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Pakistan humanitarian effort in jeopardy due to a lack of funds and UN blockage

Projects face closure as money fails to arrive — worst case of funding in a decade

Thursday 11 June 2009

Save the Children’s efforts to help more than one million victims of the fighting in the Swat valley of Pakistan is under threat due to a lack of funds. Along with eight other aid agencies working in the region, we’re struggling with a collective funding deficit of £26 million (US$ 42m) - the biggest shortfall in a decade.

We plan to reach around 280,000 displaced people in the region, including 168,000 children, who are in desperate need of healthcare, non-food relief items and protection. 40,000 people have been reached so far, but to date we’ve received just £2.6m of the £6.6m needed to achieve our goals in the Swat Valley.

Save the Children has begun distributing food for 170,000 people and will be transferring $45 cash grants to 5,000 households each month to support essential household costs. We’re especially concerned by the looming educational crisis which sees an estimated 10,000 classrooms currently occupied by people already displaced by the conflict, meaning that there are virtually no learning opportunities for at least 1.7 million children also displaced by the conflict. Despite this, at the beginning of this week the education cluster, of which Save the Children is global co-lead, had still received no funding.

At the same time, World Vision is facing a £7.5m ($12.1m) shortfall while Oxfam has warned that it will have to close its programmes to the 360,000 people it had planned to assist if a £4m ($6m) funding shortfall is not addressed by July. Concern Worldwide will also have to close its programme mid-July, just when the health risks will escalate due to the onset of the monsoon rains.
 
“The only reason we haven’t faced a massive humanitarian meltdown is the generosity of families and communities of modest means who’ve looked after the vast majority of those who’ve fled the fighting. With so many mouths to feed, these communities will soon be running on empty. The world’s richest nations need to dig much deeper into their pockets to help,” said Carolyn Miller, Chief Executive of Merlin.

The funding crisis is not affecting the agencies alone. The UN’s $543m appeal has only received $138m so far. This is a 75 percent shortfall. Out of the 52 organisations requesting UN appeal funds, 30 have received no funds at all.
 
Save the Children and its partner agencies are also worried that, besides little money going into the UN appeal, even less money is being dispersed from the appeal to frontline agencies.

In a humanitarian crisis speed of delivery is vital. Previously governments would give part of their aid money directly to frontline agencies. Now when governments do give aid money, it tends to go to the UN which then passes it on to agencies working on the ground. Although the UN system can improve coordination and reduce duplication of effort, the allocation of money to frontline agencies takes far too long. The UN funding system needs to be complimented with other diverse ways of getting aid money as swiftly as possible to those saving lives. 

Find out more about our emergency response in Pakistan.