Urgent funding needed for essential drugs

Angola needs urgent funding for essential drugs if lives are to be saved, particularly among resettling populations, warned a mid-year review of the UN's Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP), released on Tuesday. The CAP review, prepared by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said that at the end of April, funding for the essential drug component of the Minimum Health Care Package stood at approximately 50 percent. The package, put together by UN agencies in partnership with the government, provides for the basic health needs of the country's vulnerable population. "Assuming a four-month lag time for procurement, additional financial resources are urgently required in order to avoid a gap in essential drug kits from July 2004. Such a gap would limit expansion of municipal-level health services, with potential loss of lives among resettling populations," the review said. The main objective of the Consolidated Appeal for Transition (CAT) 2004 is to improve living conditions, support the resumption of productive activities and provide access to social services in resettlement and return areas, through partnerships forged between agencies, NGOs and the Angolan government. The total funding request for the CAT has been reduced from $262 million to US $181.6 million, following the World Food Programme's (WFP) reassessment its needs. WFP spokesperson Manuel Cristovao said a review revealed that several groups of beneficiaries no longer needed food aid, and the revised amount of funding now stood at $33.8 million, needed to feed approximately 1.2 million people. All mine action projects, originally included in the appeal, have been transferred to the Mine Action Portfolio for Angola 2004-05 to eliminate duplication of funding requests, which has also lowered the original appeal amount. However, WFP's operation in Angola continues to be underfunded, which is expected to negatively affect the stabilisation of the livelihoods of returnees, according to the CAP review. The food aid agency needs 57,240 metric tonnes of food commodities. "The transitional context in Angola continues to be characterised by high levels of vulnerability within over-stretched communities, due to years of internal conflict, the rapid pace of returns to areas of origin and widespread poverty," the review commented. The "fragmented basic social services, and access problems stemming from severe disruption of the road network" had further compromised the vulnerability of communities, particularly at the village level. The situation remains precarious for an estimated 1.2 million people living in difficult-to-access areas. At the end of March this year, only 25 percent of WFP's operation in Angola had been funded. The food aid agency has been forced to cut beneficiary rations because of delays in food arrivals and cargo clearance, and slow confirmation of donor contributions. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) had also received funds for less than 10 percent of its proposals contained in CAT 2004 by the end of March. This meant it would be forced to withhold proposed activities, such as opening new areas for lowland agriculture, while the distribution of inputs targeted at the returnee population had been "drastically reduced." Funding shortages in the education sector had affected community-based projects implemented by NGOs, including literacy training and the rehabilitation of school buildings. At the end of April only 39 percent of the education request had been financed. "As these projects aim to support excluded returnee children and adolescents in vulnerable areas, funding constraints are hampering community development in return sites and negatively impacting recovery and integration of vulnerable children," said the review.