Pakistan Aid Hit by Stall In Funding

By Hasan Mansoor

Agence France Presse

Published: September 3, 2010 (Issue # 1606)

THATTA, Pakistan — Relief efforts in flood-ravaged Pakistan are being stretched by the “unprecedented scale” of the disaster, with the flow of international aid almost at a standstill, the UN said Thursday.

A month of catastrophic flooding has now killed 1,760 people and affected more than 18 million, including eight million who are dependent on aid handouts to survive, it said.

Although the initially slow pace of aid had improved since a visit by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in mid-August, the UN said it has “almost stalled” since the beginning of last week, rising from 274 million dollars to 291 million dollars — about two thirds of funding needs.

“Given the number of those in need, this is a humanitarian operation of unprecedented scale,” Manuel Bessler, head of the UN’s coordination agency OCHA said in a statement.

“We need to reach at least eight million people, from the Karakoram Mountain Range in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south.”

Thousands of people were trapped by floodwaters in towns in the southern province of Sindh, while others are complaining of going without food or water for days, some forced to live in the rubble of their ruined homes.

The World Bank raised its emergency funding for Pakistan to one billion dollars amid dire warnings about the threat to the country’s food supplies.

The floods have ruined 3.6 million hectares of rich farmland and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said farmers urgently needed seeds to plant for next year’s crops.

“Unless people get seeds over the next few weeks they will not be able to plant wheat for a year,” Daniele Donati, director for FAO emergency operations in Asia, the Middle East and Europe, said on Wednesday.

“Food aid alone will not be enough. If the next wheat crop is not salvaged, the food security of millions will be at risk,” Donati warned.

The World Food Program has warned that Pakistan faces a triple threat to food supplies — with seeds, crops and incomes hit.

In southern Pakistan, hundreds of hungry and desperate families from a relief camp in the city of Thatta blocked the highway to Karachi for three hours Wednesday, demanding the government provide more food and shelter.

“No food or water has been provided to us for the past two days,” Mohammad Qasim, a 60-year-old resident of the flooded town of Sujawal, said.

The protest came as under-fire Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani warned the country faced inflation of up to 20 percent and slower economic growth because of the floods, warning of job losses and social unrest.

Gilani said an inflation target of 9.5 percent for 2011 would now likely be in the range of 15-20 percent, spurred by food shortages, while GDP growth would also slide to 2.5 percent from the predicted 4.5 percent.

World Bank chief Robert Zoellick announced an extra 100 million dollars to add to an existing 900 million dollar loan as he met Pakistan’s Finance Minister on Wednesday.