UN appeals for US $128m in humanitarian aid for 2006

Much of the US $128 million in humanitarian aid to Burundi that the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) appealed for on Wednesday will not be for emergency relief. "More than half of the funds will go to [more long-term] development," Jean Sebastien Munie, the interim head of the OCHA Burundi, said on Wednesday at a news briefing in Bujumbura, the capital. He was speaking at the launch of what the UN calls the Consolidated Appeal Process (CAP) for aid. CAPs are made for countries experiencing humanitarian crises. One key objective of Burundi's 2006 CAP is to link humanitarian aid to more long-term objectives, Munie said. The country is emerging from more than a decade of civil war; elections in 2005 brought about a peaceful change of government. Still, the humanitarian crisis in Burundi is not over. The 2006 CAP will seek to improve protection and human rights, food security and provide vulnerable groups with better access to basic social services. The Burundi appeal is made on behalf of UN humanitarian agencies, as well as 21 local and international NGOs in the country. The Burundian CAP for 2006 is for $6 million more than the 2005 CAP, mostly because of education, Munie said, which accounts for 17 percent of the total requested for 2006, or more than $22 million. The 2005 CAP was for $121.4 million but as of 14 December donors had only funded 59 percent of the amount requested, or $71 million.