$4bn in aid needed: Annan
2006-12-01 09:56
New York - UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed for nearly $4bn on Thursday to help 27 million people in 29 countries "whose lives have been crippled by conflict and calamity,".
Annan expressed dismay that rich nations have consistently given just two-thirds of the funds needed.
He said the people in need - overwhelmingly women and children - "subsist on the very margins of society" in places like Somalia, the Palestinian territories and Congo.
"These 27 million individuals seek not a hand out, but a hand up," Annan told the launch of the 2007 humanitarian appeal. "Their names may be unknown to us, their lives hidden from view, but their cry for our attention must not go unanswered."
"In our era of unprecedented prosperity, they are the ones for whom, more than anyone else, the essentials of existence - clean water, lifesaving drugs, emergency shelter - remain essentially unavailable," Annan said.
The 2007 humanitarian appeal for $3.9bn is being made on behalf of 140 non-governmental organisations, UN agencies, and other international and local organisations - nearly 40 more than last year.
Aid needed mostly for Africa
The largest request - over $1.2bn - is for Sudan, about half for Darfur and half for the rest of the country, followed by $687m for Congo, $454m for the Palestinians and $300m for west Africa, UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said.
It also seeks humanitarian funding for crises in Uganda, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Chad, Burundi, the Great Lakes region of Central Africa, Ivory Coast, the Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo.
Annan said the $3.9bn needed amounts to approximately the price of "two cups of coffee for each citizen in the wealthy countries of the world".
Egeland said rich nations spend more annually fighting obesity than helping the hungry and needy - and much more on pets and ice cream.
"If the rich countries gave 1% per $100 of their gross national product ... we would be fully funded," he said, "and it is beyond me that we haven't reached this."
No wasting here
Princess Haya of Jordan, a goodwill ambassador for the UN World Food Program, said she saw on visits to Malawi, Ethiopia and to Syria to see Lebanese refugees that the money "doesn't go to waste."
"It really makes people live and that's a scary thought - just the difference between life and death is what we're asking for here today," said the princess, a daughter of Jordan's late King Hussein of Jordan who is married to Crown Prince Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum of Dubai.
The 2006 appeal sought $4.7bn and has received $3.1bn, or 63%. That enabled the UN and its humanitarian partners to feed 97 million people in 82 countries, including 6.5 million people in Sudan, vaccinate more than 30 million children against measles in emergency situations and support hundreds of emergency health facilities, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Egeland said, however, that while emergency appeals following conflicts in East Timor and Lebanon were oversubscribed, "Africa is getting too little resources," especially French and Portuguese-speaking countries.
'We can do better'
Annan, who is stepping down as secretary-general on December 31 after 10 years, noted that over the past decade he or his representatives had sought funds for humanitarian assistance.
"And each year, I must admit, I have been dismayed that donors have, on average, given only two-thirds of the bare-bones requirements in these appeals," he said. "And for each success story ... there is a contrasting story where help could not be offered for lack of funds."
"I believe we should, and can, do much better - better as nations, and better as the United Nations," he told the launch, which included potential donors. "As an international community, it is our common interest to respond generously to the needs of the most destitute among us."
Egeland said the goal is to eliminate world hunger and abject poverty, "and it's within our reach."
"I think it's a sign that the world is getting better that we're actually asking for fewer dollars for a reduced number of countries" in 2007, he said. "Countries like Nepal, Guinea, Liberia were in appeals last year. They are now in a transition stage where we do not need an emergency appeal any more."