Funding shortfall may affect peace efforts in the south, UN official warns

Inadequate funding could undermine efforts to consolidate peace in southern Sudan following the signing in January of an accord that ended more than two decades of civil war there, a top UN official warned on Friday. "I was shocked to find that the south has only received five percent of what it needs to implement the [2005] Work Plan for Sudan," Jan Egeland, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, told staff of UN agencies and NGOs in the southern town of Rumbek. "There is a disturbing discrepancy between what the world promised it would do once a peace agreement was signed and what it has delivered," Egeland, who was on a three-day visit to Sudan, added. "Of the [US] $500 million that has been requested for recovery and development assistance in the south in 2005, only $25 million has been received and a further $25 million has been promised," Dawn Elizabeth Blalock, spokesperson for the UN humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, told IRIN on Monday. Millions of people displaced by war are expected to return to their homes in southern Sudan following the 9 January signing of a comprehensive peace agreement between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). "The 2005 Work Plan for the Sudan included a time line that estimated that $410 million was needed by the end of March," Blalock said. "The humanitarian effort has to be financially front-loaded, as support for the returning displaced has to be put in place before they return, and humanitarian assistance should be pre-positioned, before the rainy season starts in May," she added. While in Rumbek, the provisional capital of southern Sudan, Egeland met with SPLM/A members and various relief agencies before visiting Malualkon in northern Bahr el Ghazal state, an important transit area for thousands of returning IDPs. "2005 is a make or break year for Sudan and the months ahead are crucial," Egeland said during the meeting in Rumbek. He added that the international community was waiting for a donor conference to be held in Norway in April before giving money, but noted that this delay would hurt the southern reconstruction effort. Saying funds to support large-scale activities needed in the south could come later in the year, Egeland encouraged NGOs and UN agencies to borrow funds for a massive, visible and immediate up scaling of programmes in the south. "We could come out of this year having set up the conditions for large-scale return and recovery - or, without the resources and the frontloading, we could come out of 2005 with a potentially worse humanitarian crisis," Egeland warned. Egeland also travelled to the conflict-affected western Sudanese region of Darfur where he visited the Kalma and Al Sureif camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Nyala and the villages of Muhajariya and Labado. "The contrast between South Sudan and Darfur was a tragic paradox," Egeland observed. The south, he added, had the political and security support, but lacked the funding and capacity for humanitarian needs. Darfur, on the other hand, was strongly supported with humanitarian assistance, but the security situation remained deplorable, he said. He noted that food distribution and health assistance had significantly improved the condition of people inside Darfur IDP camps to the extent that, in terms of malnutrition, IDPs were in a better condition than surrounding communities. "The problem is what is happening outside the camps - the killings, the rape, the human rights violations," Egeland said. "The world is still not acting decisively to stop the perpetrators of these crimes." In New York, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan met members of the UN Security Council on Monday to discuss the "appalling situation" in Darfur, UN News reported. The meeting examined options to end the Darfur conflict, including strengthening the African Union (AU) monitoring force, at present numbering 1,900 troops out of an original target of up to 4,000, and setting up a possible UN force. "There have been a lot of efforts on the humanitarian side, and by the AU on the security side, which go in the right direction," Annan said in a statement after the meeting. "But they are not enough." He added: "I was glad to hear from Council members that they hope to have a new resolution in the course of this week, which will include agreement on a mechanism for holding individuals accountable for these dreadful crimes. That is good. We must send a clear message that the world is not going to tolerate them." Meanwhile, Annan's special representative for Sudan, Jan Pronk, visited Asmara, Eritrea, for talks with government and Darfur rebel representatives in a bid to resume negotiations between the parties in Abuja, Nigeria, aimed at enforcing a ceasefire and leading to peace talks. The conflict in the south has displaced an estimated four million people within Sudan and claimed the lives of two million others. The conflict erupted in 1983 when rebels took up arms against authorities based in the north to demand greater autonomy. In Darfur, which has been described by the UN as the world's worst humanitarian crisis, about 2.3 million people or more than a third of the region's population, are dependent on aid. Approximately 1.85 million people have been displaced by the conflict, including the 200,000 who have fled into neighbouring Chad.