Donor support plunges, at 0.5 percent of needs

With the Cote d’Ivoire crisis grinding on relentlessly, UN agencies operating in the troubled West African nation have received less than 1 percent of the US $39 million requested for 2005, a leading UN official said. And unless funds can be secured quickly, key humanitarian programmes will have to be cut, Besida Tonwe, head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told IRIN on Monday. But many donors were reluctant to pledge funds, Tonwe said, because of the very nature of the crisis, the fact that the parties to the Ivorian conflict were dragging their feet in the peace process. “The humanitarian crisis here in Cote d’Ivoire is marked by the political and military agenda”, she said. “But that does not stop the fact that humanitarian needs are growing, that water and electricity provision are breaking down, especially in the rebel-held north and west of the country.” “If that process is not stopped, then we are going to have a very serious humanitarian crisis here in Cote d’Ivoire and one that will be a lot more expensive to fix further down the line,” Tonwe said. Funds have been falling as the Ivorian crisis deepens. In 2004, UN agencies secured only 45 percent of funds requested. In 2005, the situation could be even bleaker, said Tonwe. On paper only 0.5 percent of the money requested for 2005 has been received, but Tonwe said this could rise to 15 or 20 percent once all the agencies update their reports. “The whole Ivorian crisis is in such a flux, no one knows where it is headed,” said Tonwe. “Ever since November when thousands fled Cote d’Ivoire, donors have not known where they are going concerning funding here.” West Africa’s once most prosperous country plunged into civil war following a failed coup in September 2002 that has left the country divided between a rebel-hold north and government-controlled south. Last November, President Laurent Gbagbo broke a cease-fire and sent his air force to bomb rebel positions. In the aftermath, thousands of foreign nationals fled Cote d’Ivoire. Some 10,000 UN and French peacekeeping forces monitor a buffer zone to keep the two sides apart. Hopes of a way forward out of conflict are pinned on a peace deal struck by the parties in Pretoria last week.