HIGHLIGHTS OF BRIEFING BY UN EMERGENCY RELIEF COORDINATOR ON LAUNCH OF REVISED FLASH APPEAL FOR COMMUNITIES AFFECTED BY THE EARTHQUAKE IN SOUTH ASIA

Jan Egeland, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, announced the launch of a revised flash appeal for USD 550 million to cover relief efforts for the next six months to assist the communities affected by the earthquake in South Asia. “We have too little committed so far,” said Mr. Egeland. “We need much more resources in the next few days” in order to help save the hundreds of thousands of lives still at risk in Pakistan with the onset of winter looming. Mr. Egeland also briefed journalists on the current state of emergency relief efforts and on the donor conference taking place in Geneva today. In addition, he issued an appeal to countries to give to the Central Emergency Relief Fund, which would enable the United Nations to respond in a more equitable manner to emergency situations.

Mr. Egeland was accompanied by a high-level delegation from the Government of Pakistan, which included: Mr. Mohammedmian Soomro, Chairman of the Senate; Mr. Salman Shah, Federal Minister and Advisor to the Prime Minister on Finance; Mr. Makhdoom Khurso Bakhtiar, Minister of State of Foreign Affairs; Ms. Hina Rabbani Khar, Minister of State for Economic Affairs; and Mr. Tariq Osman Hyder, Additional Foreign Secretary. The briefing was chaired by Ms. Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Chief, Press and External Relations Section, UNIS Geneva.

Mr. Egeland began the briefing by stating that much more resources were needed in the next few days for the emergency relief effort in Pakistan before snow began to fall in the Himalayas, which could happen as soon as three to four weeks from now. Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of lives were at risk. That is why today’s donor conference in Geneva today was “one of the year’s most important conferences”. Representatives of some 60 countries and a dozen of the most important humanitarian relief agencies would be in attendance along with United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. “We are very hopeful that we will take a big jump in the right direction in terms of resources for the relief effort,” said Mr. Egeland. “We will mourn the tens of thousands of dead but we will today concentrate on saving the lives of the millions affected.”

Mr. Egeland announced the launch of a revised flash appeal to cover emergency relief efforts for the next six months. Seventy-two hours after the earthquake struck, an appeal had been launched for USD 312 million. Today’s revised appeal was for USD 550 million, of which USD 137 million was required for logistics (including 25 additional helicopters for the United Nations effort alone), USD 95 million for shelter, USD 30 million for camp management, USD 85 million for food, USD 55 million for health, and USD 41.6 million for water and sanitation. The rest was for education, recovery, protection and coordination.

“We have too little committed so far,” said Mr. Egeland. In all, USD 67 million – representing 12% of the 550 million needed – had been committed to all those organizations behind the flash appeal, which included the funds, programmes and specialized agencies of the United Nations and non-governmental organizations. Another USD 28 million had been pledged. Mr. Egeland said that he was confident that the situation would improve significantly following the donors’ conference.

Describing the current state of affairs, Mr. Egeland said that “we have already made extraordinary in the last few days in this extraordinary race against the clock” due to the joint effort of the Government of Pakistan and the international community. There were now more than 100 international relief organizations on the ground helping with the relief effort. There were 72 helicopters in operation, and 120,000 tents had been delivered, with another 200,000 in the pipeline.

However, while 700,000 people had received food aid, another 1.6 million were still in need of food and thousands of tons of food would have to be prepositioned before the snow came. At the moment, there was not enough money or the logistical means to do that. Mr. Egeland said that he hoped to be able to announce after the donor conference that sufficient resources would be available for this purpose. He added that 200,000 people had been given access to fresh water and 100,000 had been supported with sanitation, but an additional 1.7 million people would need safe water and sanitation during the course of the winter.

“This is an emergency that has produced more wounded than I can recall in my time as Emergency Relief Coordinator,” said Mr. Egeland. Approximately 14,000 wounded had been evacuated with many more waiting their turn. As many as one-third of those of those evacuated ended up losing a limb to amputation because they were evacuated too late. “We have some 22 field hospitals deployed and we are making big progress, but it is still too little,” said Mr. Egeland.

On the positive side, Mr. Egeland said that “this is the best coordinated relief effort ever that I have seen.” The United Nations had had coordinators on the ground in Islamabad within 24 hours after the earthquake hit. Almost all of the 100 international relief organizations present in Pakistan were participating in the ten clusters that had been organized to deal with specific issues, such as shelter and logistics. “At the moment it’s not a question of lack of coordination, it’s a question of lack of resources that is holding us back.”

Mr. Mohammedmian Soomro, Chairman of the Senate of Pakistan, said that the Pakistani delegation was here to “convey to you the shear magnitude of this disaster in terms of people, in the form of properties, infrastructure, basic facilities, schools, hospitals, government administrative offices, the number of orphans, widows, and senior citizens left helpless… Only when you see it can you believe what has happened.”

Mr. Salman Shah, Federal Minister and Advisor to the Prime Minister on Finance, added that the area affected by the earthquake covered almost 30,000 km2, roughly equivalent to 70% of the size of Switzerland. The number of people affected was equivalent to 50% of the population of Switzerland. When you took into account that the terrain was more rugged than in Switzerland, and the lack of infrastructure and access, it was apparent that the situation presented an enormous logistical challenge. It was imperative that relief efforts moved quickly to take advantage of the window of opportunity before the onset of winter. Otherwise, “we will be confronted with a very major human catastrophe.”

While the immediate concern was therefore to provide shelter and make sure that people survived the winter, the reconstruction phase would begin almost simultaneously. “The entire region has to be reconstructed… The government of Pakistan and the people of Pakistan will do their best. The whole country is mobilized. But it is going to stretch us,” said Mr. Shah. “This is the time when the world has to come to our support.”

Mr. Egeland added that the world had to respond. Pakistan had hosted three million refugees for nearly a generation. “I can recall no other nation shouldering such a humanitarian responsibility over such a period of time. Now the world has to show equal generosity to the people of Northern Pakistan affected by the earthquake.”

In response to a question from a journalist about the total estimated cost of the earthquake, Mr. Egeland said that a number of appeals would be launched. In addition to today’s flash appeal, the International Red Cross had yesterday launched an appeal to cover the cost of its efforts. In addition to that, there would be the cost of the reconstruction. Pakistan would be holding a reconstruction conference in Islamabad on 18 November 2005 to raise funds for the longer-term reconstruction, which would cost an estimated USD 5 billion.

Considering the frequency of emergencies, Mr. Egeland was asked whether it wasn’t time to revise the current system of donor conferences and having constantly to ask for funds for relief efforts. In response, Mr. Egeland said that the proposed Central Emergency Response Fund would help to respond to the problem of funds being provided too late. Generous pledges for the Fund had now been received from the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and a number of other countries. Hopefully the goal of USD 500 million would be reached. However, when you considered that the flash appeal for Pakistan alone was for an amount higher than that which the Fund would have at its disposal, it was clear that appeals and donor conferences would continue to be needed.

Mr. Egeland added that the Central Emergency Relief Fund was vital because it would enable the United Nations to respond to neglected emergencies such as Central America, which had been devastated by a hurricane. “I am worried by the trend. There are too many forgotten and neglected emergencies, frankly,” said Mr. Egeland. “We are working in 100 hundred countries in parallel. In 25 of those we have major emergencies. We are responding well only in a handful of those… We are having to feed 12 million people in southern Africa alone. We are not even close to having enough resources for the World Food Programme and other partner organizations.”

There was one very hopeful sign, however. The G8 countries and the European Union had promised to massively increase their assistance. “We will hold them to their pledges because if it’s one thing that we cannot allow ourselves, it is any kind of donor fatigue or agency fatigue. It is a non-existent consolation for people freezing to death in Kashmir or becoming sick from polluted water in Guatemala that the world did well in the tsunami. We need to respond to their needs equally… That is why I really, really appeal to the world to give to our Central Emergency Fund so that we can have more equity in the relief effort and so that it is less of a lottery – where 20 emergencies play every night, and 19 lose and one wins. It shouldn’t be like that.”

Asked about the collaboration between the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Mr. Egeland said that NATO was helping with relief efforts on many fronts and that the Deputy Secretary General would be addressing the donors’ conference this afternoon. NATO had provided helicopters and several air-bridges, including one from Germany to Islamabad and another with UNHCR from Turkey, which had provided a lot of relief. In addition, NATO was providing logisticians and engineering and medical officials.