EuropaWorld 2/3/2001 The Numbers Beset by Famine and Homelessness Continue to Grow,

Lack of response by the international donor community to urgent appeals issued by various UN agencies continues to give cause for concern. In Sudan, 600,000 are at immediate risk of famine and a further two and a half million face chronic food insecurity, but the response to a $244 million appeal by the United Nations has been little more than 1 per cent.

In Afghanistan, which this week the United Nations Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, Kenzo Oshima, described as "a sea of humanity in unbelievable misery, destitution and indignity," UNHCR is so short of supplies that up to three refugee families have to share a tent and many refugees are dying in the bitter winter cold. The last UN Afghan appeal was for $229 million but earlier this month the country co-ordinator - Erik de Mul - was talking about a 'recipe for catastrophe' if, as seemed probable, only half of this were funded.

On his tour Kenzo Oshima reckoned that "tens of millions of dollars" would be needed to keep famine at bay. This week he elaborated that estimate into a quarter billion dollar appeal which he said was "the minimum necessary requirement to provide basic support for Afghanistan to prevent the crisis from developing into a catastrophe." Over 1 million Afghans were at risk of famine, he said, while millions more were suffering from the most grinding poverty imaginable.

The omens for seeing this appeal met by a fatigued donor community are not good. A pattern is beginning to emerge. For example, UN World Food Programme (WFP) operations in Zambia are under funded by 20 percent; lack of response to previous appeals has left them dangerously short of supplies to carry on feeding 80,000 refugees from the conflicts in the DRC and Angola.

The agency launched a $10-million emergency operation in January after the first earthquake hit El Salvador. But so far, and despite two further earthquakes, it has received only one donation, from the Canadian government, for $164,000. It is currently drawing temporarily $1 million from a general fund for emergencies; however, these funds will soon be exhausted. Only limited food stocks remain.

On the 20th February this year WFP was again stressing that another of its programmes would be subject to life threatening cuts unless and until the international community came up with more money. At a consultation meeting with donors in Rome, Catherine Bertini, WFP's charismatic Chief Executive, pointed out WFP's resources in 2000 had only reached 80% of its requirements. She stressed that continued under-funding meant that the agency's ability to deliver adequate responses in all necessary situations would inevitably be curtailed. The Great Lakes operation being a case in point.

This is supposed to cover 1.2 million people in Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania until July 2001 - victims of conflict and drought - who have lost for the time being their means of sustenance and rely on food aid to survive. Last year, WFP was forced to slash food rations for Burundi refugees sheltering in Tanzania due to a severe funding crunch. Food-for-work programmes to help rebuild Rwanda after the genocide also had to be cut back. But WFP's international appeal for funding the Great Lakes operations is still some $98 million short of the requested target of $274 million.

What makes the funding shortfalls even more disturbing is the fact that they come at a time when acute food insecurity is increasing across the globe. More prevalent and prolonged weather disturbances, together with a steady eruption of new conflicts continue to generate refugees and displaced people with no independent access to food, while natural disasters - such as the earthquakes in El Salvador and India - exacerbate an already dire situation. As a result WFP is predicting that it will need to extend its operations in 2001, delivering 37 million tonnes of food aid - an increase of 15 per cent.

Other vital agencies have funding problems too. Last autumn the UN Population Fund, the largest agency offering advice on reproductive health to the developing world, was quite literally running out of contraceptives at some of its field offices. Meanwhile the developed world was wringing its hands about the seriousness of the AIDS pandemic. At the last minute the UK and the Netherlands stepped in with an offer of $75 million.

UNHCR, the United Nations Geneva based refugee agency is still, fifty years after its founding, coping with 22 million refugees around the world. But the evidence is that it is having to do more and more with less and less. Like WFP, the UNHCR relies on donor governments for its funding. In the year 2000 UNHCR agreed a budget of $931 million. But income received from donors came to less than $836 million - a shortfall of 15 per cent - which is why Afghan children are dying for lack of shelter outside the walls of Herat.

Moreover, UNHCR's reserves - from which it has to meet major crises and humanitarian emergencies as they arise - have fallen from $314 million at the beginning of 1995 to less than $100 million at the beginning of 2000, decreasing the precious margin of flexibility.

For this year UNHCR has set a budget of $953 million - but it is anyone's guess how much of this will be delivered or when. Indeed UNHCR funding in 2001 will be a real test of the former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers' negotiating skills as he battles with reluctant governments in the developed world from his new position as High Commissioner for Refugees.

Categories: UN, Hunger