15/4/2005
European Union Pledges Funds To Help Sudan

The European Commission announced this week that it would provide some €600 million towards Sudan's existing humanitarian and developmental needs over the next two years or so, although this will be linked to the effective implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the evolution of the situation in Darfur. The Commission made the pledge at the International Donors Conference in Oslo.

The Commission acknowledges the dimension of the humanitarian crises and security concerns. The Commission will therefore continue, as in recent years, to be a main provider of humanitarian aid. It will also continue to support the African Union mission in Darfur, which provides an element of stabilisation and protection. More funding could be available to meet additional humanitarian or security emergencies, the Commission said, including support for reconstruction in Darfur if the parties there were to sign a sustainable peace agreement.

A peace agreement signed in January brought to an end a long running civil war in the south of the country but turbulence persists in the western region of Darfur. Between the two conflicts some 6.5 million people have been driven from their homes and some 2 million killed. In addition, considerable damage has been done to agriculture and other infrastructure which requires repair and rebuilding.

The donor conference pledged a total of $4.5 billion almost $2 billion more than the UN had initially sought. Nevertheless, past experience shows that many pledges cannot be taken at face value as some governments rarely delivering the full amounts pledged.

“Hungry people cannot eat pledges,” UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan wrote in a recent article. “Through long and bitter experience we've learned that donor pledges often remain unfulfilled. In Cambodia, Rwanda, Liberia and elsewhere, a large percentage of promised funds failed to materialize, and many lives were lost as a result.” Of $880 million pledged for Cambodian war rehabilitation in 1992, only $460 million had been delivered three years later, he noted.