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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
Remarks of Ambassador Harriet Babbitt, USAID Deputy Administrator
at the White House Briefing on Kosovo Relief
April 8, 1999
USAID's job as part of the United States government is to wrestle with the enormous logistical problems of getting food, shelter, and sanitation to more than half a million refugees who have fled Kosovo. But as we have tackled this official job we have been moved by the generous private response of the American people to the Kosovo crisis.
In fact, we might have been overwhelmed by that response had James Lee Witt at FEMA not provided his teams of operators to answer the thousands of calls that came in on our USAID-RELIEF line.
FEMA's willingness to help freed up USAID employees to concentrate on our primary task of working to get relief to people in Albania and Macdonia.
Let me give you a sense of the challenges everyone in the arena face.
Albania is about the size of Maryland and has a normal population of approximately 3.3 million people. An additional 365,000 plus refugees have been added to that base in the last several weeks.
Macedonia is a new country, about the size of Vermont with a mostly Slavic population of about 2 million people. Macedonia has about 132,000 refugees.
Both these countries are poorer than any country in the Western Hemisphere except Haiti -- with per capita GDPs between 1/2 and 2/3 those of Honduras and Nicaragua, the next poorest countries in this hemisphere.
No country can easily absorb an additional half million people and these are countries with only the most basic infrastructures.
I met yesterday with one of the NGO workers who just returned from Kukes, the major transit town in Northern Albania. Jeff Colyer is a surgeon from Kansas who volunteers to help the International Medical Corp out of LA. He just spent the last several weeks setting up the IMC program.
Kukes is normally a town of 20,000 in the poorest part of a poor country -- but Dr. Colyer was there training more than 20 Albanians and Kosovar Albanians with medical backgrounds to provide basic medical care to hundreds of exhausted, traumatized refugees -- sewing up wounds, treating diarrhea and trying to control the infamous Kukes cough.
The challenges are great.
Brian Atwood, USAID Administrator, and by Boss, is in Albania today meeting with the government, UN and NATO officials and with the all-important NGO's who are delivering assistance.
I told Brian I would be talking with American corporate executives here at the White House who were eager to help.
He stressed the importance of urging you to provide cash donations that will enable NGOs to meet the most urgent needs of the Kosovar refugees.
You have seen on your television screens and read in your newspapers how difficult it is to get supplies to the camps. The complexity and cost of transporting goods from the United States means in-kind donations are generally not the best way to help in this emergency.
Cash donations give these frontline organizations the flexibility they need to purchase relief supplies as close as possible to where the refugees are. They then can get relief to people as quickly as possible where transportation is scarce and difficult.
Once emergency needs are met, the refugees and those internally displaced within Kosovo, will need continued help in other ways -- including help with rebuilding when they go back to burned out homes and towns.
In a few minutes, Jim Moody of Interaction will tell you about his recent trip and the specific needs of the NGOs.
If you can provide those items or services, USAID's Karen Anderson and Elise Storck will be standing by to help you get them where they are needed.
I do want to thank the major Internet companies, which have been extremely helpful in working with NGOs to publicize the humanitarian relief effort and to facilitate contributions from the public through their websites.
Thanks also to television and radio stations around the country that aired the public service announcement in which Mrs. Clinton appeals to the public to donate to relief organizations working with the refugees.
These contributions are providing important links to aid the humanitarian effort. For the most part, however, in-kind donations present difficulties, unless a corporation has identified a reliable partner willing to take on the responsibility of getting the goods to the region and managing them on the ground in Albania or Macedonia.
Without such a partner, a donor will almost surely experience great delays in moving goods into a precarious security situation, through customs and into a distribution pipeline that will reach the neediest refugees.
That's why we hope most of you will follow the lead of Bell Atlantic and of other corporations which are matching the donations of employees with corporate gifts.
America's businesses, like America's people, always respond to great need with great generosity. We are confident that you will respond with equal generosity to the frightened children and brave people forced to flee the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo.
Now I'd like to give you a chance to view the PSA Mrs. Clinton did to help encourage and channel the American people's generosity.
This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
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Last Updated on: July 12, 2001 |
