December 30, 2005
U.N. Looking to Prepare Now for 2006's Unforeseen Disasters
OneWorld US

Overwhelmed with the challenges posed by a series of natural disasters that occurred in 2005, United Nations officials responsible for delivering humanitarian aid are urging international donors to get prepared for the next year now. In contrast to the response to December 2004's Indian Ocean tsunami, many U.N. operations remained "dangerously underfunded."

Haider Rizvi, OneWorld US
Fri Dec 30, 1:03 PM ET

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 30 (OneWorld) - Overwhelmed with the challenges posed by a series of natural disasters that occurred in 2005, United Nations officials responsible for delivering humanitarian aid are urging international donors to get prepared for the next year now.

"None of us knows what 2006 will bring. We can hope for a calmer year, but we have to be prepared for every eventuality," James Morris, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program (WFP), said in an appeal to donors Wednesday.

Morris praised the donor response to this year's crises, but also voiced his concern that in contrast to the response to December 2004's Indian Ocean tsunami, many U.N. operations remained "dangerously underfunded."

"The fact is that 2005 was an exceptional year of disaster for millions of people across the world," he said, citing the continuing conflict in Darfur, Sudan, Hurricane Katrina in the United States, and the tragic earthquake in Kashmir.

Despite repeated requests for $100 million to provide air transport for relief work in northern Pakistan, the donor community failed to provide full funding, the U.N. food agency said.

Nearly 80,000 died and millions were made homeless as a result of the October earthquake in the mountainous region of Kashmir. The U.N. estimates that there are about three million people in the region who are still in dire need of immediate aid.

In addition to earthquake survivors, WFP officials are also worried about how to feed 10 million people facing hunger and starvation in southern Africa.

The agency needs at least $317 million by April 2006, but so far has managed to receive only two-thirds of this amount.

One of the biggest challenges that WFP currently faces is how to overcome the time lag between the occurrence of a disaster and the actual delivery of donations, Morris said.

Last year in February, for example, the agency appealed for $9 million to deal with locust swarms that infested Africa's Sahel region but failed to receive adequate funding on time. By mid-year the locusts had multiplied, forcing the agency to renew its appeal for $100 million, not $9 million.

Like Morris, the U.N. emergency relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, appears to be equally wary of the slow pace at which donations are released in response to disasters of global significance.

"Imagine if your local fire department had to beg the mayor for money to turn on the water hoses every time a fire broke out," he said in an article published by The Independent, a London-based daily newspaper.

"Now imagine numerous fires occurring simultaneously all over the globe, but no money on hand to turn on the hoses. That's the situation faced by aid workers whenever a major crisis erupts."

Morris said he was trying to address this problem by drawing on reserve funds in anticipation of donations coming in.

For its part, last week the U.N. General Assembly set up an emergency fund to bring immediate relief to natural and man-made disasters.

U.N. officials say the fund is expected to total around $500 million, adding that in response to humanitarian emergencies, adequate amounts will be made available within three to four days.

"By establishing the Fund, we have taken a critical decision," said Assembly President Jan Eliasson. "[It will] ensure that the international response to today's humanitarian crises is more effective and equitable."

Access to predictable funding for humanitarian emergencies is a key aspect of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's reform package outlined earlier this year in his report, "In Larger Freedom."

At the U.N. World Summit held in New York in September, donors pledged some $175 million, but when they would actually release that amount is not known.

Hailing the U.N. General Assembly for establishing the emergency fund, Egeland thinks it's now possible to jump-start relief operations within 71 hours of a crisis. However, he still wonders when governments and private donors would actually start contributing.

The Assembly resolution on the Fund urged all U.N. member-states and the private sector to make contributions. Annan noted that most of the money pledged so far had come from European nations, but other governments with the capacity to help would be targeted.

"There is a large community out there," he told reporters recently, "and we're also trying to bring in new donors from the Gulf and other oil producing countries."

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