to address at least some of these challenges and how to maximize our impact – which in this case means save the most lives.
First, in formulating the U.S. response, continue to take into account the humanitarian element of the crisis. This includes providing funding as well as ensuring that infrastructure and capacity remain in place for assistance delivery. The U.S. Government pledge of an additional $320 million in humanitarian assistance is a solid down payment on meeting the needs, and other governments and international organizations have risen to the challenge with their pledges as well. We also welcome President Bush’s call for American children to reach out to Afghan children with their donations. We need to keep up the momentum.
Second, prioritize. While we cannot meet all of Afghanistan’s many needs, food and health should be top priorities in the near term. With regard to health, the focus should be on simple medical interventions that can save lives. For example, provide essential medicines and vaccinations; continue training health staff; and offer incentives to keep trained health workers on the job.
Third, get as much food assistance into Afghanistan as possible before the onset of winter. We have a window of approximately three weeks before winter snows make some areas impassible, including two districts in which Save the Children works. I want to stress however, that even during the winter, many areas of Afghanistan will remain accessible, so our work will not stop with the changing of the seasons. But for the areas that become isolated with the winter snows, it is crucial to move food in now.
Fourth, stick with and expand what already works. There are a number of tried and true assistance providers that know the country and who have staff and distribution systems in place and whose expertise can be tapped to provide assistance expeditiously and safely and ensure that it reaches those most in need.
Hope Lies with Long-term Investment in Afghanistan
Mr. Chairman, while I have addressed what can be done in the near-term to ameliorate a major humanitarian crisis among the children and families of Afghanistan, we cannot ignore that the real hope for Afghans lies with investment in long-term development to help them rebuild their society.
President Bush recognized the need for a longer term commitment when he urged Congress in his October 6 radio address “to make funds available so that one day the United States can contribute, along with other friends of Afghanistan, to the reconstruction and development of that troubled nation.” We endorse that call, as well as the call being made by Senator Biden for a large reconstruction package for Afghanistan. Longer-term engagement serves this country’s policy interests and is an investment in its own security and well-being. It also provides hope for Afghanistan’s children.
Nowhere is this long-term investment more critical than in education and, in particular, the education of Afghan girls and women.
Why is educating girls so important? Only 11 percent of girls in Afghanistan are able to read and write. A mere 3 percent of girls are currently enrolled in schools. Yet the desire for education among Afghan children and their families is high. And the long-term effects produce dramatic, positive results for the girls, their own children, and the entire community.
For many years Save the Children has been running formal and informal education programs in Internally Displaced People (IDP) camps in Kabul and in refugee camps in Balochistan and Quetta, Pakistan. Over the years, our programs have grown, as more and more families have enrolled their boys and girls in the schools. In the refugee camps in Balochistan, for example, enrollment rates have tripled from 6,000 to 18,000 during the past six years, and the numbers of girls enrolled have increased ten-fold from 600 to 6000
A few months ago, I visited one of our refugee schools in Balochistan. In one class of enthusiastic 10-year-old girls, I asked them, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” They eagerly replied, “doctor,” “nurse,” “teacher.” Even for those who are unable to achieve these aspirations, research has shown that an educated girl is more likely to postpone marriage and childbirth, which in turn leads to improved maternal and child survival and well-being. And she will encourage education for her children, even girls.
I will close by reminding us all that although the world is currently focused on the crisis in Afghanistan, we cannot forget that children are in crisis in many other parts of the globe as well. Now more than ever is the time for all of us to increase investment in long-term development to help build stable societies throughout the developing world, including in Afghanistan.
