WORLD BANK, EU LEAD DONORS' POST CONFLICT EFFORTS;

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ABIDJAN 000913 SIPDIS SIPDIS TREASURY FOR D. PETERS DEPARTMENT FOR AF/W PLUMB, AF/EPS HASTINGS INR/AA GRAVES USAID FOR S. SWIFT, C. GARRETT USAID/WARP FOR MCCOWEN, RICHARDSON EMBASSY ADDIS ABABA FOR US AMBASSADOR TO AU PARIS, LONDON, USUN FOR AFRICA WATCHERS E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/28/2017 TAGS: ECON EFIN IDB IV PREL SUBJECT: WORLD BANK, EU LEAD DONORS' POST CONFLICT EFFORTS; INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY DISAPPOINTED AT PACE OF PEACE PROCESS REF: A. ABIDJAN 907 ¶B. ABIDJAN 906 ¶C. ABIDJAN 905 ¶D. ABIDJAN 895 Classified By: Charge CAkuetteh, Reasons 1.4 (b,d) ¶1. (C) Summary. The World Bank, European Union (EU) and the United National Operation in Cote d'Ivoire (UNOCI) held two closely-related meetings in the past 10 days on post-crisis coordination, where participants were unanimous in their frustration at the slow pace of progress. Identification and elections planning elicited particular ire, as they are supposed to occur imminently, while failure to move forward on disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR),redeployment of administration and other elements of the Ouagadougou Peace Accord (OPA) were also serious causes for concern. Members of the international community are currently attempting to organize themselves in order to more effectively coordinate their efforts (again) and planning to send President Gbagbo, Prime Minister Soro and OPA Mediator President Compaore a private letter outlining concerns and suggesting approaches that could kickstart progress. However, all of the participants recognize the relative weakness of the international community to achieve progress without the active engagement of the two principal protagonists. End Summary. ¶2. (C) The World Bank and EU held a donors roundtable on August 22, aiming to bolster the international community's coordinated efforts to push the Ivorian peace process forward. This meeting was followed shortly by one convened by the UNOCI's DDR division (headed by Jean Luc Stalon, number three in UNOCI and a frequent Embassy interlocutor) on August 27. The second meeting's participants were largely the same as those attending the WB/EU one, and the frustration and the conclusion regarding the lack of concrete means to kickstart the feeble peace process were the same in both. -------------- EU and World Bank Meeting Discusses Peace Process, Post-Crisis Funding, Coordination Mechanism -------------- ¶3. (C) The World Bank's DDR Chief Karen Melloul and the EU's DDR specialist Gianmarco Scuppa organized a donors roundtable that included all of the "UN Family" of agencies (UNDP, UNOCI, UNICEF, the WFP),the AfDB and the IMF, as well as most of the bilateral donor community, such as France, the U.S., Germany, the UK, Italy, Japan, Belgium and Canada. World Bank staff presented their assessment of the state of affairs, concentrating on the identification and elections challenges. The process to get those two elements of the OPA plan on track are, according to the Bank, listing badly, lacking in precision and beset by the fundamental failure of the principal antagonists in the situation, President Gbagbo and Prime Minister Soro, to cooperate. ¶4. (C) Melloul presented an example of how the current lack of precision can have profound implications by examining one element of the ID process and the problems that failure could cause for the anticipated 2008 elections (see reftels a, b, d). If, for example, those citizens who don't have birth certificates and who live in areas where birth records were destroyed are deemed ineligible to participate in the audiences foraines (as reconstitution of such registries is a separate task that in theory is to be carried out under a separate mandate),some 30 percent of the total population of those without papers could be excluded. The crux of the matter, according to both the EU and WB representatives, is the nexus between the audiences foraines and the elections. If a token audiences foraines process is carried out, with the bulk of the interviews to take place after the elections, perhaps a number as small as 300,000 out of a total potential pool of 3.5 million persons without papers would end up on the voter rolls for the upcoming elections. UNDP indicated it is managing a "basket fund" for coordinating funding for the audiences foraines, and that it is targeting its modest funding on ensuring the inclusion of rural women in the process. Representatives of Italy, the AfDB, Norway, Canada, Belgium and France all said they were examining their options ABIDJAN 00000913 002 OF 003 vis-a-vis providing resources for the identification program. The EU is funding a modest program of Euro 20 million that provides for the rehabilitation of regional administrative offices (mayor's offices, conseil generals offices, prefects offices, etc.),which could be reallocated for the audiences foraines if they actually are put into motion. (Note: The PM's office has said the audiences foraines will begin in the beginning of September, but we have seen nothing to date that would indicate this will come to pass. End Note) ¶5. (C) The EU and WB presented their assistance plans and encouraged other participants to do the same. The World Bank is somewhat stuck in a quandary, as it has Euro 120 million pledged in post-conflict and DDR funding, but is unable to spend the Euro 60 million earmarked for integrating former combatants into their communities and to fund the national DDR office (PNDDR) given the abject failure to move forward in grouping and disarming Forces Nouvelles and FANCI elements. Both the Bank and the EU, supported unanimously by the attendees, indicate that DDR is all but dead until the elections, save the Reintegration element. Within that latter rubric, the community-based rehabilitation program (Euro 40 million) and the separate program designed to help put the audiences foraines on track (Euro 20 million) is all that is likely to be funded. For its part, the EU said it has suspended its Euro 20 million program to aid in the dismantlement of militias in the Greater West due to the lack of progress on that score (reftel d). ¶6. (C) Government inability to develop realistic budgets for post-crisis activities was cited repeatedly. As the organ of government tasked with developing and implementing the plan to lead the country out of crisis, the Prime Minister's office (perhaps somewhat unfairly, given the existing political reality) was targeted for withering commentary, on subjects such as reintegration and the civil service program, which the WB pointed out would cost hundreds of millions of dollars if the 40,000 ex-fighters that the PM is notionally targeting were to be given government-funded positions as is currently discussed. The African Development Bank surprised the group by saying it was willing to provide $25-35 million for the civil service program, identification program, voter registration and redeployment of administration, but said it is unable to proceed due to lack of government (i.e. the PM' office) precision on programmatic development. ¶7. (C) The donor group agreed to form thematic subcommittees, roughly corresponding to the areas in which donors are currently or planning to contribute. The concept is designed to further refine the international community's efforts and coordination (Note: as with the previous international donors' "groupe de reflexion", the precise objective and the means to achieve it of the groups remain somewhat unclear. End Note). The U.S. is a member of the identification/elections subcommittee and an observer on the redeployment of administration, DDR and reform of military subcommittees. -------------- UNOCI DDR Meeting -------------- ¶8. (C) A meeting convened by UNOCI's DDR office brought together many of the same participants as the August 22 WB/EU meeting, and focused on the same lack of progress in DDR previously discussed. Opinions expressed and the diagnosis of the problem were virtually identical, if not somewhat more pessimistic. The reality that the assembled group is relatively powerless to drive the peace process forward without the leadership of the two main protagonists was clear. However, asked privately by Emboff if the group would be willing to publicly demand progress in discrete areas in order to push the process forward, Stalon said UNOCI was unprepared to do so at this juncture. ¶9. (C) The International Office of Migration (IOM) indicated that it sees holding elections and going forward with the audiences foraines to be courting disaster, that doing so risks scuttling the peace process altogether. ONUCI's Stalon, the WB and representatives from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and France disagreed ABIDJAN 00000913 003 OF 003 sharply, saying that the international community has to live with the reality that DDR is dead in the water, and that it will have to concentrate on pushing for progress in other post-crisis realms. In concluding the meeting, UNOCI's Stalon pushed through a plan to send a joint letter to President Gbagbo and PM Soro on the eve of their September 4 Senior Leaders meeting with mediator Compaore requesting attention and progress in certain key areas. The text of that letter is currently in development; Embassy Abidjan pressed for it to focus the international community's limited influence in achieving real progress in the "Greater West", the area of the country where long-standing ethnic rivalries have the greatest likelihood of undermining further the peace process (reftel d). ¶10. (C) Comment. The international community is frustrated and somewhat exhausted by the never-ending crisis. Its members complain that the underlying problems continue along with the unending costs of funding UNOCI, the World Bank, the IMF, the AfDB and bilateral projects. However, none seem willing to confront the problem by openly criticizing Cote d'Ivoire's leadership. The lack of a permanent Special Representative of the Secretary General (at this point, senior UNOCI officials do not even have rumors of who their next leader will be. The process in NY appears stalled from Embassy Abidjan's vantage point) only exacerbates the weakness of the international community to generate progress on its own. End Comment. AKUETTEH