Humanitarian Appeal 2007 – Press conference by Emergency Relief Coordinator

If all rich countries gave a single cent per $100 of their respective gross national products, full funding would be achieved for the Humanitarian Appeal 2007, United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland said today as he called on States to find the $3.9 billion needed for that effort.

He said that amount represented a decrease from last year’s Humanitarian Appeal for $4.7 billion, of which $3.1 billion, or 63 per cent, had been received and had helped 31 million people this year.  There was cause for optimism that 2007 would be the best year ever, as less funding had been requested and some 140 donors had been arranged.  “We are asking nobody to really bankrupt themselves; we’re asking for a minimum of generosity from everybody, predictably,” added Mr. Egeland, who is also Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs.

With 13 appeals for 29 countries, funds would provide assistance for 27 million people in desperate situations, he said.  Of the $3.9 billion sought, the largest slice of $1.22 billion had been requested for the Sudan, with half of that needed in Darfur; $687 million was earmarked for the Democratic Republic of the Congo; $454 million for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, its largest appeal to date; $309 million for West Africa; $296 million for Uganda; and $237 million for Somalia, among others.  Countries like Nepal, Guinea and Liberia, which had been included in last year’s appeal, were today in a transition stage and did not need an emergency appeal.

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Asked how to ensure that funding did not fall into the hands of a Government in the Occupied Palestinian Territory that European Governments had criticized for failing to adhere to agreed conditions, he replied that the $454 million requested would be channelled through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).  It would finance social programmes, particularly for children, and not the Palestinian administration.  The dramatic increase in needs was in part to the crumbling of that administration under political pressure.

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For information media • not an official record