Scribbles » Dubai

Cutting agricultural aid research or how to dig your own grave…

Peter — Sun, 18 May 2008 08:23:00 +0000

Giving people fish or teaching them to fish?

A few years back, I had a meeting with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Ruler of Dubai, Prime Minister and Vice President of the UAE.
I told him of the humanitarian work we did. He listened attentively, and kept a silence after my explanation. Then he said candidly: “You know, you are giving people fish, instead of teaching them how to fish. Give a person a fish and he will eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he will have food for the rest of his life!”

I was quick to respond: “Your Highness, when people are starving, they are not interested in being taught how to fish. If we give them fishlings for their pond, they will eat it, rather using them for breeding. Our organisation gives people the fish, so they are not starving anymore, and have the energy to be taught how to fish, and to fish themselves. Other organisations we work closely with, teach them how to fish, how to breed fishlings. After that, others come in and teach them not to overfish their pond, or even to market their excess harvest, set up funding mechanisms to sell their harvest beyond their own village. We all work hand in hand, each of us has its own role.”

How true are we to our aid commitments?

This was then. But at this moment, there is a growing concern and dissatisfaction in the aid world. How well have we done in the past decades. Have we really followed our own reasonings and explanations..? Or were they mere justifications for our own existence?

The global food crisis hitting the poorest people first, is an objective proof we – the international aid community – have not done well enough. Have we – all of us – not concentrated too much on giving people fish, rather than teaching them how to be independent from foreign aid? How much of it could have been avoided? How can we learn from our lessons?

While the international focus is on the global food crisis, it is the right time to highlight the importance of not only concentrating on short term solutions. Short term solutions for hunger are like drops of water on a hot plate. Let’s give people fish, but also concentrate on “teaching them how to fish”.

In the context of the global food crisis, this means concentrating not only on emergency food aid, but also on achieving sustainable food security and reducing poverty in developing countries through non-for-profit and transparent scientific research in the fields of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, policy, and environment.
I explicitly exclude the agricultural research done by the likes of Monsanto and Cargill, international commercial giants who only aim at increasing their profit margin, often to the detriment of the farmers in poorer countries.

Let’s rather have a look at the benevolent work of organisations like the CGIAR, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.

Agricultural aid research, a proven success.

The CGIAR has a proven success track record (Source):

- Successful biological control of the cassava mealybug and green mite, both devastating pests of a root crop that is vital for food security in sub-Saharan Africa. The economic benefits of this work are estimated at more than $4 billion.
- Increasing smallholder dairy production in Kenya improving childhood nutrition while generating jobs. This award-winning project with smallholder dairies has contributed up to 80 percent of the milk products sold in the country.
- New rice varieties for Africa, which combine the high yields of Asian rice with African rice’s resistance to local pests and diseases. Currently sown on 200,000 hectares in upland areas, they are helping reduce national rice import bills and generating higher incomes in rural communities.
- An agroforestry system called “fertilizer tree fallows,” which renews soil fertility in Southern Africa, adopted by than 66,000 farmers in Zambia.
- Widespread adoption of resource-conserving “zero-till” technology in the vital rice-wheat systems of South Asia. Employed by close to a half million farmers on more than 3.2 million hectares, this technology has generated benefits estimated at US$147 million through higher crop yields, lower production costs and savings in water and energy.
- A flood-tolerant version of a rice variety grown on six million hectares in Bangladesh. The new variety enables farmers to obtain yields two to three times those of the non-tolerant version under prolonged submergence of rice crops, a situation that will become more common as a result of climate change.
- A new method for detecting and reducing by 100% aflatoxin, a deadly poison that infects crops, making them unfit for local consumption or export benefiting farmers throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
- More than 50 varieties of recently developed drought-tolerant maize varieties being grown on a total of about one million hectares across eastern and southern Africa
- A simple methodology for integrating agriculture with aquaculture to bolster income and food supplies in areas of southern Africa where the agricultural labor force has been devastated by HIV/AIDS, doubling the income of 1,200 households in Malawi.
- Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera….

Digging our own grave.

All good news. Except that the focus on emergency food aid seems to have drawn worldwide attention – and funding – away from long term agricultural research. Proof of the matter is that while U.S. President George W. Bush recently ordered up $200 million in emergency food aid, with a follow-up of another $755 million, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is cutting as much as 75% of their funding to the CGIAR (See Science Magazine). USAID’s support to the CGIAR in 2006 was $56 million or about 12% of the CGIAR’s core budget.

And USAID is not the only one to blame. Look at this graph illustrating the worldwide trend of foreign aid (which excludes relief aid – as the graph would then look even worse!) going up, versus the downward trend of in agricultural aid.

Here is another interesting graph, comparing the annual budget of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), one of the CGIAR’s research centers, and the global rice stock pile volume, using the latter as a measure for consumption versus demand on rice. Now is there not a strange correlation to be noticed? This can not be coincidence.

How a small bug illustrates a worldwide problem

Talking about the IRRI, here is an example of how, by cutting back transparent and not-for-profit agricultural research is as bad as digging one’s own grave:

The brown plant hopper, an insect no bigger than a gnat, is multiplying by the billions and chewing through rice paddies in East Asia, threatening the diets of many poor people. China, the world’s biggest rice producer, announced on May 7 that it was struggling to control the rapid spread of the insects there. A plant hopper outbreak can destroy 20 percent of a harvest.

The damage to rice crops, occurring at a time of scarcity and high prices, could have been prevented. Researchers at the International Rice Research Institute say that they know how to create rice varieties resistant to the insects but that budget cuts have prevented them from doing so. (Full)

Learning from the past

In the 1960s, population growth was far outrunning food production, threatening famine in many poor countries. Wealthier nations joined forces with the poor countries to improve crop yields. Yields soared, and by the 1980s, the threat of starvation had receded in most of the world. With Europe and the United States offering their farmers heavy subsidies that encouraged production, grain became abundant worldwide, and prices fell.

Many poor countries, instead of developing their own agriculture, turned to the world market to buy cheap rice and wheat. In 1986, Agriculture Secretary John Block called the idea of developing countries feeding themselves “an anachronism from a bygone era,” saying they should “just buy American”. (Full)

And this attitude got the world into the mess it is in today: a demand (the world population) outgrowing the supply (food production)… The below graph clearly illustrates this trend (the food production – in purple- is represented by the total production of grain in the world).

Bottomline. And how you can help.

We need to push the international community for long-term agricultural research aiming solely at making developing countries food self-sufficient, without any commercial interests at heart, if we want to resolve this food crisis and avoid it from ever happening again.

Here is one way how you can help: sign the petition urging USAID to maintain its support for the CGIAR’s food research centers.

Maybe, just maybe, we will be in time to turn this food crisis, into an opportunity, and really teach people how to fish, rather than just giving them fish to eat. Maybe, just maybe queues for food hand-outs in developing countries could be a thing of a past.

More articles on The Road about the global food crisis

With thanks to “the other E” for the inspiration!
Graphs courtesy New York Times and planettoughts.org.
Pictures courtesy Luis Liwanag (The New York Times), EPA (Al Jazeera), Crispin Hughes (WFP), CGIAR and Pavel Rahman (AP Photo)

Lost Connection

Peter — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 09:08:00 +0000

Dubai International Airport – October 7, 2001.
I step out of the plane and look at my watch. 10 pm. Two hours to shop in the Dubai Tax Free before boarding my connecting flight to Islamabad, Pakistan.
I follow the stream of arriving passengers moving along on the first floor of the airport, overlooking the shopping area. I look at the vast crowd below. A dense mix of every possible nationality, religion and ethnicity in the world, expressed through a myriad of dress codes. From formal western suites, the traditional Arab dishdashahs, women in mini skirts mixed with those fully veiled. Rough Afghani chupans, expensive Indian silk sari’s, Berber djellabas, Australian safari shorts, Sudanese turbans, American baseball caps and Arab hijabs. This crowd seems to represent the world within one space. But the crowd is not strolling along from one shop to another in its usual way. The people are talking in groups, some with raised voices and expressive hand gestures, and others whisper. There is no laughing, nor joy but a nervousness makes the tension in the air so thick one could cut it with a knife. You do not have to be a clairvoyant to feel something is wrong.

Hundreds of people are lining up at the transit counters, below large displays listing numerous cancelled and delayed flights. The atmosphere is grim. Utter grim. I grab hold of someone in an Emirates Airlines uniform and ask her what is going on. She answers: “Have you not heard? The US started bombing Afghanistan a few hours ago. They closed the airspace above Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and all Gulf countries. No civil plane will be flying anymore for a while!”.
For a moment, I feel like the ground is pulled away from beneath my feet. “The US started bombing Afghanistan… This, we have feared since 9/11, a month ago. Retaliation. The beginning of the turmoil in the region, which will last for years. What will happen with Pakistan? How will the government react, how will the people react?”, thoughts flash through my mind as the lady explains the airline has booked hotel rooms, and buses are waiting outside.

I act like a robot: I walk through immigration, pick up my bags, and walk outside. The heat, humidity and mere mass of people crowded at the airport exit cuts off my breath. I get onto the bus and let myself fall into a free seat. I look at the crowd, the stuck traffic,…
- “Not flying tonight, are you?”, a voice says. I wake up from my reverie and look at the guy next to me. American accent.
- “No, apparently not!”, I mumble.
- “Harry”, he says as he holds out his hand.
- “Peter”, I answer, “where were you supposed to fly to?”
- “Oh, I was supposed to fly to Uganda”, he says, “my wife works there.”
- “Oh, really”, I answer, “I worked there too, left two years ago”. I try to make conversation, killing the time waiting for the bus to leave..
- “Really? You work for the UN?”
- “Yes, I do, for WFP”.
- “Oh, my wife works in the same building.. Cathy Ashcroft, maybe you know her!”. It turns out Harry is the husband of Cathy I know since years, the same Cathy I helped setting up the OCHA office in Kampala. We engage into a vivid conversation of Kampala, life in Africa, relief work and of course come back to the subject of the US bombing campaign.

After checking into the hotel, Harry and I walk to the night club, the only place we can still get a drink. In the mean time, it is already 1 am. A few men and a couple form the meagre audience, spread over a dozen tables. A small live band is playing without much enthusiasm. We take a seat in the back, and order a drink. I really really need a drink.
I tell Harry about how we feared for the retaliation, how we feared how the whole region was going to react. No matter how much everyone hated the Taliban, it was still an attack on a sovereign country. A Muslim country. Would countries in the region now choose sides? Be forced to choose sides? Above all, it would mean that masses of people would be killed. Tens, if not hundreds of thousands would start moving within the country, trying to find refuge. It could possibly cause an exodus into all countries around Afghanistan: Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran,… Working for a front-line humanitarian organisation, I know what this would mean for us: we would go and provide aid, close to the line of fire. I think of all our national staff who is still in Afghanistan.
All of a sudden the band changes beat and a belly dancer starts her act. There is something wrong with this picture… A war has started tonight. A big one. And here we are in a dark bar, watching a belly dancer…

I find no joy, pay for the drinks, say good-bye to Harry, and walk outside. Sitting on a bench near the hotel entrance, I lit a cigarette. I close my eyes, and imagine the infernos of fire, explosions, shrapnel in the black night around Kabul, Jalalabad and Kandahar. All places I have visited in Afghanistan. I can see families trying to seek refuge in their homes. I can see their fear not knowing what is going on, how long it would last, and what this would mean for them, and their livelihood. I can smell their fear even where I was sitting.
I look up. The night sky is clear. I imagine the Tomahawks launched from war ships close by. I imagine war planes rushing overhead, ten miles up in the sky. The pilots looking down at Dubai, this city of light and splendour, as they bank left and turn the direction of Afghanistan.

Postscript.
I was blocked in Dubai for three days. Spent the whole time in my hotel room, on email and telephone, coordinating with my team in Islamabad and with my counter parts in Rome. After three days, the air space was re-opened. I got onto the first plane that flew from Dubai to Islamabad. People were so anxious to get back home, they started a fight while boarding.
One month later, I landed in Kabul. As the Taliban retreated, they suffered quite some losses. People took the turbans from the bodies and threw them up in the trees. The turbans unruffled and for months long strips of shiny turban cloth were weaved in between the branches, floating in the wind.

It made me think of the start of the war and the belly dancer. The same contrast I found in dead bodies and their turbans floating in the wind, dangling from a tree. There is nothing poetic about the horrors of war. I understood what Marlon Brando meant in “Apocalypse Now”.

Pictures courtesy theme.cc (bombing), CNN (Tomahawk), umami.co.nz (Duty free zone)

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UN, US? More Than a Letter of Difference?

Peter — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 12:52:00 +0000

Once upon a time, I arrived at the Dubai International Airport, and showed my UN passport.
The guy looked at the cover, and said “Bot whot contry?”
I said: “United Nations!”
He shrugged and asked again: “Bot whot contry, Unatod Notions?”
I said: “Well, it is not a country, it is an organisation. It is really ‘All Nations’!”
He shook his head: “No, Unatod Notions, Unatod Notions. Unatod Steets, no?”
I was quit to reply: “No, no! Not United States, United Nations. Big difference!”
He laughed: “But wheer ees big office Unatod Notions?”
I said: “The big office? Well the main office is in New York”
He replied: “Ahhhh? New York. Unatod Steets.. You see?”

I guess he had a point. Sometimes I fail to see the difference too, to be honest.

The Dudettes

Peter — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 01:41:00 +0000

(Peterpedia: “a dudette: female version of a dude”)

“Who the f**k has put pink paper in the printer?”, I hear one of the guys shouting in the corridor. Loads the cupboard doors bang as he is looking for the normal plain white paper… Loads of cursing..
I duck.. I did not put the pink paper in the printer, but I know who did.. Well, I kinda know.. I also know she got away with the blue paper, too. And with the light-green.

But that was two weeks ago, and none of the technicians was around then. Mats, Zouhair and me were the only men in the office. All the others were out. In Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey. We were the only three men… Three men against the rest of the world. And ‘the rest of the world’, as far as the office was concerned, was female. I mean, what were we supposed to do? Against all those women? They took over the place. They overrun the office. A palace revolution! And those in power wanted “pink”.

Traditionally, we have always been a “real men’s outfit”, since we started with our team, FITTEST, several years ago. FITTEST. “Fast IT and Telecoms Emergency and Support Team”. Pretty sexy, no? We are the ‘special forces’ of the humanitarian organizations. We’re the ‘dudes’ they send in when an emergency occurs, before anyone else is sent in. Or is allowed in. Somalia flooding, Darfur refugee influx, Pakistan earthquake, Tsunami, Iraq war, Hurricane Mitch, Afghanistan war, Angola, .. You name it. We’ve been there, done that.. And not only “been there”, but also “been there before the rest”. We’re the dudes who fly in with equipment to build the basic infrastructure with electricity, communications, IT services, so that other relief workers can do their work. I mean in short, in case you did not get my drift yet: “WE ARE THE DUDES !”

Think of us as razor short hair, safari jackets, bagged tropic trousers, sturdy mountain boots, minimum six feet tall, bronzed by the sun in seven continents, honoury member of frequent flyer schemes on at least ten airlines. And that only in the past three months. You get the picture? That’s us. I mean, “WE ARE THE DUDES. Yeah!”..

And now, these women… Grrr.. These women… This girlie figures, with their high-pitched squeaky voices, platform shoes or tower heels, and their (flap with your hand with a floppy wrist) their, their… delicate manners, manicured nails… We need four of them to lift one of our toolboxes… And we carry two. In each hand that is. Ha! But now, those tiny things… They took over the office. They run the outfit now…

“Can anyone tell me where the FFFF**K I can find plain white paper?”, I hear from the corridor again, “I refuse to print my mission report on f**king pink paper!”. One of the women chuckles: “Pink Rules!”

It was not so long ago when we had no women in the team. As the unit grew, and we moved our base from Kampala to Dubai, we needed more support staff… In came Judith, then Anisa, then Lorraine. Sure, understandable, these were all administrative staff. We could even get used to the idea they did all of our finance and travel. But then Amel joined in, and took over procurement. Bouran came in and she took over the management of logistics and warehousing. And so on. And so on. They moved in swiftly and quietly. They worked long hours, without making a lot of noise, like we, the dudes did. And before we knew it, we had more than twenty of them.

Twenty women. They became the backbone of the office. Brave women, standing up against ‘The Dudes’, twice as tall and three times as wide as them. They looked up, with their finger pointing sky-wards: ‘No, you will NOT get your ticket before you fill in your previous travel expense claim !’. or ‘No, you can not get into the warehouse to take whatever you want. Fill in this request form, and we will get it to you’. Finger sky-wards… Each time, the FITTEST technician would look down at those tiny little things and grunt his teeth “These… women… “ but in the end they would all shrug their shoulders, and .. comply.

It was an interesting process to see these two parts of the team becoming one, as time went by.. The male and the female part. The mountain boots and the high heels. The ‘North Face’ and the ‘Louis Vuitton’s. Not only did we, the dudes, start to print on pink, but the ladies also got us to wear pink FITTEST T-shirts. But the dudettes also started to wear the macho yellow-print-on-dark-blue with just as much pride. Symbolic of the female side of the dudes and the male side of the dudettes joining together..
Not only did Astrid help the guys pack their suitcases when they were late for a flight again, and would Anisa and Lorraine always succeed in putting together a surprise birthday cake, but soon they also joined us on missions. Cecelia in Kinshasa, Larisa and Nadia in Baghdad, Sophie in Banda Aceh and Beirut, Ekram in Khartoum and Damascus.

Cheers to you, the dudettes of the world ! This is an ode to you. Combining being a mother and a wife, with a professional career. Juggling your professional time between all three jobs: two at home, and one at work. My hat off to you. It is much easier being a man in this world, than a woman. It is always much easier to be a dude than a dudette.

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What’s in a Gesture?

Peter — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 07:04:00 +0000

Dubai, Terminal 2. Early in the Morning… Very early in the morning.

I present my passport at the immigration counter. The immigration officer does not speak much of English, and for a couple of minutes flips the pages of my passport over from the left to the right, and back again, and again, and again. He attentively reads all the different visas, and mumbles to himself. He looks up, as to check where his supervisor is, does not see him, and goes back to flipping the pages.

Me: “Excuse me, anything wrong?
Him: He answers with the (gesture): the fingers folded together, pointing upwards, and slowly moving his hand up and down.
I often go to Italy, and that (gesture) means as much as “what the ^^%%** are you talking about?” or “What the ^^%%** do you want?”. So I get upset, right? I mean, it is rather rude. I raise my voice a pitch.

Me: “Excuse me, I am asking you if there is anything wrong with my passport?”
Him: (Gesture) again. He mumbles something in Arabic, which I do not understand, and continues to flip through the pages.
Me: “Now hold on a second. Why are you doing this (i mimic him)? Hey? A bit of respect would do, ok?”
I raise not only the pitch but also the volume of my voice.

Him: yet (gesture) again, but now moving his arm up and down in a very articulate way. He says something in Arabic, which I do not understand. The immigration staff at the other counters look at us and laugh.
Me: “OK, this is enough, I want to speak to your supervisor. You can not do this (gesture)(gesture)(gesture) at me. You know damned well what I am talking about.”
I look around for a senior officer. One comes speeding at us from the office behind a one-way mirrored window.
Super: “What is the matter, sir?”
Me: “I am not sure, but your friend here clearly does not know what to do with my passport! And on top of that, he is rude. “
Super to the officer: “Rakakatakatak” (something fast in Arabic)
Officer to super: “Laaaaaaaa”. And he shakes his head.
Hey, I understand that, it means ‘No!’
Me to the super: “How can he say no? He is rude, he just stands there and goes (gesture) (gesture)(gesture) all the time.
The supervisor smiles, takes my passport, and asks me to follow him.
Super: “So he did like this (gesture), hey ?”
Me: “Yeah, but that is really rude. That guy insults me!”
Super (smiles): “Sir. Over here, this (gesture) means ‘Please Wait’ “

This was the first Arabic gesture I learned. The hard way.

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The Day I Got Deported From the US

Peter — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 23:51:00 +0000

Spring 2003. Pretty soon after the Iraq war started.
Dulles International Airport, Washington.

Scene at immigration counter.

him: So where do you come from now, sir? (flips through my passport, filled with stamps in Arab writing)

me: Right now, from London Heathrow, but that was just a transit. I flew in from Cairo, Egypt.
him: How long did you stay in Cairo?
me: One day.
him: Where were you before that?
me: In Jordan
him: And how long did you stay there?
me: Also one day.
him: Where did you come before that?
me: Iraq
him: ?!?!
me: Baghdad, Iraq. I work for the UN, you see.
him: Do you have any tickets to prove that?
me: No, I flew on a UN plane.
him: I do not see Iraq immigration stamps in your passport.
me: No, there is no Iraq immigration anymore since the war. The US military checks inbound passengers, but they do not stamp passports.
him: OK, how long where you there for?
me: A week.
him: So where were you longer than a week? Where do you actually live?
me: Well, my legal residency is in Belgium, but I spend most of my time in the UAE. In Dubai.
him: What do you do there?
me: I head the office of one of the UN agencies there. I have the status of an ambassador.
him: Do you have proof of that?
me: Sure. {I show him my UAE diplomatic card)
him: How long have you been living in Dubai?
me: Two years.
him: And before that?
me: I shuttled between Pakistan and Afghanistan
him: …
him: (after two minutes of typing on his computer) Could you step aside for a moment, sir, and come with me?
me: ?!

Thirty minutes later, in a separate room with clearly a number of other ‘doubtful cases’:
him#2: Mr Keyscher (?) (it is difficult to pronounce my name in English)
me: Yes, sir, good evening.
him#2: Evening, what is the purpose of your visit to the US?
me: I was asked by the UN security office to chair a meeting at the World Bank’s office in Washington.
him#2: Are you on an official mission?
me: Yes I am. On UN official business.
him#2: Do you have proof of that?
me: Sure. (I start up my computer and show him the invitation Email)
him#2: What is the meeting about?
me: It is about the UN relief efforts in Iraq. Mostly about the coordination of technical issues between different humanitarian agencies.
him#2: How long do you intend to stay?
me: I fly back tomorrow.
him#2: Where to?
me: To Dubai
him#2: Do you have any other travel documentation than this passport, your Belgian national passport?
me: Yes, I have two UN passports
him#2: Blue or red ones? (the red one is a full diplomatic passport)
me: I have both. (I hand them over)
him#2: Why do you travel on your Belgian passport, if you have a UN passport?
me: It is easier, as I do not need a visa to enter the US with my Belgian one.
him#2: Have a seat sir, someone will be with you in a minute

Thirty minutes later:
him#3: Mr Keyscher?
me: That is me
him#3: I am sorry sir, but we can not allow you to enter the US.
me: ?!?! Why is that?
him#3: You tried to enter on your Belgian passport, but this one is not valid to enter the US.
me: Why not? I was in New York two weeks ago. I fly to the US three-four times a year. I always use my Belgian passport.
him#3: Sorry, but the rules changed. As of last week, Belgian passports have to be machine readable.
me: ?!?!
him#3: They need a strip on the ID-page which is machine readable. Yours does not have that.
me: But two weeks ago, nobody said anything about that at the New York’s immigration office.
him#3: Sorry, but I do not make the rules. And they changed since last week. We can not let you enter the US.
me: But I am on a diplomatic mission. I have a diplomatic status. You have my diplomatic passports.
him#3: Sorry, but that does not matter. Just last week, we stopped a foreign minister from a Middle Eastern country entering the US also. Not the right paperwork neither.
me: Is it possible to speak to your supervisor please?
him#3: I am the supervisor, sir.
me: Can I still speak to your superior, please?
him#3: I will call him on the phone. One moment please.

After fifteen minutes with his supervisor on the phone:
him#3: I am sorry. But we can not let you enter the US. I will call the British Airways representative, and see if you can get a seat back on the same plane you came in with.
me: You do understand that I flew for three days for this meeting, straight out of Iraq? Is there any way anyone could vouch for me? I can call the UN head office in New York?
him#3: No, sir, I am sorry, that decision is final.
me: Can I call someone to let them know I can not make it to my meeting? After all, twenty people will attend, and I was to chair that meeting.
him#3: Sure, here is a phone. But you can are only allowed one local phone call.
me: Can I use my mobile phone to call? The person I need to talk to is from our HQ in Rome. He has an Italian mobile number.
him#3: Sorry, you are not allowed to use your mobile phone here.

I try to call Gianluca in his hotel downtown Washington, but there is no response.
me: (sigh) So, what will happen now?
him#3: We will need to take your photograph and finger prints, sir.
me: ?!?!

Four mug shots, ten finger prints and thirty minutes later:
me: Can I use the bathroom, please?
him#2 (again): Sure.

An armed guard escorts me to a bathroom. Stays outside of the door. I take out my mobile phone, call Gianluca, and explain what happened. I whisper I will not make it to the meeting. I give him a 60 seconds briefing on what my message was going to be in that meeting. The guard bangs on the toilet door saying “It is time, let’s go”.

Back in the immigration screening office, the British Airways representative is talking to him#2.
she: I picked up his luggage, but we have a pretty full plane
him#2: …
me: What would happen if I can not get on this return flight?
him#2: We will have to detain you until you can get a return flight. You have a ticket for tomorrow, so I guess that would mean detention until tomorrow.
me: ?! Detention?
him#2: Yes.

she: I will do my best.
him#2: Can I have your tickets please?
him#2 puts my three passports and all travel papers in a sealed envelop.

Thirty minutes later, the BA representative comes back.
she: I have a seat for you.
me: Thank you
him#2: We will escort you to the plane now
me: Can I have my passports and tickets, please?
him#2: No. You will get them back at Heathrow. Do know that the next time you want to enter the US, you will not be able to enter on the visa waiver program for Belgian nationals. You will need a visa. Each time you enter the US, you will be taken for questioning. Front desk immigration officers will not be allowed to let you enter. I need you to sign a paper stating you understood that, and agree to it.
me: Do I have a choice?
him: No sir, there is no appeal for this.
me: For how long do I need to get a visa. When will I be able to use the visa waiver program again? (I sign the papers)
him#2: This is valid for ever. Once refused entry into the US, you can not enter with the visa waiver program anymore. This gentlemen will escort you to the plane.

Two armed men take me outside the building, onto the tarmac. It is night already. It rains. A blinded truck is waiting for me. More armed men. I see cigarette butts on the ground, just outside of the door as we step outside.
me: I am sorry, but can I ask you one favour? I flew in from Cairo, non-smoking. Four hours. Had no time in Heathrow for a cigarette. Then flew trans-Atlantic for six hours, spent two hours here, and now will fly again. Can I have at least one cigarette please?
him#4: (looks at him#5) OK.. A quick one then.
me: That is the only good news I had since I landed here. Thank you.

They escort me back onto the plain. There are no passengers yet. Him#4 and him#5 whisper to the captain and the flight attendant. They look at me. I feel like a criminal.

Six hours later, I step out of the plane in Heathrow and get my papers back. My flight to Dubai leaves in two hours. I need to find a place to smoke a cigarette and call Gianluca again.

Well, I guess I was more lucky than this 9 year old who was detained after their flight to Toronto made an unscheduled stop on American soil nearly four weeks ago.

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From Sand to a City

Peter — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 00:45:00 +0000

Gianluca, (“Can you build it?”), the project coordinator, wrote:
“Gianluca, do you want to come to Dubai for a few months to help us build a city?” is how it all began for me, in a call from Peter in Dubai.
“Well, where do I start?”, “Can you send me a copy of the job description?” was the immediate response, like someone had already planned the whole thing. The answer sounded so simple I even felt silly asking.
The job meant working with the Government on the conceptual and practical design of the city, the buildings, the security measures, the warehousing facilities, the interior design, the services to be provided, and, last but not least, the presentation of the facilities and services to other UN agencies – and introduction of Government Executives to humanitarian agencies’ representatives.

Now let’s run through the check-list: this requires logistic experience (I have very little), architectural background (none), strong security know-how (very little), good knowledge of the UN (-ish), experience in establishing and running UN common premises (uh?) and, most importantly, know-how in dealing with high-level government bodies (ouch). My initial reluctance (why me?) was dismissed when I was persuaded that nobody would have all these skills together, therefore I was just as good (or useless) as anybody else. “Ah, that’s fine then (I guess).”, was my answer.

A month later I was in Dubai, looking at a few sand dunes where the city was to be built, with Peter whispering in my ear: “One day, all of this will be yours, my son.” (Why me?)

In the Dubai office, everyone kept laughing at “my HQ tie”. They all run around in T-shirts and sandals, many of them in shorts. I managed to keep my tie on for two weeks, and then gave up. I stopped wearing shoes after a month. And they made fun of my red face when I tried to lift one of the FITTEST telecoms engineers’ toolboxes (which they carry nonchalantly from their Dubai base around the world). My red face also had something to do with the fact it was over 40 degrees in the shade.

Things in Dubai move fast, soon we had to answer some critical questions:
• How flat should the warehouse floor be? (bo!)
• How steep should the warehouse entry be for forklifts? (eh.. like this?)
• What fire-extinguishing system for a computer room? (obviously not water..)
• What security measures at the entrances to control staff and visitors’ access? (body search?)
• How about explosives detection at the entrance? (a light bulb?)
• How do you verify the installation of the blast-proof film? (a hammer?)
• What kind of walls to install in the office, taking into account a possible change in layout in 24 hours? (Yellow ones?)
If you know the answer to all these questions, that proves my point: why me?

Luckily, we had sufficient in-house expertise in our organisation, and I don’t think I spared anyone from the Security, Procurement, Administration and Logistics sections in Dubai and Rome. With their help, we got the answers:
• “How flat? – triple 0.”
• “Explosives detection? – dogs”.
• “Fire extinguisher? – use the C02 ‘bomb’”.
• “Walls? – demountable wooden framed panels on anodized aluminum support
grid,” or something like that.

Three months after I arrived, the desert started shifting – pillars pointing out of the sand, walls and buildings taking shape. One warehouse, two warehouses, one office, two offices, guard houses, electricity complex, water complex, fences, roads, security systems. Even the long awaited fountain arrived. Then trees, grass, flagpoles.

I have always felt I was achieving something through my work, helping people, particularly in the field, in their day-to-day work. But I never actually saw the practical result, because it happened elsewhere. But here, I saw my words change a piece of land, our discussion become a new City, our vision become UN agencies working together.

My best memory? Just before leaving Dubai for Rome, I stopped at the Humanitarian City. I thought of all the people that helped me figure out why me?

Peter (“Can you build it faster?”), the boss (kind of), wrote:
It is all true. When we met H.H. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, then the Dubai Crown Prince, he said: “If you want anything from me, talk to this man,” and pointed to Mohammed Al Gergawi, Chairman of the Dubai Development and Investment Authority. So I went to see H.E. Al Gergawi, whom I got to call ‘Mohammed’ after two meetings.

During our second meeting, he said: “Peter, I know you never wear a suit, so don’t put one on for me. Now, give me three things you want from Dubai!”. I named one. He said “not interested”. I named another. He said: “not interested”. Then I described building a compound for the humanitarian organisations geared towards humanitarian emergency response. Mohammed leaned forward and said: “Tell me more.” It was easy to explain our vision: Put humanitarians together and they will start to work together. And the work will be easier, faster and cheaper. So, what’s in it for Dubai? Well, Dubai makes money, it’s a regional business centre, a regional commerce and logistics hub. Let’s add: “Dubai, the city that cares”, let’s add a humanitarian vision to Dubai…

Mohammed said: “Give me a few days.”
Two days later, he called: “Let’s meet. I want to show you something.” He drove us around an old military base: many warehouses, small offices. “Would this do?” he asked. I was not enthusiastic. Too spread out, too old, too small.
Mohammed said: “Give me two weeks.”
After two weeks, he called: “Refurbishment of an old facility would cost too much; we will build from scratch. Give me a few weeks.”
In August 2003, someone in his office sent me an email: “Have money, will build. But bigger than a humanitarian base. Let’s build a humanitarian city!” They found a stretch of 300,000 m2, prime real estate close to the Dubai centre, and had a serious budget.
“Let’s build,” Mohammed said. “Let’s build!”, I said, and called Gianluca.

So we built it. We locked ourselves up with about twenty people from the government – budget, finance, engineering, marketing, project gurus, IT, architects, legal, etc. After half a day, we had a project concept, the basic design and cost estimate for our city. On January 1 2004 we started from a patch of land with nothing but sand. On March 1 (yes, the same year!), we had two fully functional warehouses. On 1 June (yes, the same year!), we had the office building ready, and our staff moved in by the end of August (yes, the same year!).

During the official opening ceremony, the visitors described it as the nicest, best thought-out facilities every built for our organisation. Equipped for 150 people, with training and meeting rooms, a storage area of 40,000 m2, including 10,000 m2 warehouses, it is the now largest humanitarian rapid response facility in the world. Meanwhile several other buildings and warehouses were constructed to make it a true Humanitarian city. It was built from sand to city in six months time. ‘With the compliments of the Dubai Government.’ Only possible in Dubai !

Text source courtesy of Gianluca Bruni and Caroline Hurford
Pictures courtesy of Gianluca Bruni

Check out more posts about Dubai on this blog!

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“M.” – Requiem For Baghdad

Peter — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 08:31:00 +0000

“The horror… The horror…”
(Marlon Brando in ‘Apocalypse Now’)

Dubai, December 2004
All of us, all our Dubai staff, are standing around in silence in the reception of our office. We put up the plaque our HQ gave us. “WFP FITTEST team – Dubai. Award for Merit 2004. For their outstanding global achievement and particularly for the critical support of the UN humanitarian effort in Iraq”. Each of us are in thoughts. It seems weird how in a split second zillions of thoughts and images can flash through your mind.

Robert was a bit angry at me this week. He rightfully said: ‘This plaque is something to be proud of, how come we still have not put it up? We received the plaque several months ago.’. I did not really have an answer for him. Sure, at first there was a spelling mistake, so they had to re-do it, then we had a problem finding a suitable spot, and then, and then… In the end, it were all excuses, I thought to myself. Excuses as it brought back a lot of painful memories for me… I did not want to remember that period. Did not want to remember the pain. Suppress it. Done. Buried. But that is not the right way. Robert was right, the team had done well. The team he had coordinated did well in the Iraq emergency operation, and they had to be remembered for their excellent work. Together we also had to remember how we all stuck together, as one team, despite all the pressure and challenges. Somewhere also we had to remember the pain of that period…

As we are standing in front of the plaque, I think of M. Her face comes before my eyes. I hear her laugh. Would she have felt pain? Fear? Regrets? Or would it all have gone in a flash? Like a switch. Switching off life. Done. Over. And then?

Belgium, August 2001
If you have lived through a number of humanitarian emergencies, worked long enough in relief operations, you start to develop a sixth sense. It was this sixth sense that helped us deciding to move our intervention team from Kosovo to Islamabad a few years ago. We sensed that at a certain moment the US would retaliate against the Taliban. Basing our team in the middle of Central Asia would allow us to prepare the region for a possible humanitarian emergency if the US would take military action in Afghanistan.

I told Tine just before I left home: “I do not have a good feeling. The stars are not right. Something is up.” That feeling was in sharp contrast with the one month holiday off the beaten track in Hawaii we just had. But the sixth sense was there, with big warning signs.

Islamabad, September 11, 2001
We were working in our office in Islamabad when Jalal, one of our staff, said ‘Hey, a plane just flew into the New York World Trade Center.’ And a few minutes later, the news came a second plane crashed into the Towers. We stopped all work. I knew it could not have been an accident. This was an act of terrorism. In a flash, I saw what would happen. The world was going to fundamentally change. I saw the US attacking Afghanistan. I saw the polarization of the world into Muslim and non-Muslim. I saw the invasion of Iraq.. I just knew we were going for a very rough period, with a lot of human suffering. I felt sad, very sad. When I came back to the guest house I was staying, very late at night, that night of 9/11, I just could not stop looking at the video replays on TV, displaying what happened in New York. It was so violent. So many people lost in one go. But above all, I felt “it is all coming our way. Within here and a few weeks, the world’s attention is going to be focused on our region.”

It did not take weeks. It took days. We saw them arriving at the hotels in Islamabad. All the international camera crews, with their equipment loaded onto rental cars. Setting up shop on the roofs of the hotels. All the well-known anchor people from the main broadcast stations started to report from Islamabad. The media often is one step ahead of the military. Only one step.

Kabul, January 2002.
Several months later, the Taliban was beaten, Bin Laden was on the run, and Afghanistan was ‘liberated’. I just ‘knew’ Iraq was going to be next. No matter what the world’s opinion was going to be, I felt the US was going to attack Iraq also.

Baghdad, November 2002
Richard and I spent a nice evening in one of the open air restaurants in Baghdad. Even though it was close to midnight and pretty cold outside, there were plenty of people still walking around. I loved the people there, the feeling the whole setting gave me. They were friendly, helpful, many of them very well educated. Never a harsh word. As we were walking the streets that night, people smiled at us, often to say ‘Hey habibi, how are you? Where do you come from? What do you do?’. When we would start talking to them, the subject of children and family would always come up. No matter where people come from, the love for their close ones always seems to be the main thing on their mind. We felt safe, almost at home, without the slightest sense of fear or insecurity. We were amongst good people.
The first UN weapon inspectors had arrived earlier that day. We saw them dragging up boxes with their equipment into Canal Hotel, the UN Headquarters in Baghdad.. Somewhere I knew that it was all going to be in vain. The US had already made up its mind: ‘Saddam had to go’. Even if the weapon inspectors would not find any weapons of mass destruction, any excuse was going to be good enough… After all, Iraq had oil. I could just see all the human misery a US invasion in Iraq would cause. And the anarchy, the violence that would follow. I imagined those peaceful streets of Baghdad in flames, shooting, bombing. I could see all the friendly, loving people, with eyes, filled with hatred.

Dubai, March 20 2003
As I closed the door of my apartment, on my way to work, I stopped for a moment. Something was not right. Something was different that morning. I could hear the television sets from my neighbours. Different languages, agitated voices of the reporters. It was an awkward sound. My heart started to beat real fast. I went back into my apartment, switched on the TV, and sat down. Images of helicopters, tanks, military convoys, crossing the border from Kuwait into Iraq. I picked up the phone and called Gianluca, in our HQ in Rome. It was still very early in Europe, he was still asleep. ‘Gianluca, switch on your TV. It has began. The invasion has began’.

June 2003
I met M. in Cyprus several times. She was working for another UN agency. By coincidence, we had the same travel itinerary, and spent several days on the road together: flying from Cyprus to Jordan, then driving into Erbil in North Iraq and a few days later flying to Baghdad. We talked a lot. Work, people we met in the past, our hobbies, adventure traveling, what appealed to us in this world, in people. The last time I saw her was one evening in Canal Hotel, Baghdad. For security reasons, the movement of our staff in town was restricted, and we all lived on the large office compound. A couple of guys had put together a barbeque in the parking lot which by then was filled with sleeping and storage tents. As I was walking back to my room, M. was walking towards the barbeque area. She had a strange look in her eyes. She hesitated for a moment as we were passing eachother. I remember I stood still for a moment, wondering what this look was about. I told her I was leaving for Dubai the next day.. I can not remember if she said anything, as we gave three kisses on the cheek. Maybe we did say something. Some pleasantries like ‘see you whenever I see you again!’.

A few weeks later, I received a message from her. Some stuff about work. She had decided the Iraq mission was going to be her last. In September she would quit and do something different. Enough of this type of work. It has been a good road, but this road had come to an end. The last sentence in the Email did not make much sense to me. It was about us meeting again. That it would mean a lot to her, that she would like to talk to me.

When I talked to Larisa, one of our staff in Baghdad, on the phone, she said: “you left quite an impression on some people in Baghdad.” I did not really understand what she meant. “Well, last night, I was having a drink with M., and again, it looks like you left quite an impression on her”…
Sometimes a lot of things happen, and it is difficult to pinpoint what they really mean, to make real sense out of a string of signs. But then something small happens, which causes all the rest to make sense. Now I understood the look in M.’s eyes the last evening in Baghdad. That last sentence in her Email. I sent her an Email that I was coming over to Baghdad before she left, so we would sit together and talk.

Belgium, August 18 2003
I had a long chat with Robert, our project coordinator in Baghdad. He ran the team installing the technical infrastructure for most of the UN relief agencies. Most of the conversation was about his main worry: security. He felt something was to happen, the ‘tension in the air’ was just too much. He felt some of our staff or some of our offices were going to be attacked. ‘Something bad is about to happen’, he said. I shared his feeling. I did not sleep much that night. I had a lot of my staff in Iraq and I felt very responsible for them.

Belgium, August 19 2003

This was one of the saddest days in my life. Mats called me ‘Our headquarters in Baghdad was bombed a few minutes ago. A truck full of explosives flattened most of the building’. Mats and I talked with Robert in a conference call later that day. It was bad. Robert said most of our staff was accounted for, but several of them were badly injured from falling debris, shrapnel or glass flying around. Ghis had a window frame hit his head. Michael’s face was badly cut by glass. Diya was evacuated with severe cuts in his arm and hands. Dozens of people had died. The pictures on television looked horrific. I was shocked. And felt endlessly guilty. Guilty as I had recruited these people. I had sent them in harm’s way. Guilty as no matter how good the security precautions we had taken, no matter how many times we had stressed to them all to be careful, still they, the people from my team, got hurt. It cut deep inside me. I felt guilty as I was not there to help. I should have been there with them.

Belgium, August 20 2003
As more details came in of the bombing, a provisional list was circulated, a list with names of those not accounted for, and those which were confirmed dead. I could not believe my eyes when I saw M.’s name on the list. M. was dead.

Dubai, December 2005
These thoughts and images fly, no, they scream, through my head as we are standing in front of our plaque.. It all takes a few seconds for it to come through. All of the hurt. The immense sadness and senselessness. The guilt of not having done enough. The guilt of not having said things that should have been said. So often we forget that when we say ‘goodbye’, it might really mean ‘goodbye’. A final ‘goodbye’. We might never see that person again in this life. I see M.’s face in front of me as we talked for a brief moment in time, passing eachother in Canal Hotel that evening of the barbeque. I should have taken the time to sit and talk with her. I should have known this might have been the last time ever, we had the chance to talk. But I did not. I was tired, wanted to go to sleep, had an early start the next day. But I should have. Should have. The guilt. And the horror…

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