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.

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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.

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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