USAID Testimony: J. Brian Atwood, February 24, 1999

This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.

Testimony of J. Brian Atwood, Administrator
before the House Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Foreign Operations
February 24, 1999

Chairman Callahan, Congresswoman Pelosi, and members of the committee: It's a pleasure to be with you today to discuss our nation's response to the damage caused by Hurricane Mitch, and the President's request for emergency supplemental assistance of $956 million for reconstruction in the Central American nations of Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, as well as in Caribbean nations that were badly damaged by Hurricane Georges.
I don't need to tell you what terrible destruction Mitch inflicted on those countries, just as some of them were emerging from war and building democratic governments, open markets, and better lives for their people.
But what I think we can see now - and what I believe will be ultimately even more important - is that the response to Mitch has also been dramatic.
I speak, first of all, of the courage of the people of Central America, as they have fought to rebuild their homes, their communities, and their lives. Their governments, too, have met this challenge with a determination that can make us all proud. We can also take pride in the work of USAID's workers in the region, Peace Corps volunteers, U.S. military personnel, and many other American relief workers.
Here in Washington, we've seen a strong bipartisan response in Congress. I'm particularly glad that so many Members of Congress have traveled to the region to see the devastation - and the relief efforts - for themselves.
We've seen a great outpouring of support from the American people - from individuals, schools, churches, civic organizations, and many businesses and corporations. They have donated millions of dollars worth of everything from food, clothing and medicine to trucks, buses, generators, and pre-fabricated housing.
As Tipper Gore commented, after heading a delegation to the region, this was a disaster of biblical proportions. There have been more than 9,000 confirmed deaths, and another 9,000 men, women and children are missing. At least three million people were either forced out of their homes or saw their homes destroyed.
In some cases, entire crops were lost. In Nicaragua, losses in rice, corn, beans, coffee and vegetables range from one-third to one-half of the crops, and even higher. Social infrastructure suffered extensive damage. Over a third of Honduras' 10,000 schools were damaged or destroyed. Hospitals and health clinics were hard hit. The combination of loss of these health care facilities, lack of access to surviving clinics and the pools of standing contaminated water have created a public health emergency. Thus far, epidemics have been prevented, in part because of our efforts, but that danger still exists.
The New York Times of January 18 carried a moving article which interviewed some of the thousands of refugees from Central America who are attempting to make their way north to the United States. Many are family men, often farmers from Honduras who lost their livelihoods in the hurricane. Many have been killed along the way, either in accidents or when set upon by robbers, and others have been turned back at the U.S. border. And still they come, desperate for work to provide for their families.
"If they turn me back a thousand times, I will try a thousand more," one man vowed. The article made clear that the vast majority of these "hermanos del camino" -- brothers of the road -- do not want to move to the United States. They want to stay in their homes and work their fields and provide for their families. And that is one of our basic goals in Central America, to help these men and women stay in their native lands and return to the productive lives they had before and deserve to have again.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, the United States launched a relief effort that has lived up to our highest standards of compassion and world leadership. With the help of the U.S. military and USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, our U.S. embassies and in-country USAID missions, our government mounted the largest relief operation ever directed at any natural disaster in our nation's history.
Ours is an ambitious, three-stage recovery campaign that has progressed from the initial stage of emergency relief, to the present period of rehabilitation, and will advance to a major program of reconstruction.
In the first stage, the initial relief effort, the United States committed $300 million in aid, most of which was spent immediately for medical supplies, food and air transport of commodities and civilian and military relief workers. At the height of the relief effort, there were more than 5,000 U.S. personnel, civilian and military, on the ground in Central America providing relief and performing short-term rehabilitation activities and providing medical assistance. USAID has missions in each of the four countries, and our staff, along with our host country employees, number about six hundred. Additionally, our Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance sent Disaster Assistance Response Teams to the four countries.
Immediately after the hurricane struck, USAID through CARE/Honduras responded with $1.9 million worth of emergency food aid, to feed the estimated 20% of the Honduran population that lacked food. Working with the Department of Defense, USAID organized one of the largest airlifts of food commodities since Berlin. By December 31, we had sent 84 million pounds of food relief to Central America by air and by sea.
Let me give you other examples of our first-stage relief efforts.
In Nicaragua, Hurricane Mitch's torrential rains caused catastrophic floods and landslides that left hundreds of thousands of people without food or shelter. Many of the victims were poor subsistence farmers, and for them Mitch arrived at the worst possible time: just as the harvest of the second and third plantings was about to begin.
In addition to extensive crop losses, the hurricane caused widespread soil erosion and deforestation, and damage to the agricultural infrastructure. To help farmers in Nicaragua recover from this devastation; USAID used $1.4 million for the local purchase of seeds that were distributed to 10,000 farmers. Other funds were used to purchase seed-processing equipment, and to purchase and distribute hoes, shovels, backpack sprayers, irrigation pumps, animal vaccines, and other urgently needed supplies to thousands of farm workers.
Because the USAID mission in Nicaragua, like all our missions, has a strong network of local non-governmental organizations and private volunteer organizations throughout the country, we understood the magnitude of the damage caused by Mitch even before the rains stopped falling. Working with its three cooperating sponsors - the Adventist Relief Agency, Save the Children, and Project Concern International - our mission was able to respond within hours to the cries for food and shelter
The main non-food commodities we provided in Nicaragua were plastic sheeting for temporary shelters, large capacity water bladders, and household sized water jugs and blankets. Some 679 rolls of plastic sheeting were sent to Nicaragua in three airlifts. Each roll could provide four shelters, for a total of more than 2,700 shelters. A total of 15,000 water jugs and 14,000 blankets were distributed throughout the country, as were rain gear and boots, cooking utensils, medicine, safety equipment, flashlights, latrines, home water purification systems, first aid kits, and 50,000 mosquito nets.
Today, most people in the affected areas have food, shelter, and water. In Honduras, for example, an estimated one million people were displaced in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, but today all but an estimated 20,000 of them have housing, with most of those are now living in schools or shelters.
In December, even as relief efforts gained momentum in Central America, two important conferences were held in Washington. The Consultative Group meeting brought together the world's donor nations for face to face talks with leaders of the Central American nations that had been devastated by Hurricane Mitch. At this meeting, the donor nations pledged $6.3 billion in emergency relief and reconstruction. We will meet again in May to solidify plans for the international effort in Central America.
The Administration is also working to activate the U.S. private sector. At the second December conference, hosted by USAID and the White House, seven members of the President's Cabinet and leaders of more than 400 companies met to discuss ways our government, the private sector, and American citizens can work together to assist relief and reconstruction. Today, we are matching donations of goods and services from U.S. firms - more than fifty so far - with the needs in Central America that USAID and others have identified. Offers of donations have come from such firms as Caterpillar, General Electric, Edison International, Lucent Technologies, the Masonite Corporation, and CH2M-Hill.
Our most recent estimate is that more than eleven million pounds of food, clothing and medical supplies, with an estimated value of more than $28 million, have thus far been donated by churches, schools, civic organizations, businesses and individuals, and shipped to Central America under the Denton program. That program, which is operated jointly by USAID and the U.S. military, provides for the transport of donated goods aboard military aircraft on a space available basis.
Today, with the region's life-threatening needs largely met, we have entered a second phase of recovery, which we call rehabilitation. Most simply put, this is a transitional phase, during which we want to help people return to normal lives, with regard to such needs as education, transportation and public health.
We are concerned, during this transitional period, with giving people access to their homes, farms, markets and communities. In many areas, up to eighty or ninety percent of roads, both primary and secondary were damaged or destroyed. Today, however, most of the primary roads are open, thanks to tireless efforts by the host countries, often assisted by the U.S. Armed Forces.
We are also concerned about public health systems in the afflicted regions. In Nicaragua, Hurricane Mitch damaged or destroyed potable water and wastewater systems that served an estimated 800,000 people and were valued at $560 million. In the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, USAID reprogrammed $1.65 million for emergency primary health care. Today, we are working with national health ministries, the Pan American Health Organization, and non-governmental organizations to help control the outbreak of infectious diseases, to provide medical supplies, and to help communities carry out local health programs.
Looking ahead, our goal is a reconstruction that does more than replace what was blown and washed away. We want to see the countries of this region achieve even stronger, more prosperous and more sustainable democratic development. Less than a decade ago, most of these countries were engaged in civil wars that had lasted for years, even decades, but now, peace has been achieved, and with it democracy, free elections, and open markets. It is this foundation we seek to restore and to build upon.
Last week, after bipartisan consultation with this committee and its counterpart in the Senate, the President sent Congress a $956 million proposal for emergency supplemental assistance that would include funding for the following specific purposes:

$283 million to restart local economies by repairing more than 700 kilometers of rural roads, by providing 70,000 micro-enterprise loans, by providing seeds, tools and fertilizer for almost five million farmers, and by helping 65,000 hillside farmers adopt sustainable production techniques.
$136 million for public health programs to reconstruct or rehabilitate more than 750 health posts and clinics to benefit at least four million people, to provide water and sanitation services for nearly four million people, and to provide disease control, surveillance and prevention for more than seventeen million people.
$64 million to provide technical assistance for environmental management and disaster mitigation, including land use planning, resource management, protection of ecosystems, and replacement of destroyed harbor navigation aids in Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador.
$55 million to repair and re-equip more than 1,700 schools, to establish more than 6,000 open-air schools, to build more than 6,000 new housing units, and to provide school supplies to more than 200,000 children.
$42 million for reconstruction assistance in the Dominican Republic and other Caribbean nations hit by Hurricane Georges, to focus on health, housing, and economic revitalization.
$12 million to help local governments manage reconstruction assistance, including anti-corruption training designed to avoid diversion or scandal in the reconstruction program. Also, $10 million for law enforcement to develop anti-corruption programs, including internal audit/oversight mechanisms and automated immigration records for border-crossing points.
$3 million to work with the private sector in the United States, by targeting additional U.S. private sector donors, by helping coordinate delivery of donations, and by helping monitor distribution of donations in Central America.
$10 million to help Colombia recover from its recent earthquake, focusing on health, housing and schools.

The President's proposal also includes $41 million for debt restructuring and relief, including $16 million for the budget cost of reducing Honduras' bilateral debt with the United States, and a $25 million contribution to a Central American Emergency Trust Fund to help cover the cost of debt service owed by these nations to the World Bank and other international financial institutions.
The proposal additionally includes $25 million for USAID for international disaster assistance, to partially replenish immediate disaster relief expenditures in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch. USAID has spent $35 million in response to Mitch, at least $25 million more than for a typical natural disaster, and this partial repayment will help ensure that we have resources to respond to ongoing and unforeseen humanitarian disasters in the remaining eight months of the fiscal year.
The proposal includes $188.5 million for the Department of Defense: $132.5 million to replenish accounts that were used during the U.S. military's outstanding response to the emergency; and $56 million to fund expanded U.S. National Guard and Reserve "New Horizons" exercises in the four Central American nations and in the Dominican Republic. As part of their training, Reservists will construct clinics, schools and wells, repair roads, and provide medical services.
Finally, $80 million will go to the Department of Justice's Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to cover the costs of our humanitarian decision to reduce deportations to those nations, by providing bed space for Central American criminal aliens held in detention, and to deal with illegal immigrants coming from Central America as a result of Hurricane Mitch.
These are the major elements of the President's proposal. I might note that the total proposed U.S. assistance to Central America, although substantial, represents only an estimated fourteen percent of the total needs created by the disaster. We truly are part of an unprecedented worldwide relief effort.
The President's upcoming visit to Central America will dramatize his personal commitment to the reconstruction. He shares my gratitude for the bipartisan support this effort has received, and he has instructed all elements of his Administration to pursue a comprehensive approach that addresses such related issues as trade, debt relief, immigration and reconstruction assistance.
If we are to help lift this region from crisis to recovery, we need to use the mechanisms of open markets that foster expanded trade. The Administration has long been committed to Caribbean Basin Initiative Enhancement legislation and the Administration will soon send a proposal to enhance economic growth in the region by expanding the trade benefits of the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act.
As the proposed spending indicates, we recognize that the U.S. must defend against uncontrolled, illegal immigration, but we also recognize the great difficulty currently faced by the countries of Central America. The Administration has already announced the suspension of deportations until next year, and agencies are now reviewing what actions are necessary to address the concerns of these countries regarding immigration.
This extraordinary disaster is also an extraordinary opportunity to assist our neighbor nations in Central America, and one that demands a comprehensive response. Clearly, USAID's contribution will be part of a team effort, coordinated with other U.S. government agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Transportation, Justice, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services, as well as with other governments, and with international financial institutions and the Inter-American and United Nations systems.
The goal of this comprehensive effort should be not simply to replace what existed before, but to "build back better." This is an ambitious undertaking, and one that imposes solemn obligations both on us and on the nations we seek to assist.
Hurricane Mitch damaged many emerging institutions in these countries, but we now have an opportunity to build institutions, and in particular democratic institutions. We must work closely and cooperatively with our host governments, with local governments, and with civil society. If we promote decentralization, transparency and accountability in Central America, we will also strengthen democracy and market-based institutions there.
As the spending proposals make clear, we place great emphasis on accountability, of funds and of the work performed. We are working with other donors to support host country efforts to ensure the delivery of assistance in a transparent and accountable manner. For example, the Central American nations have Comptroller Generals, similar to our GAO, and we want to strengthen their ability to oversee the inflow of donor resources into their countries.
We are also exploring the possibility of having independent Inspectors General who would be experts - accountants, architects, and engineers, for example - who could monitor not only bids for work but the actual quality of the work performed.
In these and other ways, we can work with the host nations to protect the integrity of this great undertaking.
Fifty years ago, with the Marshall Plan and Point Four program, our nation undertook a great and unprecedented experiment in strengthening nations less fortunate than ourselves. There have been many milestones in this undertaking, as diseases have been eliminated, life expectancies lengthened, democracies created, and nations lifted from receiving assistance to providing it to others. In the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch, we have an opportunity to write a proud new chapter in our history - and to serve our own national interests as well.
Mr. Chairman, we are proud that our national response to this disaster has been truly bipartisan, and grateful for the leadership that you and so many of your colleagues have shown in this historic humanitarian undertaking. That leadership, along with the work done by the Administration, sends an unmistakable message of hope to millions of people in Central America. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with both parties and both Houses of Congress.
Thank you.

This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.

Last Updated on: July 18, 2001