UN agencies concerned about big funding shortfall

United Nations agencies in Cote d’Ivoire are worried that funding for emergency humanitarian programmes for 2005 will arrive late or perhaps not at all as donors shift their attention to the tsunami disaster in Asia. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has received only one "tiny" contribution in food aid so far, while a cash donation of US $170,000 pledged earlier has gone to help victims of the tsunami catastrophe in Asia instead, WFP spokeswoman Jennifer Jacoby told IRIN. "It's not looking good," she said. "As far as other donations are concerned, it's hard to say whether they all go to Asia. But we're definitely getting anxious." WFP gives food aid to almost 700,000 people in Côte d'Ivoire, distributing staples such as rice, maize meal, sugar and salt. So far, less than two percent of the resources needed to provide nearly 26,000 tons of food for Côte d'Ivoire has arrived, Jacoby said. "We really need aid to come in now so that food can arrive where it's needed before the lean season, in between harvests, starts in May," the spokeswoman said. She added that WFP could run out of maize meal in Cote d'Ivoire within two months. Most humanitarian agencies are used to not having money at the start of the year, but some UN officials are seriously worried that the massive outpouring of aid for tsunami victims is likely to eat into emergency funding for Africa. "We appealed for US $17 million for education, health and nutrition projects, but we haven't received anything yet," said Jeff Brez, the spokesman in Cote d'Ivoire for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). "It's still early in the year," he said. "But we are certainly worried." The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the United Nations would launch its Consolidated Appeal for US $43 million of humanitarian assistance for Cote d'Ivoire in 2005 on 2 February. OCHA postponed its original plan to launch the appeal in November because of a flare-up in the country's smouldering civil war which led to the evacuation of almost 9,000 foreign nationals. OCHA spokeswoman Carina Sugden said: "it will not be easy to bring attention to Cote d’Ivoire" after the tsunami. She also voiced another concern. Several European countries, including Britain, the Netherlands and Norway, closed their embassies in Abidjan or seriously reduced staff after President Laurent Gbagbo's abortive attempt to invade the rebel-held north of the country in early November. "Before the crisis, we'd meet with the main donors at least once a month. It has become much harder to advocate our needs," Sugden said Last week, at a UN donor's conference in Geneva, some of the most important donor countries insisted that the tsunami relief effort must not undermine this year's donations for less prominent regions, especially Africa. Two international aid agencies outside the UN system told IRIN it was too soon to say whether their Cote d'Ivoire budget would be affected by the tsunami this year. However, the agencies, which asked not to be named, said most aid organisations in Africa fear that they will receive less money in 2005. On the other hand, a third independent relief agency, CARE International, said it had just procured financing for various AIDS prevention and disarmament projects in the rebel-held north. "We had no problem whatsoever," coordinator Zakari Madougou told IRIN. "For the next year, we'll maintain at least the same level of financing, but we're probably going to expand." CARE has a US $2.7 million budget in Cote d'Ivoire for the 2005 fiscal year, which runs until June. Madougou said that funding for organisations distributing food or focusing on water and sanitation programmes was more likely to be jeopardised as these organisations directly compete with humanitarian relief efforts in Asia. "AIDS prevention, which we do, is considered a different type of emergency, and we have different donors to an organisation like WFP," he explained.