Poor response to UN emergency appeals

United Nations agencies asked donor countries on Thursday to increase funding for humanitarian operations worldwide which help some 26 million people at risk. The United Nations Assistant Emergency Relief Coordinator, Ross Mountain, said at a news conference in Geneva that donors had given 33 percent of the funds sought in this year's appeals. In West Africa the response has been poor. Mountain said Guinea Bissau has received 19 percent of the funds sought and Sierra Leone 27 percent. He said the rate of funding for the UN's consolidated appeals for complex emergencies had dropped steadily over the last three years from 75 percent in 1996, to 66 percent in 1997, to 54 percent in 1998.