Humanitarian aid appeal launched

The Humanitarian Appeal for 2005 was "a cry for help from 26 million people who need lifesaving assistance to survive this coming year", Jan Egeland, the UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator told reporters on Thursday, following the formal launch of the appeal. The US $1.7-billion appeal launched on Thursday outlines the requirements for 12 communities in Africa, as well as those affected in Chechnya and the occupied Palestinian territories. Egeland told reporters that the funds required amounted to "not more than half a dozen modern fighter planes". "I can see no better way of investing in the future than to save lives. It is a fantastic return on money to invest in humanitarian work, he said, adding that international aid had brought countries like Sierra Leone and Angola "back from the brink of the abyss". After years of life-saving humanitarian intervention, both countries were now widely considered as recovery and development challenges. The 2005 appeal was also more focused on humanitarian action than previous appeals, in which lifesaving activities were often blurred by the inclusion of reconstruction and development projects, a factor that contributed to relatively low responses to appeals in the past. Egeland said over 100 relief agencies had contributed to the appeal process, and agreed on priorities and action to save lives and reduce suffering. Countries with significant reconstruction and development components, such as Ethiopia, Sudan and Liberia, were taken out of the main appeal and have separate country plans. With the 2005 appeal now focused on lifesaving and humanitarian action in the more neglected crises, Egeland was hoping for 100-percent funding. In particular, he highlighted the ongoing conflict in Northern Uganda, where there were as many internally displaced as in Darfur, Sudan, and "more children abused and abducted than anywhere in the world". "It is mind-boggling how little international attention there has been", he said, noting the lack of support for reintegration and a comprehensive response to the crisis in Uganda's North. Funding for Cote d’Ivoire has been even worse, he added, with the country trailing currently as the second worst funded appeal. Only 18 percent of last year's appeal had been funded. "I think it is one of the consequences of the emergency we are seeing today in the Ivory Coast that the international humanitarian response has been so weak," he said, referring to the recent violence in the country. United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, who attended the appeal ceremony, took the unprecedented step this year of writing to donor aid ministers asking them to meet the requirements and state their funding intentions by mid-January 2005. The previous humanitarian appeal for 2004 had only received 12 percent of funds within the first four months.