JOINT COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS debate -
Tuesday, 8 Nov 2005

Timor-Leste: Presentation.

Chairman

Apologies have been received from Deputies Davern and O'Donnell. The minutes of the meeting held on 25 October have been circulated. Are they agreed? Agreed.

No matters arising, we will move on to a discussion with a delegation from Concern on its work in Timor-Leste. I welcome Mr. PeterBaynard-Smith, Concern's regional director in Asia, before the committee. The Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Conor Lenihan, will join us at 4 p.m. to discuss the committee's report on achieving the 0.7% overseas development aid target and the forthcoming World Trade Organisation meeting. This part of the meeting must conclude by that time.

The committee wrote to Concern in September asking for details of its work in Timor-Leste. We received a response in October, for which I thank Mr. Baynard-Smith. The purpose of today's discussion is to explore that and inquire whether there are any matters that Concern believes might be addressed by the joint committee in the context of its report, which is being prepared. Perhaps we might commence with a brief presentation by Mr. Baynard-Smith, after which I will invite contributions from the floor. I believe that he has a general idea of what members would like to hear from him, being the man on the ground.

Mr. Peter Baynard-Smith

It is a privilege to attend, and I thank the joint committee for its interest in Concern's work in East Timor. I am the regional director for Asia but am based in Dublin. Concern works in approximately six to eight countries in Asia, a number that can go up and down depending on what emergencies have happened recently. It is my responsibility to oversee the work, including that in Timor-Leste. Concern has been working in East Timor since 1999, following the events of that year.

I hope that the paper gives members an overview of our work. It would not be of any added benefit to go through it step by step, since it is fairly self-explanatory. However, I would like to highlight one or two areas. Unfortunately, I do not know any of the members, so I am not aware of their level of knowledge of East Timor. However, I assume that it is relatively advanced, and I will therefore avoid going into its history. Instead, I will focus on Concern's work.

At a global level, Concern is focused on the sectors of primary education, health care, livelihood security, HIV-AIDS and emergency preparedness, mitigation and response. In Timor-Leste, the programme involves livelihood security, health and nutrition and emergency preparedness and response. We are not actively engaged in the education sector and the HIV-AIDS work we are doing fits into the areas of livelihood security and health.

We have had a programme in place since January 2003 in two districts — Lautem in the far east of the country and Manufahi in the central highlands — and we work in two sub-districts within those areas. Essentially the work is at a community, family, village, and household level. Concern's work for the past five years has been at the grassroots and has demonstrated to us the essential nature of long-term, sustainable grassroots development. That foundation is fundamental before moving to the next stage at a higher, more strategic level.

We work closely with local NGOs as far as they exist in Timor-Leste. The country's history does not lend itself to a developed civil society but that is changing. It is gradually emerging and strengthening and we have been able to work at the forefront of that with local NGOs. The work involved in the livelihood security programmes includes food, food security, agriculture, natural resource management, watershed management, forest resources and permaculture.

We are designing a programme for the five years until 2010, Concern's current commitment to Timor-Leste, which was renewed last year. We will now work at a district level as opposed to local community level. The objective is to replicate and make sustainable our successful interventions to date. At the same time, as the committee will know because DCI's work has been focused on this area, the decentralisation of government structures in Timor-Leste is being planned. It is important that Concern, in collaboration with DCI, engages with the process. We will not be in Timor-Leste forever so we aim to build capacity for the Government and civil society to be in a position where we can withdraw knowing that the impact we have had can be sustained. The new programme at district level will be more engaged in influencing policy and processes in rural development in the two districts I mentioned.

We are currently carrying out nutrition assessments. The nutritional situation in Timor-Leste is increasingly serious. We admit that we have had difficulty in securing government agreement regarding what must be done and mounting a nutrition programme. That is a matter we can discuss later, since any influence DCI and the Irish Parliament could exert would certainly be of benefit to us. The 2003 acute malnutrition rate of 12%, according to Ministry of Health figures, is extremely worrying and we cannot ignore it. At a local level we are trying to assess how bad the situation is. We have a team on the ground undertaking a nutritional assessment with a view to initiating a programme.

Those are the highlights that I would like to draw out. As I mentioned, the decentralisation processes are crucial for us. We want to see those plans come to fruition. I understand from my own visit to Timor in July that the policies will be in place concretely from the middle of 2006 for a decentralised structure between regional and district level. It will create three new regions of east, west and central, with a secretary of state for each, and set up government units between the current districts and sub-districts. That will be a critical level for us to work and engage with the government. In the long term it is not sustainable to work at the level of communities. If government structures do not have the requisite rootedness in a decentralised scenario, one could be working at too high a level and find oneself not having an impact on the poorest in the country, which is the objective of our mission. That is something on which we are keeping tabs to understand at what level we can engage with the government as it matures and develops and as the structures are put in place.

I will stop there in order that we have time for questions. There is more detail in the paper, which I hope everyone has had a chance to read.

Chairman

A few questions come to mind immediately but I will ask Deputy Allen to begin.

Deputy Allen

In my case, Mr. Baynard-Smith has wrongly assumed that I have an advanced knowledge of Timor-Leste. Regarding the funding from the Irish Government or DCI, is Concern the only Irish NGO on the ground and is all the funding going to it? Is some of it being transferred between the governments? If there is a degree of such funding, is Concern happy that it is being used effectively by the local authorities? Is there a strong system of checks and balances in place?

Mr. Baynard-Smith

I understand Trócaire also has partners in East Timor. I am not sure whether it has a presence as such, but it runs a programme through local partners. Clearly, DCI funding to Concern under the multi-annual programme scheme goes to our programmes, working as I described. It does not go between governments via an NGO. DCI funding to East Timor bilaterally is another matter and I do not have any information or figures. However, when I was there in July I met DCI's representative, Ms CarolHannon. I understand from her that the focus of government to government support is on governmental capacity building through a UNDP programme, working with women's networks at civil society level, human rights and democratisation, support for the justice sector, decentralisation and the truth and reconciliation commission.

I have worked in ten developing countries, including Mozambique, which, as a former Portuguese colony, has some similarities to Timor-Leste. I was impressed at the level of maturity and the amount the Timorese Government was trying to learn from the experiences of countries to which it could relate such as Mozambique. I met a number of government officials whose principal aim was to avoid getting involved in practices that could be considered questionable. There is a strong emphasis on a new start in Timor-Leste where, following the Indonesian and Portuguese occupation, the government does not want to make the same mistakes as some African countries.

Our experience in the nutrition programme is that there is a sense the government can do everything itself but the country is still finding its feet. We want to engage with the government in a way where we are not doing this for it but supporting and strengthening what it undertakes. It is important to us that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past. Timor-Leste is a new country and we should take a positive line with theTimorese Government, which is trying to start with a clean sheet and put good systems in place. The systems, however, are immature and we must work with the government to build them until the good intentions become good practice.

Deputy M. Higgins

I welcome the representative of Concern; we support the organisation's efforts. At our last comprehensive presentation on Timor-Leste a number of issues arose. The Government had received a specific request for assistance on the international legal question on the ownership of resources and the case taken on the law of the sea. Only last week representatives of the Australian Parliament suggested this matter had been resolved by dividing royalties on a ratio of 90:10. Does this bring the matter to a conclusion or does the request for assistance with the international legal case still stand?

I understand that the Timor-Leste Government is one of the governments asked to sign an immunity clause as a condition for aid from the United States. That would have implications for its sovereignty. I could be wrong in that regard.

On the food transfers taking place, Mr.Baynard-Smith might be in a position to give us an assurance that we are not talking about genetically modified food.

When we discuss Timor-Leste, I think of Mr. Hyland, who is present and who has done so much work for Timor-Leste. We discussed something that concerns me on DCI and the funding of programmes. We will have time to discuss this at another meeting when we are discussing DCI and its structure, but it seems extraordinarily more difficult to send personnel to develop skills in areas such as administration and other practical skills such as construction than it used be. Constituents regularly telephone what was APSO to find that it has gone into a deep slumber in DCI. It does not exist officially but the people who worked in it are still there. That is an issue, in so far as the people representing Timor-Leste asked us, as a committee, for assistance in the training of personnel at different levels including administration; this relates directly to the question of the development of hamlet and village structures and their relationship to the decentralisation programme.

I am interested by the reference in the Concern paper to monitoring new models of development. This is important. I will make my most pessimistic remark now. There was more emphasis on technology transfer in the development literature at the end of the 1970s than there is 30 years later. For example, I note that Concern has the vast majority of the people involved in water sanitation projects. Mr. Baynard-Smith might tell us a little more about that. That is excellent in a way. What technology is being transferred? Would he describe it as, for example, basic technology, indigenous technology and linkages or is there, something under-publicised in the corruption equation, an attempt by donor countries to dump high-level technology with no possibility of subsequent maintenance into countries for which it is clearly not suited?

The classic paradox is evident, where over 70% of the participants in literacy classes are women while they are relatively excluded from civil society. One needs to be extremely careful about that issue. In many developing contexts, the uses of literacy by women in rural settings are crucial to the success of the development model.

No doubt the most worrying part of the Concern paper is the acute malnutrition rate, particularly its impact on children. Mr. Baynard-Smith might tell us about the sources of the food imports and the ratio of the food imports to the capacity for production. The reason I asked my question about genetically modified food, which was not an ideological question, is that it affects the capacity for seed reproduction and people's autonomous ability to plant crops in the future.

Mr. Baynard-Smith

On that last point, as it was related to the earlier point on food, Concern's work in nutrition uses local food only. We do not import food into Timor. Although I do not have the figures to hand, we are not talking about a food deficit at national level in Timor. We are talking about pockets of extreme poverty and malnutrition in some of the very remote highland and inland areas of the country. We are able to source the food in the country and GM issues do not arise.

With regard to water, sanitation and technology transfer, as Concern's focus is on the extreme poor, we always try to target that level. One factor has greatly affected poverty in Timor-Leste. During Indonesian rule, people were required to leave remote areas so that they could be serviced by the public infrastructure. Health and education services were provided in provincial towns, such as Turiscai. People are now free to return to their home areas, where they will have the space to rear livestock, grow food and so forth. It is in the transfer of people back to those areas that some are suffering because the government is not in a position to resource them with water, education and health services and so on. Our water and sanitation focus is on basic, appropriate, local technology, and on using groundwater sources. The environment is water rich but we must focus on the issue of access to the water.

With regard to literacy, a speaker hit the nail on the head when connecting the exclusion of women from civil society organisations and the high level of illiteracy among women. While I am not sure which factor is the chicken and which the egg, there is a direct correlation. We need to attack this issue from both sides. We need to strengthen the civil society organisations in such a way that they focus more on gender issues while also taking on the educated women who are available to work in those organisations. At the same time, we need to focus on women's literacy at community level so that, in the long term, the society will have a better balance across the genders.

I do not have much information with regard to the Timor Gap and the arrangements with Australia, and cannot comment on the matter.

Deputy M. Higgins

Has Mr. Baynard-Smith encountered any extra administrative personnel from Ireland, such as we sent in the old days?

Mr. Baynard-Smith

It is an issue. One of the problems with regard to the nutrition programme is that the Timor-Leste Government asked why an international project manager was needed for this project. Our response is that this is a serious nutrition situation and that Concern is an international organisation which can bring international expertise in nutrition. By all means, we will train local counterparts but, at the beginning, we need to frontload this process because the situation is becoming an emergency. That is the point at which we have a blockage. There is a sense from the Timor-Leste Government side that it can do it all itself. It wants to avoid an influx of foreigners, taking jobs from the Timorese. We do not want that either because we want to rebuild the capacity of the Timorese.

The question with regard to APSO and so forth is a larger one concerning the role of western volunteers in development work, which is a scenario evolving from previous decades.

Chairman

From what we heard from our Australian colleagues when they came before the committee, the Australians are trying to make reasonably satisfactory arrangements. While bound by the law of the sea, they are also considering where the boundaries should be, given the rights of Australia and Timor-Leste. They seem reasonably happy that the question of boundaries is progressing under international arbitration. When might the resources become available? A basis for allocating resources has been achieved. How long will it be before the resources even begin to become available?

Mr. Baynard-Smith

I would like to put that question to the country director, who would be much more familiar with the relevant details.

Chairman

Perhaps Mr. Baynard-Smith will ask that question and forward the reply to the committee.

Mr. Baynard-Smith

Yes.

Senator Norris

Deputy Allen is engagingly honest and modest about his not being entirely au fait with all the intricacies of East Timor. He expressed a lack of knowledge as to how committed the committee was or how much information it had. This committee is playing quite a significant role in this matter, as is the Seanad. We have monitored it from the time Mary Robinson was in the Seanad. I have taken up the matter, as have other Senators, including the Leader.

Mr. Tom Hyland from the East Timor Ireland Support Campaign was before this committee on a number of occasions. He is now in Timor-Leste and is back in touch with me. I spoke to him this morning. I did not tell him Concern representatives would be before the committee but he said the work Concern is doing in the region is proceeding very well, as is the work on the development aid programme. I was expecting him to be a little more pessimistic because he was still worrying about the infrastructural mess in the region when I spoke to him some time ago. He emphasised the idea of building the capacity of the people of Timor-Leste. It is important in every way that this be done. He also suggested that Ireland had more or less adopted a position as special mentor to Timor-Leste. I hope this committee will confirm this and urge the Government to continue granting the aid it is giving.

Mr. Hyland is engaged professionally in education. He is teaching English to the Foreign Ministry and agreed with me that it would be quite delightful to have foreign affairs officials of Timor-Leste speaking good English with a Ballyfermot accent — we can look forward to this. He also tells me there have been successful elections at district, local and village levels in the very recent past. Heads were elected at village level. This is a positive development.

Mr. Hyland also suggested that further help would be very useful in the educational area, particularly in terms of information technology. A number of people from Timor-Leste have been in Ireland and have studied in Trinity College, for example, at the instigation of Mr. Hyland. Mr. Hyland said there had not been very many visits by Irish representatives to East Timor, apart from that of David Andrews who, on his return, spoke to the Seanad with refreshing honesty and without using diplomatic language. Mr. Andrews gave an impassioned report on what had been happening and what he had seen in the country. He suggested this committee might consider sending representatives to see what was happening on the ground there. I will leave that before the committee to consider.

I agree wholeheartedly with Deputy Michael D. Higgins that it is important to monitor the arrangements made regarding the Timor Gap with the Australians. The Australian authorities are very powerful, very bullying and completely without principle. Their present position on the people of Timor-Leste has been forced upon them by the international community and the outrage of their own people at the scandalous, immoral and illegal behaviour of Australian Governments in the past.

On the nutrition programme, the figure of 12% is alarming. The lack of nutrition among children is obviously intolerable and unconscionable. How anomalous is this figure in comparison with statistics pertaining to other countries in the region?

Mr. Baynard-Smith

It is high but the malnutrition exists in pockets. We are trying to determine how bad it is. The demographic survey by the Ministry of Health was conducted at national level but not at sub-district level. This was a demographic survey at a national level by the Ministry of Health. It did not go down to sub-district level. That is what we are trying to do in the areas that have been broadly identified as the worst affected by malnutrition. We are trying to get the substance of that detail at a more local level.

Senator Norris

That type of additional information will be very useful and also the degree to which this is determined by a lack of local agricultural production coming on-stream after the disturbances — and the level at which they will remain for some time dependent on supplies. What can we do? We are here as politicians. All we can do, in effect, is raise public awareness, which we have done with relative success. We communicated this matter effectively to the Irish public. There was a mass feeling about East Timor, a place most people had not heard of. We can sometimes be successful in putting pressure on Government or advising it or being helpful in that way. We cannot have any other direct impact, however.

Mr. Baynard-Smith mentioned HIV-AIDS there. I noticed he also raised the question of gender equality and so on. This is rather a sensitive area in these types of societies. I have come in contact, for example, with young Timorese gay people who have had a very thin time indeed. If infection gets into that community while it is subject to the type of cultural repression that exists in East Timor, then there will be a time bomb, because bridges will be created into the majority population. That is precisely what I warned about ten or 15 years ago in India.

I know it might be a courageous step, but is it possible to put that on the agenda? An international group from outside putting questions of sexual orientation on the agenda at least makes it possible for some of the vulnerable people there to use that headline to secure better understanding of their own rights.

Mr. Baynard-Smith

I agree with Mr. Hyland in terms of the focus on building the capacity of the Timorese. That is very much the focus that we have in our own team and in the civil society NGO organisations we work with as well as the capacity building of government at the local level. I agree that Ireland is a special mentor and I have been struck by that. My first contact was with Dr. Horta when he was here in May or June.

Concern sees food security, agriculture, nutrition, HIV-AIDS, all of which are linked, as the areas of its strategic focus. We are not in a position to broaden into other areas at this time. That is not to say that education is not absolutely critical to a country such as Timor. However, at this time our capacity has led us to focus on those areas rather than education, not diluting our efforts too much so that we can carry out our role effectively and in depth. No doubt Mr. Hyland will be lobbying the director in Dili, and perhaps we will see some changes now that he is there. There are other organisations that can, perhaps, focus on that area.

In terms of the nutrition information, I will be happy to share the assessment report when it is completed. It is being done over the coming few weeks. Our international nutritionist arrived last week. We had some difficulties in getting government agreement to bring in an international nutritionist to run the programme, so she has gone in to carry out the assessment. It is a fine line and we are using her creatively. Hopefully we will end up with the detailed information which will be of benefit to the committee. I am happy to share it.

Concern's strategy is to mainstream HIV-AIDS in all our programmes. Within education, health and livelihood security, we try to discover the impact of HIV-AIDS on the development gains that we are making in our programmes. We also ask ourselves whether we are doing anything that is worsening the situation and what we can do to minimise the damage and strengthen the impact of our work. The issue of HIV and sexual orientation is part of our rights-based programme across the organisation and the equality agenda in Concern. When they are married together, one cannot say that any one group can be excluded from——

Senator Norris

It is not mentioned at all in Concern's document.

Mr. Baynard-Smith

No, it is not. I accept that.

Senator Norris

I do not mean to be rude, but is that because of the repressive nature of the culture? How does Mr. Baynard-Smith assess the impact of the churches?

Mr. Baynard-Smith

I have been in this position since February 2005 and I was in Mozambique before that. In Mozambique, I came from an environment where HIV-AIDS was top of the agenda in everything. In Asia, it is not as high on the agenda of countries, organisations, individuals and of local organisations on the ground as it is in Africa. Much work must be done. In places with huge populations, such as Bangladesh and India, a small percentage of the total population is contracting HIV, but that represents huge numbers. The potential for the explosive spread of HIV from minority groups is frightening, be they from the gay and lesbian community, intravenous drug users, sex workers and so on. Timor-Leste, being less populous, has not received the same degree of attention.

In Asia, Concern is prioritising HIV in a way we had not been doing in the past because Africa has been the main focus in this respect. In the next few weeks, we will appoint a regional co-ordinator for HIV-AIDS, who will be based in Phnom Penh, to give impetus to the HIV agenda within Concern. This document came from our director in Timor-Leste and it has not highlighted the HIV issue, but I expect that to change. As an organisation and with our partners on the ground, we are focusing far more on HIV. We want to avoid what is happening in Africa.

Chairman

What level of co-ordination exists between the NGOs? To what extent are the churches involved in social and development work? What would Concern do if it had more money? Could its programme benefit from further resources?

Mr. Baynard-Smith

I understand from my one visit there and from correspondence with country directors that NGO co-ordination has been very good within the sectors. Within the health sector, for example, there is a regular meeting with the Ministry of Health. The supplementary feeding that we are planning within the nutrition programme is in collaboration with Oxfam, which has already been involved with the local production of supplementary food. We co-operate with Oxfam in that regard and bring it to some of the more remote areas where we operate and it does not. The challenge is that strong national NGOs do not exist within some sectors. National NGOs must be strengthened to be in a position where they can co-ordinate and liaise well with the others.

As for the churches, while our involvement has not been specifically with them, clearly Timor-Leste is one of a handful of countries in south-east Asia where historically the churches have been strongly involved. I cannot comment specifically on the extent to which the social development approach of the churches has an effect. I understand they have proved to be a strong element of civil society. Demonstrations mounted by the churches regarding the issue of religious education in Timor and the government's drive for a more secular education system resulted in some changes in policy. Hence, they are undoubtedly a strong element of civil society.

As for what we would do if we had more money, Concern has increased its involvement in the nutrition sector in Timor. It is intended that the requisite resources will come from the multi-annual programme scheme, where we anticipate growth. With our colleagues in Development Co-operation Ireland, we are budgeting for an increased budget globally, some of which will then go to East Timor. We will continue to increase our involvement. We are not certain of our continued presence in Timor-Leste beyond 2010. However, from 2005 to 2010, we will see a considerable increase financially, geographically and across different areas.

Senator Kitt

I have a question on gender equality, to which Mr. Baynard-Smith has referred. He spoke about encouraging women to stand as candidates in village council elections. I want to bring him back to the points he mentioned in respect of his work in Africa, where there appears to be a higher participation of women in politics. For example, in Rwanda half the membership of parliament is female. Can Mr. Baynard-Smith outline the differences between Concern's work in Africa, as opposed to Timor, in respect of the participation of women in politics at parliamentary level?

Mr. Baynard-Smith

It is difficult to compare apples to oranges. Until very recently, Timor's history was one of occupation whereas within most African countries or African civil societies, women have had a longer timeframe since independence to emerge as a force and a counterbalance to male domination of politics or civil society. Development Co-operation Ireland was involved via the East Timorese Women's Network, Rede Feto, in the training of women to be involved in the recent suku, or village council, elections. Concern worked along similar lines at a local level. In both cases, there have been concrete results in terms of the election of women. It was an enormous step forward and was a concrete, practical, positive experience on the ground.

In Africa, the experiences of countries differ widely. Given the historical issues, one might compare Timor-Leste to other countries where independence has taken place recently. Perhaps some analysis could be carried out in that respect. However, the important factor was the effect of 25 years of Indonesian occupation and the role played by women. That would probably be a better analysis than a direct comparison to Africa generically.

Chairman

On behalf of all the members I thank you for coming before the committee and for working on the very useful paper, which will be helpful to us in preparing our report. I hope we can contact you at a later date if we need further information. We hope our report will further highlight the work you are doing and we wish you every success with it.

Mr. Baynard-Smith

Thank you very much.

Sitting suspended at 3.56 p.m. until 3.58 p.m.