VZCZCXRO3417
PP RUEHPA
DE RUEHAB #0913/01 2411654
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 291654Z AUG 07
FM AMEMBASSY ABIDJAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3464
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
RUEHDS/AMEMBASSY ADDIS ABABA 0126
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC
RUEPGDA/USEUCOM JIC VAIHINGEN GE

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. 
 
------- 
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. 
 
------ 
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