PRESS BRIEFING BY UN EMERGENCY RELIEF COORDINATOR

The recent devastating earthquakes in India and El Salvador, and the tragic effects of lingering drought in Mongolia and the Horn of Africa region were but a few examples that natural disasters and compound emergencies were occurring more frequently, the newly appointed Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs told correspondents this afternoon at Headquarters.  The challenges of this new climate also meant prompt and coordinated international responses were needed.

Kenzo Oshima, in his first Headquarters press briefing, announced two critical appeals for assistance, launched today in Geneva under the auspices of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), to help alleviate the devastating effects of those large-scale tragedies.  This morning, the World Food Programme (WFP) had presented OCHA's request for $353 million to cover the needs of 13 million people in the Horn of Africa for one year.  He noted that the generous response to last year’s appeal which, while accounting for only

75 per cent of the total request, had still resulted in success.  Starvation had been averted and lives had been saved.  This year, it was critical to provide additional support, in the form of seeds, tools and sanitation services, to help restore the livelihoods of the people.

He said the second appeal launched today was for Mongolia, a country where first drought, and now severe winter conditions, had seriously endangered thousands of people.  OCHA was appealing for close to $12 million in assistance aimed at preserving the livelihoods of herding families, rehabilitating livestock services and ensuring the health and nutritional needs of Mongolia's most vulnerable people.

Mr. Oshima also asked that the international community not forget the plight of over 85,000 thousand people affected by the earthquake that struck El Salvador earlier this month.  He was particularly concerned about the provision of adequate shelter and sanitation services before the arrival of the spring rainy season.  The United Nations last Friday, together with the Government of El Salvador, launched an appeal for $34.8 million to bridge immediate emergency needs as well as address the longer-term reconstruction and rehabilitation challenges that country would face over the next six months.  He hoped that all those appeals would yield generous responses from the international community.

He reported that in Western India some 200,000 people were now homeless, possibly 100,000 more were missing and the death toll could reach unprecedented levels as more and more bodies were uncovered.  The most urgent requirements were for blankets, tents, heavy-lifting equipment and mobile communications services.  He said that OCHA's Disaster Assessment and Coordination team was currently working with the Government of India to coordinate the deployment of international assistance teams to the region.  OCHA had also released $150,000 from its emergency trust fund. 

Further, he added, three flights of materials and supplies had been organized from the WFP depot in Brindisi, Italy.  The first, sent earlier today, contained a 41-tonne cargo of World Health Organization (WHO) emergency health

kits, as well as blankets and generators.  The next flight would be sent on Thursday.  Overall, there had been a generous outpouring of assistance from donor governments, United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the private sector.  But the magnitude of the disaster, he said, would mean the attention and support of the international community would be needed long after the immediate crisis abated.

A correspondent asked whether Mr. Oshima had been satisfied with OCHA's supply depot programme.  Mr. Oshima responded that, while the depot in Brindisi had served the agency's purposes successfully in the past, even more progress could be made if there were other depots in strategic locations around the globe.  Supply depots in as many places as possible would make it easier to deliver relief materials much faster and perhaps, more inexpensively.  He added that OCHA was currently studying the possibility of increasing the number of storage facilities as part of its overall efforts to strengthen United Nations capacity to deliver prompt disaster relief.

Another correspondent asked if OCHA expected India to appeal for international assistance.  Mr. Oshima said that at present, India's Government had not made a request for an appeal.  However, assistance offered in such cases, as a show of international solidarity, was greatly appreciated.  That Government had accepted United Nations involvement on the ground in providing assistance to the earthquake victims, but a specific request had not been made.

Mr. Oshima said that OCHA's three-pronged approach to international disaster relief -- coordination among international relief agencies, policy development on humanitarian issues and advocacy -- was aimed at ensuring the best methods to deliver assistance were achieved.  In response to a correspondent's question about OCHA's relationship with large, autonomous international humanitarian organizations, he said that, indeed, effective coordination of international humanitarian actors in the field was often required.  But while that need might be great in some cases, it was important not to infringe on the specific areas of responsibility of other international actors.  Being too aggressive, in some circumstances, could be counterproductive.

Mr. Oshima told correspondents that journalists and humanitarian workers faced similar challenges in difficult climates.  Both risked their lives under increasingly dangerous conditions to ensure that the victims of complex emergencies received the assistance and protection they urgently needed.  All suffered too many losses, he added, citing a recent case where two members of the Japanese press corps covering the situation in Mongolia had been killed in a helicopter crash alongside four United Nations humanitarian workers.  "Yet we remain dedicated to the cause", he said, reaffirming his own commitment to building on the efforts of his predecessors to ensure that the victims of complex emergencies and natural disasters receive the assistance and protection they urgently required.

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