REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section of the United Nations Information Service at the United Nations Office at Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for and Representatives of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Food Programme, the International Organization for Migration, the UN Refugee Agency and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Pakistan Floods

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday addressed a General Assembly meeting on "Strengthening of the Coordination of Humanitarian and Disaster Relief Assistance of the United Nations, including Special Economic Assistance," saying that “This is a global disaster, a global challenge. It is one of the greatest tests of global solidarity in our times.”
The Secretary-General said Pakistan was facing a “slow-motion tsunami,” with needs expected to grow, even as 15 to 20 million people currently needed shelter, food and emergency care. “That is more than the entire population hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami, the Kashmir earthquake, Cyclone Nargis and the earthquake in Haiti, combined.” The Secretary-General thanked the international community for the generosity it had shown so far, especially in response to the $460 million requested by the UN and its partners through the Pakistan Initial Floods Emergency Response Plan that was launched last week. Underscoring that the needs were great, and the disaster was far from over, Mr. Ban asked nations to respond urgently to the emergency response plan and help humanitarian agencies deliver the food, water, shelter and health care that millions in Pakistan so desperately needed.

The General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for international assistance in support of the Pakistani Government’s efforts to address the crisis. The consensus resolution entitled “Strengthening emergency relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction and prevention in the wake of devastating floods in Pakistan”, urged the international community, particularly donor countries, world financial institutions and relevant organizations, as well as the private sector and civil society, to extend full support and assistance to Pakistan’s Government in its efforts to cope with the impacts of the worst rains and floods to hit the country in decades and to meet medium- and long-term needs.

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said United Nations agencies were redoubling efforts to provide aid to the millions of persons affected by floods. The international community was mobilizing to provide aid to help the victims of the floods. The $ 460 million emergency response appeal was now 55 per cent funded, less than 12 days after it was launched. There were also $ 42 million in pledges. The situation was still unfolding and they were still taking count of its consequences, in some areas the flood waters were receding to reveal the utter destruction left behind, while in other areas the flood waters continued to rise, destroying homes, villages and crops. The UN agencies had increased their operations and OCHA had reinforced its coordination and assessment teams. The number of people needing aid included 7 million child victims.

Daniel Lopez Acuña, Acting Assistant Director-General for Health Action in Crises at the World Health Organization, said the health impact of the floods was enormous as a result of the destruction of public health infrastructure and from the increased risk of diseases caused by the flooding. There was an urgent need to restore more than 200 health facilities and hospitals which had been damaged or destroyed. It was important to give priority to providing basic health care to more than 7 million people in need of emergency aid and humanitarian assistance. WHO’s main concern was the increase of the risk of outbreaks of communicable diseases because of unsafe drinking water, poor sanitation and personal hygiene, food insecurity, lack of shelter, crowding, reduced access to healthcare and delay in the detection and response to outbreaks. Up to the beginning of this week, health consultations provided included 157,000 cases of skin infections, 125,000 cases of acute watery diarrhea and 122,000 cases of respiratory tract infections. There was daily monitoring of the situation concerning diarrhea in all the affected areas and this would allow WHO and the health cluster to detect on a timely basis and curb any potential outbreak of diarrheal disease. Risks for many of the diseases could be reduced substantively by basic preventive measures, including access to clean water, appropriate sanitation and hygiene and ensuring food handling in a correct fashion as well as vaccination. It was also important to ensure that there was referral capacity for those with life-threatening emergency medical conditions. WHO and the healthcare cluster needed $ 56.2 million to fund emergency health projects, but to date only 20 per cent of that figure had been committed. More funds were needed to avoid further deterioration of the public health sector. The health cluster continued to work to set up 15 diarrheal treatment centres that were initially planned in the affected areas. The cluster would also support with mobile units and teams for surveillance, prevention and curative services. Essential drugs and medicines had been provided to the Ministry of Health and health cluster partners to cover the health needs of 1.8 million persons.

Marco Jimenez Rodriguez of the United Nations Children’s Fund said this morning UNICEF’s Executive Director Anthony Lake had issued a statement, declaring that the humanitarian tragedy in Pakistan had reached tragic proportions. There were serious shortfalls in funding limiting UNICEF’s ability to save lives as the crisis worsened, Mr. Lake said. The situation in Pakistan continued to be very grave, rains were continuing as was the flooding, and there were still areas which could not be reached. In spite of this, UNICEF was managing to provide water to 1.5 million persons daily. The demand for clean water was increasing daily. In some areas, the lack of funds was preventing UNICEF from delivering the water or organizing transportation. UNICEF was continuing with its work with other humanitarian partners and UN agencies on the ground to deliver food and water and emergency healthcare services. At this moment, there were around 353 mobile and fixed medical units that in the past days had delivered medical services to over 60,000 people. In terms of protection, UNICEF had managed to help 3,266 children. The flood affected areas were scattered all over Pakistan and some were easy to reach while others were not. The task to gather data on numbers and a clear idea of where services needed to be delivered was very difficult.

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme said WFP had now reached 1.2 million people with a one-month ration of food. They were facing a constantly shifting picture. Roads were passable one day, impassable the next day. Helicopters could take off one day and then be grounded the next. This situation was really complicating the relief effort in terms of getting not just food but many other vital supplies to people who were cut off. At the moment, WFP recognized that there was a real massive need for a boost in air delivery capacity immediately to reach the people who remained cut off and those who would continue to be affected in the weeks to come. WFP would be bringing on an additional 5 helicopters, bringing the total number of helicopters to 15 shortly. They would be in constant rotation when the weather permitted it. WFP was trying to reach 6 million people, and to date it had reached 1.2 million plus a further 250,000 internally displaced people who were displaced by fighting and were already on the WFP caseload.

Jared Bloch of the International Organization for Migration said the IOM-coordinated emergency shelter cluster as of Tuesday was reporting 134,000 homeless families in Pakistan. This was taking into account 78,000 tents and 311,000 plastic sheets in the pipeline to provide shelter for another 233,000 families. Even with these numbers, the National Management Disaster Authority was estimating that somewhere around 900,000 homes might have been damaged or destroyed, leaving around 525,000 families in need of potential assistance immediately.

Mr. Bloch said IOM was partnering with a cell phone operator in Pakistan to provide free phone service for flood victims to get vital information, seek help and access relief services offered by the government and aid agencies. Zong, which was the Pakistani subsidiary of China Mobile, the world's largest mobile phone company, had donated 100 cell phones to IOM for use in relief centres run by the Al-Khidmat Foundation and other community-based organizations in the worst flood-affected areas of Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Each phone had a pre-paid SIM card with 800 free minutes a day for at least two months. The phones could also be used to call the toll free helpline number +92-(0)322-55-55-737 at IOM's Humanitarian Call Centre in Peshawar. The centre, which was set up last year to help people displaced by conflict in Swat and Buner districts, had five staff who provided key information and contact numbers for local disaster management authorities and humanitarian focal points dealing with shelter, food, health, water and sanitation. IOM was also expanding other aspects of its 2009 mass communications outreach programme. It had produced a series of public service announcements for radio in Urdu, Punjabi, Pushto and Sindhi languages, targeting flood-affected communities nationwide. Many displaced families who lost everything in the floods had no radios, but IOM planned to distribute 2,000 radio sets donated by the Internews Agency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa this week. These messages were very important to reach the most vulnerable - women and child-headed households, the elderly and the disabled.

Adrien Edwards of the UN Refugee Agency said UNHCR was increasingly concerned about the plight of flood-affected Afghan refugees in Pakistan, some of whom were now under pressure to repatriate by speculators around Peshawar seeking to develop land that had until now been occupied by refugee settlements. With 1.8 million Afghan refugees, Pakistan had one of the world’s largest refugee populations. More than 1.5 million of these were in affected provinces, dozens of Afghan refugee villages had been damaged, and several had been completely destroyed. UNHCR welcomed assurances from federal authorities that all people affected by the floods should be able to return to their homes to rebuild, including Afghan refugees. UNHCR hoped that local arrangements could be made quickly to ensure the spirit of this commitment cascaded down to all levels, and moves by land speculators were stymied.

Carine Van Maele of the World Meteorological Organization said WMO encouraged all members of the media to use the information provided by official sources concerning predictions on the rains and floods in Pakistan. There had been unsubstantiated reports in the press which had created panic. The Pakistan Meteorological Department provided daily detailed up-to-date information on the risk of rain and flooding on its website. There was a direct link from the WMO website to the Pakistani website.

Dorothea Krimitsas of the International Committee of the Red Cross said ICRC and the Pakistan Red Crescent were ranking up aid efforts as floods spread to the south of Pakistan. In the north of Pakistan, flood waters were mainly receding, but they were now reaching the south where even more people were living. ICRC continued to assist the Pakistan Red Crescent in their distributions and was delivering some assistance in other areas. ICRC also continued to carry out humanitarian activities for civilians who had been affected by fighting in the northwest of the country. ICRC’s main concern now besides food and shelter issues for the people affected by the floods was healthcare, water borne diseases and other diseases. ICRC had eight basic healthcare units together with the Pakistan Red Crescent as well as two mobile health units and they had provided more than 40,000 consultations on the ground since the flooding commenced. Airlifts of emergency aid to Peshawar were still underway from Nairobi and Jordan, including more than 400 tonnes of food and other items. ICRC had so far reached more than 250,000 people with food and other essential items and hoped to be able to reach 350,000 in a couple of days.

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the UN Department of Public Information in New York had created an Internet page which allowed interested persons to follow the situation in Pakistan. A link was available on the “information and media” page as well as on the welcome page of the UN in New York on (www.un.org) in the “In Focus” section.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination was this morning concluding its review of the report of Estonia. The Committee would next meet in public on Friday, 27 August to release its concluding observations and recommendations on the reports which it had reviewed during the session, before closing the session.

The next meeting of the Conference on Disarmament would be announced at a later date. The Conference on Disarmament would be holding an informal meeting soon to discuss the upcoming High-Level Summit on Disarmament that would take place on 24 September in New York.

At 11:30, in Room III, just after the briefing, Salvano Briceno, Director of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Secretariat, would speak to journalists about the current disasters in Pakistan, China, Niger and Russia.

Other

Carine Van Maele of the World Meteorological Organization said she was very happy to inform journalists that Claire Nullis had joined WMO as a press officer. Claire had worked for the Associated Press for 15 years. She spoke French, English and German.

Claire Nullis said she did not have a cell phone yet. Her direct office line was 022 730 8478.

Jared Bloch of the International Organization for Migration said the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, Nguyen Thanh Son, and IOM Director General William Lacy Swing signed a new cooperation agreement on Thursday cementing ties between the Southeast Asian nation and the migration agency. "The signing of this agreement is a measure of the importance that Viet Nam places on migration management and its willingness to cooperate with international partners to address migration issues", said Director General Swing, who met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung as well as Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Gia Khiem, in Hanoi prior to the signing ceremony.