Aid agencies appeal for $252 million to help some 32 million people in West Africa in 2011
DAKAR (AlertNet) - International donors need to fund protection and disaster risk reduction activities in West Africa as they do for issues like food and nutrition, aid groups said on Tuesday at the launch of a regional humanitarian aid appeal.
Humanitarian agencies have appealed for $252 million to provide urgent aid in protection, food security and nutrition, health, water and sanitation to some 32 million people in West Africa in 2011.
About 35 percent of these funds are intended to finance protection and human rights projects in a region confronted with poverty and frequent natural disasters.
Only 2 percent of the $ 85 million requested in 2010 was provided by donors to help West Africa.
“If we don’t get the money we cannot do anything therefore it aggravates the situation and the needs are even bigger,” said Stephanie Hecquet Lepoutre, a senior official at the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).
Aid workers say the protection sector may be receiving less donor attention because it is too vast requiring multiple agencies to intervene and it is it is not easy to show accomplishments in activities such as access to psycho-social support and emergency education.
“Donors like to see tangible results which they can probably receive from other sectors and so we end up without funds and we are left with running mainly capacity building projects which are good but do not provide hands on help to the needy,” said Mehreen Afzal, associate regional protection officer at UNHCR in Dakar.
Aid groups are also lobbying for greater donor contribution to disaster risk reduction activities which, they say would be a key part of their work in a region where more than 1.6 million people’s livelihoods were disrupted by floods this year.
The groups appealed for $7 million in 2010 but received nothing but still they hope improved advocacy will push donors to contribute to the over $9 million they are requesting for emergency preparedness and response next year.
“It’s hard to convince donors that disaster risk reduction and preparation reduces the cost of the response to a crisis the key problem being that it has no immediate visibility,” said Manuela Gonzales, humanitarian affairs officer at the U.N. Office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA).
Humanitarian action in the region will however continue to focus on the food and nutrition situation the region in which 10 million people and thousands of cattle were hit by food shortages this year with an estimated $50 million needed for nutrition projects and $38 million for food security projects, OCHA said in a statement.
More than 28 million people are targeted by health, water and sanitation projects in the West Africa appeal that is part of 15 humanitarian appeals launched by the United Nations.
The so-called Consolidated Appeals Process, or CAP, is a co-ordinated effort by hundreds of aid organisations including U.N. agencies and non-governmental organisations.
“By investing in humanitarian aid, we will be contributing in breaking the cycle of recurrent crises that has fragilised already vulnerable communities and contribute in delaying long-term development efforts”, said Noel Tsekouras, the regional head for OCHA in west and central Africa.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
