NORWEGIAN HORN OF AFRICA EMERGENCY AID: HOLDING

C O N F I D E N T I A L OSLO 000593

SIPDIS

FOR USAID/FFP (CAROL MUTAMBA),USAID/OFDA (KASEY CHANNELL),
PRM (JANET DEUTSCH),AF/E (JOEL WIEGERT)

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/25/2019
TAGS: EAID PREF EAGR ET KE SO EUN
SUBJECT: NORWEGIAN HORN OF AFRICA EMERGENCY AID: HOLDING
BACK FOR THE FLOODS

REF: STATE 96625

Classified By: Political and Economic Counselor Cherrie Daniels for rea
sons 1.4(b) and (d)


1. (C) Summary: Poloff delivered reftel demarche to MFA
officials on September 24. After the Government of Norway
(GON)'s announcement September 9 that it would dedicate about
$8.7 million to emergency food aid for the Horn of Africa
region, the MFA emphasized that Norway has only about that
amount (between 8 and 9 million USD) left in its emergency
aid budget for the rest of the world, for the rest of the
calendar year. Since the Norwegians are already closely
monitoring the situation in the Horn of Africa, they were
already largely familiar with the information relayed in
reftel. The officials noted that effects from El Nino (i.e.
flooding disasters) might turn on the tap for further aid to
the region. End Summary.


2. (C) Poloff met September 24 with Torgeir Fyhri, Senior
Advisor in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Humanitarian
Issues Section. Fyhri is a specialist on the Horn of Africa.
He said that a delegation of MFA officials, including
himself and Geir Pedersen, Director General of the MFA's
Division for UN, Peace, and Humanitarian Issues, visited the
region in early September. The delegation spent most of its
time in Kenya, including a visit to the Dadaab camp for
Somali refugees. As a result of the visit, the Norwegian
government decided to release 50 million kroner
(approximately $8.7 million) for emergency food aid, which it
announced September 9. Fyhri characterized the situation in
the region as "severe" and "only likely to get worse in the
medium term."


3. (C) Fyhri said that the GON was not done with the internal
discussion on how to spend the money but he expected that the
funds would be disbursed to the UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA),the Kenyan Red
Cross, and the World Food Program (WFP). Fyhri mentioned the
difficulty of choosing where to apply the aid, as the
situation in Somalia was particularly disastrous, but
Al-Shabaab's presence there made delivery relatively
expensive.


4. (C) When Poloff pressed the issue of whether Norway could
contribute more in the coming months, Fyhri paused before
stating that there was not much left in the government's
emergency aid budget this calendar year -- only an amount on
the order of what has already been given to the Horn region.
He said that most of the money available in the GON budget
for emergency aid thi year had already been spent by this
point and te GON was holding some money in reserve for
sevee crises that might occur, most likely also in theHorn
of Africa region, when the drought turned t flooding as a
result of the El Nino weather pattern. While expressing
appreciation for Norway's recent contribution, Poloff
reemphasized the reftel USG positions on the importance and
severity of this food crisis, and that money was needed to
relieve suffering now.
HEG