UNICEF seeks $805 million to save children worldwide
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The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) appealed on Monday for $805 million to provide aid to millions of children and their mothers caught up in 29 emergencies worldwide.
More than one-third of the total sought from donors for this year, $331 million, is for Sudan, where the survival of 1.4 million children in Darfur alone is threatened by conflict, it said.
“I would stress that the $805 million is enough to cope, to meet the minimum requirements of these children. It’s not luxury and it is also not emergencies that happen after today,” Daniel Toole, director of UNICEF emergency programmes, told a news briefing after presenting the figures to donor countries.
Funds will be used to provide food, water and sanitation, education and protection in crises which leave children especially vulnerable to disease, malnutrition and violence, according to the annual UNICEF Humanitarian Action Report.
Sudan is emerging from a bitter civil war in the south - Africa’s longest - which claimed more than 2 million lives and forced more than 4 million to flee their homes.
“This is perhaps the most important year for Sudan. As people come out of war, they want to return home and if they don’t see schools and health centres and a visible change in their lives, they may become frustrated and angry and we risk having war again in Sudan,” Toole said.
“We can’t take that risk. We must fund urgently and on a very large scale this year for Sudan,” he added.
EXTREME POVERTY
Along with Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo ($91 million), Ethiopia ($45.5 million) and Uganda ($44 million) are among the countries in line for the largest sums.
“In many of these countries, children live in an almost constant state of emergency because they are growing up in extreme poverty, without access to education or the most basic health services,” Toole said.
UNICEF said that responding early to appeals not only avoided suffering and loss of lives, but also ensured “better value for the donor’s money”.
“Humanitarian action is more cost-effective if begun early, before the situation of children and women deteriorates,” the report said.
The appeal includes $222 million already sought under the U.N.‘s so-called consolidated appeals process (CAP) for all agencies last November.
The outpouring of generosity after the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster in December 2004, and donor support for emergencies in general last year, had been “unprecedented”, UNICEF said.
UNICEF’s income reached a record-breaking $1 billion at the end of October, according to the report.
Yet out of 25 crises it sought to fund last year, only four were funded above 50 percent. Nine appeals did not get any emergency funding, it said.
“It is easier to raise money for natural disasters than it is for long, drawn-out wars. Even for Darfur right now it is harder to raise money for response than it was two years ago,” Toole said.
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