REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

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

At the beginning of the briefing, Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said it was great sadness and a heavy heart that she was announcing the death of their friend and colleague, Alexander (Sandy) Higgins, Bureau Chief of the Associated Press in Geneva. He had died yesterday after a long illness. They had all lost a close friend and formidable colleague, who was one of the nicest, most cheerful and efficient persons and whom they had all appreciated and would miss a lot. She expressed condolences to Sandy’s family and colleagues.

Frank Jordans, on behalf of AP and ACANU, echoed similar sentiments, saying Sandy, who had been AP Bureau Chief in Geneva for the past 19 years, had passed away yesterday afternoon after battling a very aggressive form of cancer for several months. The only consolation was that he passed away peacefully with his wife Valerie by his side. Sandy had covered every major story in Geneva since the early nineties, from peace talks to disaster relief operations to the experiments of the CERN laboratory. He had also been involved in the work of ACANU and APES, holding several offices over the years and working hard on behalf of his fellow journalists. Copies of his obituary were available at the back of the room. There would be a private funeral held in the next few days, and a remembrance ceremony would be organized for September. Sandy had been a dear friend over the years and he would be sorely missed. A minute of silence was observed.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination was continuing its work at the Palais Wilson. Yesterday morning, the Committee had concluded its review of the report of France, and this morning, it would conclude its consideration of the report of Slovenia. Next Monday, 16 August, at 3 p.m., the Committee would start its review of the report of Morocco. The Committee’s concluding observations and recommendations on the reports which it had considered this session would be released towards the end of the session on 27 August.

The Conference on Disarmament would hold its next public plenary at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 17 August.

Pakistan

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that the latest situation report on Pakistan was available at the back of the room. Agencies were accelerating their response to the crisis. Details of the extent of the damage across Sindh and southern Punjab provinces were now being established. In close coordination with the Government, partners continued to scale up their efforts to better understand the humanitarian consequences of the floods across the country. An assessment coordinator would arrive in Islamabad today to lead the work of the inter-agency assessments working group. Warnings of fresh floods in low-lying areas of Sindh in the coming days had been announced and scattered rain and thundershowers were expected across most of the country.

Ms. Byrs said information notes on funding for the Emergency Response Plan and total humanitarian assistance by donors were available at the back of the room. Following the launch in New York of the Appeal for almost $ 460 million for Pakistan, a Member State briefing was being held today in Geneva. The appeal was now funded at 20 per cent; they had $ 147 million in funds and $ 87 million in pledges.

Jacques de Maio, Chief of Operations of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in South Asia, said he would provide an operational update, taking stock of what had been concretely achieved so far and what was the immediate prospective, including the top priorities and outstanding gaps for ICRC. An operational update was available at the back of the room. ICRC wished to stress three points. The first was magnitude and scope. While ICRC fully identified with UN figures regarding the caseload, ICRC had to acknowledge its ignorance and impossibility at this point to seize or measure with precision the full magnitude, scope and nature according to different areas. The very nature of the problems would have to be analyzed in coming days. The second point concerned urgency. There were millions of people in need of clean water, food and medical care, and they needed it right now. Coordination was fine but action was even better. There was a serious and shared risk assessed by the different humanitarian agencies that there might be a second wave of deaths induced by the floods under the shape of water borne diseases. Third, it had to be realized that the livelihoods of millions of persons had been literally washed away, and embedded in the overall strategy to address the emergency needs must be early recovery. There was also the relief gap, no matter what, it was clear that millions of people would not get the assistance that they direly needed. Clearly the overall relief effort at this time could not keep pace with the increasing scope of the emergency. It was absolutely vital to upgrade the operations accordingly.

Thanks to prepositioned emergency stocks and relying a lot on the Pakistani Red Crescent Society, which had more than 100,000 volunteers around the country, ICRC had managed since the very onset of the disaster in Balushistan, then eastern Punjab, then the northwestern parts of Kheyber Pakhtunkhwa, and in some areas of Pakistan Administered Kashmir, to initiate a relief action, Mr. de Maio said. Fifteen days into this crisis, ICRC had assisted 100,000 persons in various areas. In addition to food and non-food aid, an equally important aspect concerned water and health. The idea was to prevent disease and boost local capacity to deal with epidemics. Water purification systems and water treatment plants were being installed in many areas. ICRC was also pushing mobile health clinics and health units which were currently providing up to 5,000 consultations a day. This was absolutely not meeting the overall needs. Restoring family links was another issue being worked on with the Pakistani Red Crescent. Flexibility was important because the caseload was going to evolve quickly as were the nature and priorities. Massive constraints included logistics, procuring, transporting, warehousing and distributing the aid, and also some security concerns. There were also long-term consequences. The food security of the nation was at risk here and millions of people had seen their livelihoods totally devastated and they would need help in that sense. Finally, this catastrophe was taking place against the background of continued armed violence in some areas and conflict dynamics.

Christine South of the Disaster Services Department of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said the scale of this emergency was so great, both in terms of the scale of area and the numbers affected, that it meant they were working very hard to ensure that all parts of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement were working together to make the combined effort as strong as possible. At the centre of that was the Pakistan Red Crescent Society, which was a key actor. They had a large number of trained staff and volunteers covering all the affected areas of the country. They had good access to areas where others did not. The Federation was providing support to the Pakistan Red Crescent Society through expatriate teams. A nine-person assessment team had been sent to work with them. Additional logistics staff, an emergency response unit, two relief response units, and additional teams on shelter, health and water and sanitation had also been sent. It was very difficult to get a complete picture of the needs. For the moment, the Federation had mobilized a pipeline of non-food items, including tarpaulins and shelter kits for 50,000 families. The current appeal of the IFRC stood at just over 70 million Swiss Francs and would be revised at the beginning of next week. The scale of the disaster was horrendous now, but when they looked at the longer-term, they were looking at a serious risk in terms of livelihoods and recovery of this population.

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme said that as of last night, the World Food Programme (WFP) had reached 430,000 people with a one-month food ration, and today distributions would start to be rolled out in the provinces of Punjab, Sindh and Balushistan. WFP had six helicopters in the air and it had acquired the use of four more helicopters. It was hoping to get even more helicopters in the skies and that would be a big help because they were most acutely concerned about communities that had been completely cut off. There were still communities, particularly in the northern part of the Swat area, that were completely cut off with hundreds of thousands of people. Given favourable conditions and if WFP would be able to get all the helicopters in the air in coming days, WFP planned to have reached two million people by 20 August. WFP had enough food stocks in country to provide a one-month ration for the needs of up to six million people, but the logistical concerns were particularly of concern. Currently, the appeal was for three months and the WFP part of that was about $150 million. They had about one third of that but were appealing urgently to donors to make sure that amount of food could be acquired and brought in as quickly as possible to maintain the flow.

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said WHO was happy to report that 56 out of 74 flood-affected districts in all provinces of Pakistan were able to share daily disease outbreak information with WHO, which was the lead agency for public health. The total number of health consultations on one day, on 9 August, from all affected provinces, was 140,000 consultations, out of which, 15 people were seeking care for acute watery diarrhea. In the Punjab, WHO had 1,900 health facilities operating in the area, including 1,000 mobile clinics. Between 1 and 9 August, the Health Cluster was able to conduct 90 training sessions for health staff and water supply supervisors on chlorination and disinfection techniques. One of the worries of the health cluster was the rising number of people seeking care for water borne diseases. Concerning the Pakistan Response Appeal, the total amount for the health component was $ 56 million, mainly to monitor the health threats, risks and outbreaks in the area, to be able to assess damage to the health infrastructure, and to develop plans for rehabilitation. It was also very important to establish mobile clinics for areas with no access to health facilities.

Marco Jimenez of the United Nations Children’s Fund said access was difficult and UNICEF was providing services to the people it was able to reach. In the past three days, nearly 13,000 children, pregnant women and lactating women had been vaccinated against measles, polio and tetanus in different places affected by the floods. Yesterday, a shipment of 100 metric tons of supplies containing oral rehydration salts, emergency health kits and nutrients had arrived in Karachi to add to what UNICEF was distributing to people affected. Currently UNICEF was distributing nutrients to over 56,000 people, focusing on children and lactating and pregnant women. In terms of protection, UNICEF had identified 1,200 cases of children in a vulnerable situation. Ten had been reunited with their families and the rest were being dealt with. Nearly 2,000 persons had received treatment from UNICEF or UNICEF-supported medical teams.

Adrien Edwards of the UN Refugee Agency said UNHCR wanted to warn everyone that the crisis facing Pakistan was not only enormous, it was still unfolding. There continued to be massive destruction as the bloated rivers flowed southwards across the plains, and the crisis in UNHCR’s view would not be over when the flooding receded due to homelessness, hunger and illness. UNHCR was in Pakistan because it included the biggest caseload of refugees that the agency dealt with in the world as well as internally displaced persons. UNHCR was working to address protection and shelter needs amongst these communities, including conflict related displaced persons, and was also helping Pakistani communities ravaged by the immediate flooding. In Kheyber Pakhtunkhwa province, UNHCR had found 78 refugee camps across 17 districts in the province had been overwhelmed by the flooding, erasing more than 12,500 homes and leaving 85,500 refugees homeless. Many homes had been seriously damaged amongst refugees and local Pakistanis. The affected included many women, children and older persons, and were now being given priority to safe temporary shelter and emergency food and medical assistance, in coordination with UNHCR’s partners. They were still in the emergency phase and over the coming weeks and months UNHCR would be helping refugee families and affected Pakistani communities to return to their homes.

Jared Bloch of the International Organization for Migration said the shelter cluster appeal was for
$ 105 million to meet the needs of 300,000 families, which meant approximately 2 million individuals. Some 55,000 tents had already been delivered as well as 31,000 plastic tarpaulins and 44,000 blankets to 71,000 families. Regarding the IOM appeal, it had announced an appeal for $ 38.25 million to help up to half a million families over the next few months. The appeal focused primarily on provision of emergency shelter and household items for families made homeless by the floods. It also included funding for coordination of the emergency shelter cluster, and monitoring of the distribution of assistance to those in need. There was additional information on the appeal in the press notes.

Zero Race

Diana Rizzolio of the United Nations Environment Programme said available at the back of the room were copies of an information note on the Zero Race, which would depart from the Palais des Nations on Monday 16 August at 1.30 pm. The UN Security Department had exceptionally agreed to open the gate of the Palais overlooking the Place des Nations for the departure of the race. UNEP supported this race, which was starting in Geneva and would tour the world in around 80 days in small and emission-free vehicles. The race would go through 16 countries and would stop in around 150 cities, including Cancun at the end of November or beginning of December where the annual climate conference would be held. The race would conclude in Geneva in January 2011. The 80 days of the race did not count the time spent travelling by boat. This global event was planned to be a thrill, as well as an opportunity to harness public interest and generate new ways of thinking about mobility, cars and renewable energies. The Zero Race also aimed to make zero emission energy solutions accessible to a worldwide audience. Louis Palmer was organizing The Zero Emissions Race. Jan Kubiš, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, on behalf of the Director General of the United Nations Office in Geneva, would start the race, along with representatives of the United Nations Environment Programme.

Other

Gregory Hartl of the World Health Organization said he would like to make a correction. A wire story was sent out yesterday in Spanish quoting him incorrectly saying that the WHO had collected irrelevant data for purposes of linking assessments on conflicts of interest or not. He would like to make it very clear that the more data that they had from Experts that served on WHO’s Committees, the better assessments it could make and the surer they could be that there were no conflicts of interest.

Adrien Edwards of the UN Refugee Agency said UNHCR was worried about floods in Chad, where floods since mid-July had affected large areas. The flooding followed two years of drought, and it was thought to be the heaviest rainfall recorded in 40 years. Up to 9,000 people are believed to be affected by the floods. UNCHR was distributing essential survival items, including blankets, plastic sheeting and bed mats to around 2,500 families. There were more details in the briefing notes.