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selecting the UN agency to lead relief efforts. This might not be an agency with experience in natural disasters but simply one which happens to have been doing a good job locally in other fields. Sir Robert Jackson's idea that donor governments should make their financial support conditional upon 'necessary changes is also probably unrealistic. In circumstances in which only existing machinery however inefficient - can cope with a sudden humanitarian emergency it would be out of the question for finance to be withheld until that machinery is required and while large- scale suffering continues.
8. The debate in ECOSOC and elsewhere is likely however to concentrate on the search for a compromise between a proposal that there be a corps of resident Coordinators with considerable discretionary powers to act in times of emergency, and Sir Robert Jackson's preference for centralisation. The main disadvantage of resident Coordinators is that disasters do not always happen in disaster-prone countries, and when they do are as likely as not to be of a type not previously experienced. There can be no guarantee of a suitably experienced official on the spot to handle emergency relief from the start, and therefore no guarantee of any improve- ment on the present haphazard arrangements. Equally, however, Jackson's centralisation theories have certain disadvantages not least among them being that arrangements are at present more or less centralised and demonstrably inadequate. One possible compromise based on Jackson might be the creation of three 'disaster relief' elements: UN officials in the field with instructions to pursue the preventive role and provide temporary leadership when a crisis occurs; a small centralised coordinating unit with responsibility for crisis management narrowly confined to that of deploying seconded manpower and acting as a conduit for appeals and contribu- tions; and a cadre of identified experts within the agencies, member governments and NGOs available to be called upon to assist in specific emergencies. The Unit would also have to have the power to appoint a single individual to be responsible for operationl control (under the nominal supervision of the host government) on the spot. The trouble with this is that it is all very reminiscent of the ten-year old ideas on UNDRO, and they have been shown by events to be inadequate.
that no
9. I think we can be certain of two things: satisfactory solution will be effective unless it has the general agreement of governments, UN agencies and NGOs, and that consider- able time will elapse before they (meeting tripartitely ?) can make
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