ISLAMABAD, Sept 13: Donors and humanitarian agencies have observed a shift towards high profile aid efforts in politically strategic conflicts while chronic emergencies are receiving little attention.
This was revealed in The World Disasters Report, 2003, launched here on Saturday by the Pakistan Red Crescent Society in connection with the celebrations of International First Aid Day.
According to the World Disasters Report, Focus on Ethics, at present international donor and humanitarian agencies were focusing on reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, whereas chronic emergencies like Angola, Somalia and Democratic Republic of Congo were receiving little attention.
In April 2003, $1.7 billion of relief and reconstruction aid was raised by the US Department of Defence for Iraq. This figure stood in stark contrast to $1 billion shortfall in funds then faced by the UN’s World Food Programme to avert starvation among 40 million Africans across 22 countries.
“We are facing a real inequity in global humanitarian practice where many of the world’s wars and disasters have become forgotten emergencies. If the aid community and donors are committed to providing aid on an impartial basis, they must act on their principles and intervene where the need is most acute,” President of the International Federation Juan Manuel Suarez del Toro was quoted as saying in the report.
The report examines how military forces are assuming a greater humanitarian role in conflicts where western geo- strategic interests are at stake. Many humanitarians fear that regime change in places like Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq has blurred the lines between civilian and military humanitarian assistance which could result in aid workers losing their impartial status and being targeted or even killed.
Referring to the responsibility of aid agencies, the report said aid agencies themselves were partially responsible for failing to attract attention to some of the world’s more chronic emergencies.
Two-third of the money pledged at the donor conference for Afghanistan in Tokyo (January 2002) was for humanitarian assistance. Despite protests by the Afghan authorities much of this assistance is unwanted food aid which has distorted the agricultural economy.
The report is critical of international agencies that undermine rather than build the capacity of local NGOs and national authorities when they arrive in the wake of disasters.
Since the fall of the Taliban the arrival of over 350 international aid agencies in Afghanistan has driven up local rents, inflated salaries and sucked away skilled and experienced Afghans from the government and vital public services.
The chief guest on the occasion was Laila Zuberi, a renowned TV artist and PRCS first aid ambassador in Pakistan.
Ms Zuberi, who herself has recently completed a week-long first aid course, urged schoolchildren to undergo this training also.
Connecting disasters management and first aid, she said in a country like Pakistan where all types of disasters were a regular phenomenon, everybody should undergo first aid training.
Speaking on the occasion, Jamila Ibrahim, head of Pakistan delegation, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said giving attention to disaster management was of key importance in Asia where 40 per cent of the world’s natural disasters occurred every year.
The PRCS general secretary, Brig Fazal, in his welcome remarks, briefed the participants of the PRCS’s ongoing efforts to make as many first aiders as it could in the country.