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UN appeals for more Pakistan aid

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Keith Ranville
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« on: August 19, 2010, 09:27:30 pm »



The United Nations has issued an urgent appeal to donors to "open their wallets" for more aid to help rebuild Pakistan devastated by one of the worst ever flooding in its history.

The UN said the disaster was bigger than the 2004 Asian tsunami, the 2005 Pakistan earthquake and this year's Haiti earthquake, and yet it has attracted far less in donations.

At least 1,500 people have died following three weeks of monsoon-fed floods, which has displaced an estimated 20 million Pakistanis.

In a special session on Thursday, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, said donors have given $230m or about 60 per cent of the UN appeal to provide food, shelter and clean water to flood victims over the next three months.
Special coverage

Calling the flooding a "slow-motion tsunami", Ban said the remaining pledges must be realised soon, adding that much more money was needed to rebuild flood-ravaged Pakistan.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi, the Pakistani foreign minister, pleaded to international donors before he was due to address the meeting.

Pakistani plea

"We do need international assistance, we need international assistance now," he said.

Qureshi pledged that his government would put in place mechanisms "that are transparent and accountable" to handle the international aid.

"This was a mega-flood. Initially there was shock, paralysis, but we are out of it now. We are getting our acts together"

Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Pakistani foreign minister

The Pakistani government has been strongly criticised for failing to respond quickly to the floods, and Qureshi acknowledged the skepticism and criticism.

"Initially there was shock, paralysis, but we are out of it now," he said at the Asia Society in New York ahead of the UN meeting.

"We are getting our acts together. ... This was a mega-flood, so as people are becoming more aware the response has improved, and it will continue to improve in the days to come."

The United States, already the biggest donor, said it will commit another $60m to bring its total to more than $150m in disaster relief.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, told the UN General Assembly that the US will top up its emergency flood relief for Pakistan.


Donor pledge

She said approximately $92m will support the UN's $460m global aid appeal for more than 6 million flood victims over the next three months.

Britain on Thursday vowed to double its emergency aid for Pakistan to more than $99m, an official told the UN General Assembly, but made it clear that funds will be released to partners who prove capable of delivering medicine, food, clean water and shelter.
some 20 million Pakistanis have been displaced by weeks of massive flooding [GALLO/GETTY]

"I have come to New York directly from Pakistan, where I saw the dire need for more help," Andrew Mitchells, the British development secretary, said.

"It is deeply depressing that the international community is only now waking up to the true scale of this disaster."

The doubling of British aid, said Mitchell, "should now provide water and sanitation to 500,000 people; shelter to 170,000 people; help meet the nutritional needs of 380,000 people and provide enough health services to cover a population of 2.4 million people".

Meanwhile, Unicef, the UN children's fund, said parts of Pakistan may remain flooded even after the rain stops and stagnant water increases the risk of malaria, diarrhoea and cholera.

The floods began in the northwest of the country after exceptionally heavy monsoon rains and have since swamped thousands of towns and villages in Punjab and Sindh provinces. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/08/2010819225332866698.html
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