Press BRIEFING ON 2005 HUMANITARIAN APPEAL

 

The present emergency in Cote d’Ivoire was an illustration of how very costly it was not to invest in humanitarian work, while other successes demonstrated a fantastic return on the money from such investment, the
Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Jan Egeland, said
this afternoon at a Headquarters press briefing on the launch of the
2005 Humanitarian Appeal.

With him was Angelina Atyam, Chair of Uganda’s Concerned Parents Association, speaking on behalf of parents whose children had been abducted in northern Uganda, one of 14 humanitarian emergency targets for a $1.7 billion appeal on behalf of 26 million people.

The emergency in Cote d’Ivoire was one consequence of the weak international humanitarian response to that country’s situation, Mr. Egeland continued.  Little attention had been given to Cote d’Ivoire and the problems of displacement there.  As a result, its portion of the appeal had been difficult to fund.  Only 18 per cent of the amount requested had been met during the last year.  In Sierra Leone, 40 per cent had been met.  Overall in 2004, the Consolidated Appeal had received only 52 per cent of the funding required.

The experience of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) showed that societies in which there was investment were able to come back from the brink of the abyss, he said.  For that reason, the focus of this year’s Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) had set an achievable target of
$1.7 billion.  It was half that of last year and should be 100 per cent fulfilled, since that was the equivalent of only six modern fighter jets.  More big donors could easily achieve that, if they followed the lead of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Ireland, the biggest donors compared to their gross domestic product (GDP).  And for that reason, this year’s appeal was centred on the “forgotten” humanitarian crises that remained behind, once situations moved past the emergency phase and took on developmental components.

This year’s appeal was the smallest amount sought since 2000, he said, based on a figure derived after consultation with the 104 agencies on whose behalf it was requested.  Rigorous needs assessments had been conducted and priorities established for a coordinated effort to target the specific needs of 14 emergencies.  Those were in Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chechnya, Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Great Lakes, Guinea, the occupied Palestinian territory, Somalia, Uganda and West Africa.

In response to a question, he said the amount requested was so small because some situations, such as Sierra Leone and Angola, had moved beyond the humanitarian emergency stage and the work had assumed broader development components.  Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia and the Sudan were also out of the consolidated appeals process, since they all had their own funding mechanisms.  The situations targeted this year were the ones where specific humanitarian situations were acute.

Angelina Atyam said her daughter Charlotte’s situation illustrated the crisis in northern Uganda.  She spoke on behalf of many parents with a similar experience.  Her daughter had been abducted on 10 October 1996 by the rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).  She had been taken to the neighbouring Sudan, where she was held captive and enslaved sexually for eight years until she escaped with two other children in July of this year.  Over 22,000 had been abducted.  Many had died of sexual diseases.  HIV/AIDS was a big problem among the returnee children.

She said the region was beset by many problems as a result of being left behind educationally, health-wise and in all ways.  Sustainable peace could not be achieved without addressing those problems.

Asked if a settlement between the LRA and her country’s Government would cure the problem, she said her country had seen many conflicts since it had gained independence.  No political settlement would lead to sustainable peace without an address of the humanitarian crises that made the region vulnerable and without hope for a future.

In response to a question, Mr. Egeland said this year’s focus had been sharpened to the life-saving humanitarian aspects of the work in each region.  The
723 projects focused on protecting, vaccinating, feeding and caring for millions of people in difficult situations.  Delivery of assistance was the focus for the occupied Palestinian territories, as an example.  It was the largest portion of the total.  Of the $1.7 million, $302 million was intended for the West Bank and Gaza due to the severity of the declining living conditions.  It was impossible for outsiders to conceive what a humanitarian crisis that represented, with
700 road blocks impeding ambulances and food trucks.

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