Aid projects threatened as donors tire of 'no war no peace' situation

Projects to rescue children from the entourage of fighting factions or to set up a badly-needed health service in war-torn Cote d'Ivoire could all grind to a halt this year as donor interest withers in the face of an intractable political situation. NGOs and UN agencies are scaling back assistance despite a worsening humanitarian situation in the rebel-held north and west of the country, which has been cut off from government services since a failed coup d'etat split the country in two in September 2002. "Finding money for long term projects in Cote d'Ivoire has always been difficult. Because donors regard this as a messy political situation, they have only ever funded six months at a time," said Hussein Mursal, the Cote d'Ivoire Country Director for the Save the Children UK. "So we have always had budget breaks. Even keeping good staff has proved difficult. But this year things are particularly bad, and we have only received 20 percent of what we need," he said. Save the Children needs 1 million pounds sterling (US $1.9 million) to support its operations for 2005. Unless money is found soon, some programmes that have been running successfully for several years could be shut down. Like most other aid groups and UN agencies, Save the Children largely depends on money received from bids or project proposals submitted to potential donors. "We are trying to get money for a programme to support children formerly associated with armed forces. I hope we can manage until September, but it won't continue beyond that unless we get more support," Mursal said. As the fighting subsided at the end of 2002, Save the Children launched a programme to help child soldiers on the government and rebel sides, as well as children acting as cooks or porters, reintegrate their families and communities. "Since the programme began, over 835 children have been rescued. We have negotiated directly with commanders for their release, though some have heard of our programme and come to us of their own accord and others have been referred by local NGO partners," said Mursal. Most of the children on the programme are boys, but one third are girls. They get schooling or vocational training to help them find jobs that will keep them away from the military. "I don't know what would happen to these children if the programme were to stop now," Mursal said. Less than 1 percent of budget received UN agencies are equally strapped. Last month the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), announced that agencies had received less than 1 percent of budget requirements for 2005. "Across the agencies, many programmes will just not be done this year," said Besida Tonwe, the head of OCHA in Cote d'Ivoire. UN agencies had budgeted to spend US $39 million in Cote d'Ivoire in 2005, but although existing and proposed projects have met with interest and even enthusiasm, the necessary cash has not been forthcoming. Everything from health projects to feeding programmes will be affected. "Basically, they tell us they like the projects, they want the projects, but they won't pay for them," Tonwe told IRIN. According to Tonwe, the long-running and seemingly intractable political situation in Cote d'Ivoire is putting donors off and John Mulangu of the World Health Organisation in Cote d'Ivoire, agrees. "It's not just Cote d'Ivoire, but the whole of the West Africa region that is suffering from donor fatigue. It's even worse here in Cote d'Ivoire as we have this 'no war no peace' situation which leaves us in limbo," he said. In Sierra Leone, the World Food Programme (WFP) announced that refugees are to face ration cuts from May to eke out dwindling resources. Marcus Prior, the WFP's regional public information consultant, explained that the agency had received only 75 percent of its funding for regional operations in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, despite feeding 20 percent more refugees than originally planned. At the beginning of March, WFP Liberia announced that it was going to start prioritising food distributions to maximise the impact of limited resources. Since August 2004, handouts have been reduced to just 64 percent of their normal quantity due to funding shortfalls. Even with the scale-backs, breaks in supply could still be expected later in the year. The situation is similar in Cote d'Ivoire. "Cote d'Ivoire makes up 85 percent of a regional operation that includes activities in Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea. But we have only received 34 percent of our requirements for 2005 and we are expecting pipeline breaks from June onwards," explained Jennifer Jacoby, WFP Public Information Officer in Cote d'Ivoire. The supply breaks couldn't come at a worse time, she said, as they will coincide with the Ivorian lean season when food stocks are traditionally running low ahead of the September harvest. Competing for donor attention "Things are getting more and more difficult, and one of the reasons this year was particularly tough, has been the Asian tsunami which has delayed things a lot," Jacoby explained. The giant tidal wave that struck land on the 26 December 2004, killing hundreds of thousands of people in some 10 countries, has had a massive response from donors and remains the largest internationally-funded donor emergency. However, research carried out by OCHA suggests that the tsunami has delayed but not wholly detracted funds away from other international appeals. Though discussions with the UN agencies and aid workers "support the notion that the tsunami has diverted funds from other crises... [some] commitments are taking place later for non-tsunami crises", the report said, stressing that much of the ground lost to the tsunami should be made up later in the year. Back at WHO, Mulangu believes that NGOs and agencies need to paint a strong and clear picture of the situation on the ground to prevent ambiguity that might put potential donors off. Though disarmament is due to begin in mid-May and elections are scheduled for 30 October, he and many other aid workers are unconvinced that a lasting peace is close to being forged. "Cote d'Ivoire is moving to a war situation and we need to treat it as such," he told IRIN as he poured over vital health programmes that were being scaled back or dropped this year. Health services have ground to a halt in the rebel held north of Cote d'Ivoire, and outbreaks of meningitis, polio and yellow fever are being caught too late to stop preventable deaths. "We are trying to set up a national surveillance system of data collection and sharing, but the lack of funds means that people on the ground are not being trained and so disease outbreaks are not being spotted," explained Mulangu. "For example, there was a recent outbreak of meningitis in Bouna (in the rebel-held north-east). Scores of people died - but if we had had a decent surveillance system in place we could have reacted earlier." Only the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) did not have any funding complaints. "Our case is slightly different," explained Kim Gordon-Bates of the ICRC in Abidjan. "Some 95 percent of our funds come directly from states that sign up to the Geneva Convention on Human Rights. As part of the ratification of that Convention, they are contracted to provide funds to ICRC."