“We are always busy with something, I guess,” says humorous Timo Pakkala, in the United Nations Coordinator for Humanitarian Aid. He added that the agency was expanding its assistance programme in KP due to the influx of displaced people from North Waziristan.

“The World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) are already providing emergency assistance to the IDPs in cooperation with the government,” says Duniya Aslam Khan, who is the information officer in the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

But the agency has not yet begun its own activities, she says, explaining that the government only asked them for help on June 24, while food aid and vaccination assistance had been given as a first priority.

“My calendar has been full in June,” she says. “I shall be glad to take a few days off in July, work allowing, like so many other diplomats and international civil servants do this time of the year,” Duniya says.

Vittorio Cammarota, the director of the UN Information Centre, wants to meet and discuss upcoming events and activities, looking for space in his meeting calendar.

“And if there are relatively few public gatherings in the summer, we have to set up something ourselves because the implementation of the UN activities keeps going and the need for humanitarian aid never ends.”

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2014