Air operations in danger due to lack of funds

Humanitarian activities in Angola will be "seriously hampered" unless the World Food Programme (WFP) receives immediate donations of US $2.5 million, the agency has warned. "The funds are urgently needed to finance two special air operations which benefit more than 200 humanitarian agencies working in Angola. Without the necessary response, WFP may have to reduce or suspend its passenger air transport service as early as November," WFP said in a statement. The agency has been transporting aid workers to remote areas of Angola, as well as delivering critical non-food cargo, for some years. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) France head of mission in Angola, Marilyn Mulemba, stressed the importance of the WFP special air operation to humanitarian actors within Angola. "In Angola there's still a lot of zones that cannot be accessed by road or commercial flights. So it's a problem for a lot of people that work in these zones. It means the people who live there may not get food [and other] aid. Now that it's the rainy season, some roads will become bad; some roads have mines," Mulemba said. "It really will affect all of us in the humanitarian community," added Mulemba's colleague, MSF Belgium information officer, Katherine Derderian. WFP explained that its dedicated passenger aircraft "provide humanitarian agencies with safe and affordable passenger transport, while cargo flights regularly deliver non-food items such as vaccines, agricultural tools, seeds, medicine and blankets to various parts of the country". "On average, 2,000 aid workers and 500 mt of non-food items are transported each month by WFP in Angola," the organisation added. The government of Angola and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) recently carried out highly successful polio and measles vaccination campaigns, which were reliant on the passenger and cargo services. "The vaccines were taken to various destinations on WFP flights and, as a result, thousands of children will be safeguarded against disease," WFP Country Representative Francisco Roque Castro was quoted as saying. "The air services also contribute to Angola's rehabilitation process by transporting agricultural kits throughout the country," he added. The WFP air operations were especially important as Angolans needed agricultural tools "so they can produce their own food". However, due to the current state of poor funding, WFP could only accept limited and critical non-food cargo requests from other humanitarian agencies. "Since WFP flights will be increasingly restricted, people using its passenger service are being encouraged to take commercial airlines where available," the agency added. So far this year, WFP's special operations have received contributions from the United States (US $2 million), the Netherlands (US $750,000), Denmark (US $461,000), Norway (US $250,000) and Germany (US $173,000). "However, the passenger air transport service currently needs contributions worth $1.6 million to maintain operations until March 2004, while the non-food items air cargo service requires $3.17 million over the next 14 months," WFP noted. The agency said immediate minimal needs were $2.5 million, to secure operations over the next three months. "WFP plans to distribute food to 2.2 million Angolans in October, the highest number for several years. This reflects the massive return home of people who have been either displaced or [are] refugees, and whom WFP has assisted in re-settling after three decades of war in the country," the agency said.