CREATING AN ECHO THAT WILL BE HEARD AROUND THE WORLD

Ole Ryborg examines the origins and rapid growth of the agency spearheading the EU's international humanitarian aid effort.

In Chiangmai in northern Thailand, near the country's border with neighbouring Burma, several European aid organisations are running a base for almost 100,000 Burmese refugees who have fled from the oppressive military regime of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) established in Rangoon.

The refugees are not in dire straits. They are tolerated by the Thai authorities and are avowed to build houses with bamboo cut from the surrounding forest. But they are in need of food, medical care and drugs to combat debilitating diseases such as malaria.

The United Nations cannot help the Burmese who have fled their homeland since Thailand has not signed up to the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

But the EU is present on the ground via the nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), which the Thai authorities allow to operate in the area, and the activities of several of the NGOs are sponsored directly by the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO).

The assistance which the Union is providing to the Burmese refugees is just one graphic example of ECHO's operations and helps explain why it is now one of the largest donors of humanitarian aid in the world.

The aid agency's activities have grown rapidly since it was set up in 1992. Established pardy to meet demands for humanitarian assistance in the former Yugoslavia, ECHO still devotes a large part of its budget to victims of the conflict in the Balkans.

But its operations now stretch much further afield. Last year, ECHO provided 692-million-ecu worth of funding to aid projects in more than 50 countries, with the vast bulk of the money channeUed through 170 NGOs and various UN agencies.

In its brief life, ECHO has had to confront more than the usual logistical and other problems which face aid agencies working under difficult conditions in the field.

Back at its Brussels headquarters, it has been involved in several years of in-fighting with EU member states. The organisation was the offspring which no Union government either wanted or expected.

It emerged from an alliance between the Commission and the European Parliament which transformed the sporadic drops of assistance the Union handed out in the Eighties into what is now the world's premier humanitarian aid programme.

The then Development Commissioner Manuel Mann took the initiative to establish ECHO, and the Parliament ensured sufficient funding would be available by establishing a specific credit line for the organisation in the annual EU budget.

The move initially angered member states, since the decision had not been approved by the Council of Ministers and the legal base necessary for its operations did not exist.

This legal and political limbo continued until Emma Bonino took over as Commissioner with specific responsibility for ECHO in January 1995.It was on her initiative that the Commission presented EU governments with a draft regulation laying down a dear set of rules on how the organisation should be run and establishing a role both for member states and the European Parliament.

Adoption of the regulation has put ECHO on a formal footing and guaranteed its role in providing humanitarian aid. But it has not put an end to criticism from member states. One of their complaints is that ECHO places undue emphasis on a high profile for the Union. They fear that placing the 12-starred European flag on projects detracts from the visibility of their own national aid initiatives.

Bonino dismisses such concerns. She argues that since taxpayers' money is funding humanitarian aid programmes, ECHO's activities must be as transparent as possible.

Another criticism levelled at ECHO focuses on the lengthy delays between the time when aid is allocated and when it is actually spent. Some 200 million ecu of assistance earmarked for specific projects in 1994 is still lying unused in the EU budget, even though speed is invariably of the essence in distributing humanitarian aid.

Despite these complaints, ECHO is now a well-established feature of the Union's external relations policy and no one really questions its continued existence.

But like many other areas of Union activity, ECHO is now fighting hard to keep its share of EU funding. With hostilities at an end in the former Yugoslavia and Chechnya (the latter alone took up 20% of the organisation's expenditure last year), the Council of Ministers is looking to cut the humanitarian aid budget. Such moves, however, are likely to be resisted by MEPs.

"There is never any shortage of needs when you deal with humanitarian aid. It is money that you never have enough of," said one ECHO aid official.