More funds are urgently required to ensure continued life-saving food distributions as current fund would run out by the end of November, the World Food Programme warned on Sunday.
“The WFP has received $27 million in support of emergency food assistance activities for the current floods. The current funding, provided by Australia, Japan, Luxembourg, the USA and the private sector, which will continue till end of November. More funds are urgently required to ensure continued life-saving relief distributions for the most vulnerable victims”, WFP spokesman Amjad Jamal told Pakistan Today.
He said that malnourished or undernourished children were a serious concern and recent floods aggravated the situation. He also added that the overall response of the world donors to the flood affected has not been very generous this time and funding remained very slow. When asked that why Pakistan has not been provided funds, he said that only donors could reply to the question.
When UN official Ishrat Rizvi was contacted in regard with slow funding, she said that that she could not speak on behalf of donors but one thing she could add was that Pakistan should urgently improve its disaster prevention system. When asked if there were any collaboration between the Government of Pakistan and the UN on improving the system, Rizvi said that UN had been assisting Pakistan and had provided some equipment also.
The issue of funding has been a particular concern of the UN since the launch of appeal for $356 million to help the Pakistani flood affected people. There were reports recently that the world’s slow response to Pakistan’s flood crisis was partly due to fears of mismanagement in funds raised last year. Referring to a memo of Baroness Amos, head of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, to Pakistan’s government, it was said that that donors were alarmed as aid workers were being refused visas and prevented from reaching affected areas.
According to the memo, Baroness Amos, told Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar last month that her government needed to address donor concerns.
