Coordination Activities in the Field
|Income from Voluntary Contributions||168,287|
|Consultant Fees and Travel||6,550|
|Supplies, Materials, Furniture and Equipment||35,700|
|Fellowships, Grants and Contributions||1,550|
|Programme Support Costs||57,536|
|Total Expenditure (US$)||500,116|
In 2006, the general political and security climate of the Republic of Congo was relatively stable. However, the situation in the Pool region remained volatile with sporadic clashes reported during the year between the government, the Ninja rebel group and groups of excombatants. In August 2006, an internal Ninja militia conflict led to the internal displacement of 2,600 people in Kimbedi (Pool region). Information received from government officials in 2006 revealed that there were a total of 7,800 IDPs from the Pool living in other parts of the country.
A series of attacks on humanitarian actors between mid December 2005 and mid January 2006 prompted Médecins sans Frontières (Holland) and the ICRC to suspend all activities in the Pool region for a short time. All United Nations missions to the Pool were also suspended during this period. The Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration process in the Pool region was hampered by the Ninja rebel group’s ongoing demand for political status in exchange for their disarmament. This insecurity and subsequent lack of access to vulnerable groups hindered some planned humanitarian activities in the region.
The World Bank’s International Development Association and the International Monetary Fund agreed that the Republic of Congo qualified for debt relief under the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative 2006. The Republic of Congo is the 29th country to reach decision point under the Initiative.
Humanitarian activities received financial support through the allocation of US$ 2 million of CERF funds, targeting life-saving interventions in the sectors of water/sanitation, agriculture and food security, health and nutrition, as well as in multisectoral projects. The nutritional situation of a vast majority of the population remained precarious, particularly in the Pool region where there were still considerable reconstruction and rehabilitation needs. The majority of the population in the country (70 per cent) continues to live on less than US$ 1 per day.
To improve early warning and surveillance systems a contingency plan was established for the prevention and management of disasters in the Republic of Congo. The plan focused on three main hazards identified by government representatives and humanitarian partners during a workshop: natural disasters, technological hazards and epidemiological crises. In June, OCHA organized a simulation exercise with UNHCR to test the Inter-Agency Contingency Plan for a possible arrival of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) asylum-seekers during the election process in late 2006.
A ‘Who Does What Where’ database of humanitarian action information was produced. This was the first of its kind in the Republic of Congo, and it contained information, graphics and maps related to all humanitarian actors operating in the country.
Through Rapid Response Funds, seven projects were funded (mostly in the Pool region) for a total of 173,282 beneficiaries. These projects focused on health and nutrition, water/sanitation and economic recovery.