H.E. Mr. Hans Dahlgren, for this invitation. I am grateful for this opportunity to brief the members of the Security Council on the IASC Statement, exchange views on the role of UN agencies under sanctions regimes, and pursue a dialogue on the humanitarian impact of sanctions. My colleagues, Ed Tsui and Claude Bruderlein, who have gained a great deal of experience in this area, are here to help me. In the IASC Statement, UN agencies and major international humanitarian organizations expressed their concern over the humanitarian consequences of sanction regimes for the well-being of civilian populations.
Most sanctions have humanitarian consequences on the civilian population of the targeted country.
Economic sanctions and trade embargos in particular negatively affect the livelihood of the vulnerable segments of the civilian population in targeted countries, especially in protracted sanction regimes. Moreover, regional embargos endorsed by the Security Council, as in the case of Burundi or Sierra Leone, have created new obstacles to UN operations in humanitarian crisis situations. The lack of resources and adequate expertise in the administration of sanction regimes at the regional level has significantly complicated the delivery of critical humanitarian assistance by UN agencies and international NGOs. In the case of Burundi, the importation of food, seeds, fertilizers and fuel for the distribution of humanitarian relief was delayed for months causing the suspension of vital programs of assistance to vulnerable groups, especially among the internally displaced populations. In order to overcome these problems, sanctions should be managed in a more transparent and methodological manner.