Funding shortfall hindering relief - UNICEF

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has warned that a significant shortfall in funding for this year is "seriously hindering" its ability to undertake planned, regular humanitarian activities, as well as its capacity for emergency response. The annual appeal for US $24.6 million for emergency programme interventions in the southern sector of Sudan was only 37 percent funded as of the end of April, and the $15.4 million shortage would have a negative impact on nutrition, primary health care, education and human rights promotion activities, the agency reported in a recent donor update. For the northern sector, UNICEF requested $27.6 million (including an amended appeal for the Nuba Mountains region, Abyei and Raga) for emergency interventions in government-controlled areas, and had received $2.4 million by end of April, leaving a funding gap of $25.3 million. The funding situation was "pretty chronic" and typified the situation for many aid agencies involved in Sudan, including NGOs, a UNICEF spokesman, Martin Dawes, told IRIN on Wednesday. The agency would continue certain activities, such as immunisation, which was vital in southern Sudan, but others, including protection interventions for women and children, would be "seriously degraded", he said. People had been saying that a serious crisis was emerging in western Upper Nile - possibly along the lines of the 1998 conflict-related famine in Bahr al-Ghazal - and, if that happened, "there could be big trouble, because agencies' capacity to respond is seriously eroded," Dawes added. In the southern sector, funding targets for family shelter and relief (for internally displaced (persons - IDPs - and other affected populations), mine-awareness activities, grass-root-level peace-building and, especially, eradication of the abduction of women and children were less than 20 percent funded - the last-named attracting no funding at all, according to the donor update. Nutrition activities, emergency basic education, demobilisation of child soldiers and protection of IDPs had also attracted less than 30 percent of the target, while water and sanitation activities had already been fully funded for the year, it added. "Procurement of certain supplies has been hindered or stopped, and programmes are evaluating key staffing positions in order to downsize if necessary," UNICEF said. It said it had not been able to procure a planned 2,500 primary health kits, which could limit emergency response capacity, and that it would be difficult or even impossible to purchase vaccines for outbreak response, if needed. "The potential impact in loss of human life, primarily, children," the agency warned. With indicators from the field in southern Sudan indicating serious nutritional needs, UNICEF would not be able to respond without addition funding, it said, adding that the landmine awareness programme would be stopped entirely if funds did not arrive. In the northern sector, no target intervention had yet achieved 30 percent funding, while action against HIV/AIDS, mine awareness, community-led peace-building in Abyei, and basic services for people in Raga (which had many conflict-displaced people in 2001) had received no funding at all. Neither had action to abolish the practice of female genital mutilation, sometimes known as female circumcision, received any funding contribution for 2002. In its donor update, UNICEF expressed concern over the situation of IDPs in war-torn western Upper Nile and the threat of families being uprooted by clashes between the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) and the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Equatoria, southern Sudan. "Fighting between the government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation [Movement/] Army [SPLM/A] continues to displace people from their homes in western Upper Nile," it said. Humanitarian actors working in Sudan estimate that between 150,000 and 300,000 people were displaced by fighting in western Upper Nile alone between January and April this year. UNICEF also noted that "a disturbing change" in the government's approval of humanitarian access flights in May had designated certain areas in southern Sudan "not recommended" for humanitarian operations. In April and May, the Sudanese government imposed increased restrictions on both flight access and general humanitarian access "for security reasons", which effectively cut off humanitarian supply lines into many parts of western Upper Nile, Eastern Equatoria and Bahr al-Ghazal, according to relief officials. On 16 May, the Khartoum administration further increased restrictions on humanitarian access by announcing a flight ban for the entire area of Unity/Wahdah State (encompassing western Upper Nile). In addition, with Sudan having granted permission to the UPDF to pursue the LRA within Sudan, clashes between these forces in Eastern Equatoria "threaten to displace families and deprive them of access to basic services such as health care, clean water and basic education", according to UNICEF. Though polio eradication efforts have met with some success, and the local ceasefire arrangement in the Nuba Mountains region of Southern Kordofan, south-central Sudan, has improved the environment for health and nutrition interventions there, progress on key humanitarian objectives remains unsatisfactory, according to the agency. "The humanitarian operation in Sudan continues in the context of the 19-year-old civil war, primarily over resources, between the government and the SPLM/A and other 'second-tier' parties to the conflict", and the impact of this on women and children continues to be "extremely negative", UNICEF added.