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population at risk. The numbers were daunting. A regionwide
target population of half a million in December 1991
doubled in six months to one million, sextupled to three
million in the next six months, and topped four million less
than a year later (See Figure 2.3 on page 32).
As the crisis widened, so did UNHCR’s operations, budget,
personnel, and other infrastructure. The agency tried to
delegate responsibilities. UNHCR dipped into funds it had
mobilized to underwrite their start-up activities and personnel
costs. In August 1992, realizing that needs were outrunning
its capacities, it identified three areas for donor government
action: energy, physical infrastructure, and public utilities.
Initially there were few takers, with UNHCR retaining
direct operational responsibility across a wide range of sectors.
However, in mid-1993 a private sector consortium with
substantial funding from donor governments, the International
Management Group (IMG), was created. It was designed
to address “those large-scale interventions related to
shelter, infrastructure (water and sanitation) and energy in
Bosnia and Herzegovina which are beyond the capacity of the
U.N. system to implement.” The phase-down of UNHCR’s
shelter activities was delayed because IMG did not begin
activities in the region until late 1993.
Despite efforts to delegate some of its major tasks, UNHCR
did so belatedly and haltingly. As a result, the potential
contributions of other organizations remained untapped. On
the one hand, UNHCR concedes that it might well have
delegated coordination of medical evacuations to IOM, thereby
concentrating more fully on its own central functions. On the
other hand, UNHCR was probably right in retaining responsibility
for social services and eventually spinning some activities
off to NGOs. Whatever the particulars, the “culture of
cooperation” needed between the lead agency and its colleagues
was slow to develop. To its own detriment, UNHCR
became, in the words of one observer, “the tree that hides the
forest.”
Also at work was confusion about the concept of a lead
agency. While the terms of reference of a lead agency were
never spelled out, UNHCR might have approached its task, as
had lead agencies in Angola and Ethiopia, more as one of
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