Funding shortfall ahead of Loya Jirga

Donors could be hanging onto their money until the outcome of next week's Loya Jirga (Grand Council) meeting in Kabul, an International Organisation for Migration (IOM) official said on Tuesday, as aid agencies began to trim their Afghanistan programmes because of funding shortfalls. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Melita Sunjic told IRIN on Tuesday that the agency, which has been faciliting a rapid return of refugees to Afghanistan, would run out of money at the end of June. "We will be broke by the end of June, which means we cannot pay staff or give assistance to refugees," she said. The World Food Programme (WFP) announced on Sunday that its precarious food pipeline had resulted in the suspension of several of its implementing partners' projects and the suspension of some food-for-work projects. "Returning refugees and IDPs [internally displaced people] are now receiving a third of their resettlement packages, and food assistance to civil servants may be curtailed in the near future. "IDPs and refugees are now receiving reduced rations. A family three-month ration of 150 kg has been reduced to 50 kg per family ... If we do not receive significant cash contributions soon, we are concerned about our continued ability to assist with the return of the refugees," the UN food agency said on Sunday. At the same time, agencies working in health and nutrition centres are recording higher rates of malnutrition among IDP and refugee populations and drought could affect the little food Afghans have managed to cultivate this season. Nigel Fisher, the United Nations' Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan, told a press briefing on Sunday that the UN had only received US $870 million of the US $1.8 billion it needed to fund operations from October 2001 to December this year. "However, you have to bear in mind that US $343 million of that had already been received before the Tokyo conference in January. What we have actually received in the period from end of January until now is about US $526 million - well below aspirations ..." Agencies like UNHCR, WFP and the IOM were being forced to make difficult decisions about their programmes, he said, at a time when rising tensions between Pakistan and India could increase the 1.2 million refugees expected to return to Afghanistan. IOM Programme Officer for Afghanistan, Jeff McMurdo, told IRIN on Tuesday that the organisation had suspended its internal transport assistance to IDPs in May because of a lack of funds and would be suspending its assistance to refugees returning to Afghanistan from Iran on Thursday. Many IDPs would have to go into debt to return to their homes, he said, while refugees from Iran faced long travelling distances, high costs and sometimes dangerous journeys if they wanted to go home. Speculating on the reasons for the funding shortfall, which is being exacerbated by the unexpectedly rapid return of refugees, he said: "There may be political concerns ... to hold back some of the funding to see the outcome of the Loya Jirga before further decisions are taken on where they put their funds." There was also a lack of coordination among donors, he said, meaning that it was difficult for them to determine which sectors needed help desperately. Another complicating factor was that there seemed to be some conflict among donors between funding immediate and humanitarian needs. "Each donor is accountable to its own government and if donors are not sitting together and coordinating, then they don't foresee when gaps are coming up and agencies have to be vocal and aware of that," he told IRIN. The Loya Jirga sits next week to create a new government to lead Afghanistan through its recovery process. Meanwhile, UN agencies and their partners are preparing a mid-term review of their consolidated appeal to deal with the changing humanitarian situation in the country.