CONSOLIDATED APPEALS FOR 2003 TO BE LAUNCHED NEXT WEEK

      NEW YORK, 12 November -- The United Nations will launch Consolidated Appeals for humanitarian assistance in 2003 on 19 and 20 November.  The countries and regions for which the humanitarian community will appeal for support in 2003 are:  Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, Chechnya and neighbouring Republics (Russian Federation), Côte d’Ivoire (and West Africa subregion), Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Great Lakes Region, Guinea, Indonesia, Liberia, occupied Palestinian territory, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Southern Africa Region, Sudan, Tajikistan, and Uganda. 

The Consolidated Appeals will be launched in eight cities around the world.  On 19 November, the Deputy Secretary-General, Louise Fréchette, will be the keynote speaker at the Launch in Bern; in Washington, D.C., the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, Mark Malloch Brown; in Brussels, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Sergio Vieira de Mello; in Luxembourg, the Representative of the Secretary-General for Internally Displaced Persons, Francis Deng; and in New York, by Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund, together with Carolyn McAskie, Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.  On November 20, the Consolidated Appeals will be launched in The Hague by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers; in Tokyo, by the Executive Director of the World Food Programme, James Morris; and in Canberra by Kenzo Oshima, Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs.

The theme of the 2003 Consolidated Appeals, Hope for the Future, emphasizes the importance of providing hope to communities ravaged by conflict and other crises.  Yet it also addresses the need to support countries emerging from crisis or conflict, such as Afghanistan and Sierra Leone, which require humanitarian aid during the critical transition period leading to durable peace and sustainable development.  With the aim of bringing food to the hungry, medical assistance to the sick, shelter to displaced populations, and providing for other basic needs, aiding some 50 million people in failed States, countries facing civil war or communities devastated by conflict, the Consolidated Appeals Process is a tool created a decade ago by the United Nations General Assembly to plan a common humanitarian strategy and maximize resources.

For further information, please contact Stephanie Bunker, OCHA New York, tel. 212 963-4832 (bunker@un.org) or Madeleine Moulin-Acevedo, OCHA Geneva, tel. 41 22 917-3160 (moulin-acevedo@un.org).

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