Humanitarian actors appeal for over US $268.65 million

The humanitarian community launched an appeal for the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Tuesday, requesting US $268.65 million in aid for 2003.

There was still "a blatant discrepancy" between catastrophic levels of visible and reachable human suffering and the constant under funding of the bulk of humanitarian organisations, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported at the launch in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

Most funding in 2002 went to food aid and multisector assistance to refugees; with health, agriculture, and coordination and support services receiving lower levels, OCHA reported. Economic recovery, education, family shelter and non-food items, mine action and water and sanitation were largely under funded, or received no funding.

Of the total funding requested in 2002, 40.75 percent had been received for the year as of mid-October.

One of the concrete consequences of this was the forced delay of plans for a widespread measles vaccination campaign in eastern DRC, an illness that remained one of the main causes of mortality among children, OCHA said.

A lack of infrastructure also remained a huge problem. Despite the DRC's enormous water, land and forest resources, 64 percent of the population was affected by food insecurity while 13,000 ha of land - out of a potential five million ha - was under irrigation, OCHA reported. Similarly, it was estimated that 30 percent of children of school-going age attended and completed primary school, and 12 percent secondary school.

UN agencies, NGOs, the Red Cross Movement, international organisations and donors launched the appeal as part of the annual consolidated inter-agency appeal, known as CAP.