More funds needed for humanitarian operations - agencies

Aid agencies have appealed for US $119.1 million to finance humanitarian operations in Somalia this year, saying funding requirements had risen owing to an unforeseen drought in the north and deteriorating food security in parts of the central regions. The agencies had, in their Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal (CAP) earlier this year, asked for $ 110.6 million, of which donors had so far contributed $ 27,878,685 (about 24 percent of the total requirements). "The gravity of Somalia's humanitarian situation demands greater donor attention for the remainder of 2004," the organisations said in a their mid-year review of the 2004 CAP for Somalia. "Funding must be sustained to continue to allow for a timely and effective response to the needs of drought-affected pastoralists in northern Somalia. Without adequate rainfall this season, the situation could easily deteriorate and require an emergency response," they said, adding that the drought had led to major movements of people and animals and decimated livestock herds. The revised appeal was intended to help between 700,000 and 900,000 vulnerable people throughout Somalia, according to the mid-year review of humanitarian needs prepared by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and other UN and non-UN aid agencies. "Despite the increased needs, the food sector remains only about 14 percent funded, and the non-food sector is only about 27 percent funded," according to the revised CAP, which also noted that the education sector was a major cause of concern, with only 4 percent of the more than $14.8 million asked for available so far. Meanwhile, Maxwell Gaylard, the UN Resident Coordinator for Somalia, told reporters in New York on Tuesday that while there were areas of relative stability in the country, such as the self-declared republic of Somaliland in the northwest, much of the country remained extremely volatile. The capital, Mogadishu, had functioning schools and factories, "but in the streets it's another story: too many young men with guns, too many militias, and too much potential conflict and tension," UN News quoted Gaylard as saying. He described Somalia's social indicators on health and education as "abysmal", noting that only one-fifth of all primary school children aged six to 13 were in school, with even fewer attending at the secondary level. Just a "tiny fraction" of all Somalis went to college, he said. Gaylard, who also serves as the Humanitarian Coordinator, said UN humanitarian activities were aimed at promoting development and rehabilitation in the strife-torn country. The UN had an advanced police training programme in Somaliland, which would soon be expanded to the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland in the northeast, with the aim of training officers who could in future "easily unite as one police force," he said. Achievements included the absence of the polio virus in Somalia during the past two years, he said.