HUMANITARIAN AGENCIES STILL NEED $434 MILLION FOR BALKANS THIS YEAR
Press Release
IHA/684
HUMANITARIAN AGENCIES STILL NEED $434 MILLION FOR BALKANS THIS YEAR
19990726 GENEVA/NEW YORK, 26 July (OCHA/UNHCR) -- Twelve United Nations humanitarian agencies and the International Organization for Migration today urged donors to continue funding humanitarian work in the countries of south-eastern Europe affected by the string of bloody conflicts which have devastated the region in the last decade of the twentieth century."Billions of dollars have been spent to pay for military interventions which finally brought peace to the Balkans. We are now asking for a fraction of that to do the necessary humanitarian work", said Sergio Vieira de Mello, the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator and former United Nations administrator in Kosovo.
The United Nations agencies said they had already received more than $500 million for the Balkans this year. They warned that lack of further funding could jeopardize vital humanitarian work in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the remaining months of 1999.
The United Nations said it had been forced to revise its funding requirements several times this year to keep up with rapidly changing challenges of the Kosovo crisis, which sent fresh shock waves through the entire Balkan region.
"One day we were looking at helping hundreds of thousands of Kosovo refugees in neighbouring countries to get through the winter. A few weeks later they all flooded back home and we had to shift our resources to Kosovo", said Sadako Ogata, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), whose organization leads the relief effort in the Balkans.
Over the past few weeks, a new challenge has emerged in Serbia and Montenegro, where 170,000 non-Albanians from Kosovo sought refuge following the withdrawal of the Serbian forces from the province. This has put a new strain on a country already hosting half a million refugees from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. A significant portion of the funds sought will be used to help them.
The 77-page joint funding appeal says $290 million is needed for the rest of the year to tackle humanitarian tasks in the aftermath of the Kosovo crisis -- the Balkans' latest humanitarian drama. But it makes clear that
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funds should not be seen as a substitute for a larger reconstruction effort in the war-ravaged province.
The United Nations said that the donors' focus on the high profile Kosovo crisis should not come at the expense of less visible but equally important humanitarian work underpinning the implementation of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, which put an end to three years of war in Bosnia.
The United Nations agencies say a further $144 million is necessary to fund refugee protection, human rights work, shelter, confidence-building projects, mine clearance, food aid and other relief work for those affected by earlier Balkan wars.
"No humanitarian challenge in the Balkans can be tackled in isolation. They are all equally vital for the region", said UNHCR's Ogata.
The United Nations said lack of funding could have adverse effects on the lives and well being of millions of people uprooted or otherwise affected by the series of conflicts in the Balkans this decade.
The organizations participating in the appeal are the following: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR); United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS); Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO); International Organization for Migration (IOM); Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA); Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR); United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA); United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF); United Nations Volunteers (UNV); World Food Programme (WFP); and World Health Organization (WHO).
The appeal also contains an annex with a funding appeal by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement which seeks 325 million Swiss francs (approximately $215 million) for programmes in south-eastern Europe.
The full text of the appeal can be found on the Internet at www.unhcr.ch or www.reliefweb.int.
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