West allocated US $1m from new UN emergency fund

Cote d’Ivoire will receive one of the first two allocations from a new UN emergency fund launched last week, with nearly US $1 million earmarked for thousands of people displaced by violence in the west. The Central Emergency Response Fund, formally opened at UN headquarters in New York on Thursday, is meant to provide immediate funding for humanitarian aid in cases of “sudden onset emergencies, rapid deteriorations, and neglected emergencies,” a UN statement says. To date about 50 percent of the $500-million fund has been pledged. The other initial allocation is for drought-stricken communities in the Horn of Africa and Kenya. UN officials have hailed the fund as a considerable improvement in emergency assistance, as under the current system aid can take up to four months to arrive at a disaster site. In the case of Cote d’Ivoire, the UN and aid groups will use the fund to help at-risk populations facing daily hardship in the war-divided country. “For the west of Cote d’Ivoire, where thousands of lives are in danger due to chronic insecurity and the humanitarian crisis, we have already allocated nearly one million dollars,” said UN emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland, who will manage the new fund. Upon the announcement of the fund Egeland said, “Too often, aid resembles a lottery in which a few people win but most lose based on considerations other than need. We must move from lottery to predictability so all those who suffer receive aid.” UN agencies and NGOs in Cote d’Ivoire are set to provide food, water and protection for more than 14,000 displaced farmers and their families in the western government-run town of Guiglo, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Cote d’Ivoire. “Considering the current situation, these funds will allow us to continue our work for the vulnerable population in the west, to whom we hope to recommit ourselves as soon as security conditions are met,” head of Cote d’Ivoire OCHA Abdoulaye Mar Dieye said. UN peacekeepers and humanitarian staff evacuated Guiglo in January after pro-government youths looted and torched UN offices and facilities during several days of violence against the United Nations mission in Cote d’Ivoire. The looting spree began as hundreds of UN peacekeeping troops abandoned their military bases in Guiglo and Duekoue – towns run by staunch supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo. Gbagbo is critical of what he considers foreign meddling in the three-year conflict that has split Cote d’Ivoire into a rebel-held north and a government-controlled south. The chief of the UN peacekeeping mission in Cote d’Ivoire, General Abdoulaye Fall, said last week that troops were preparing to return to the west, but he did not say when. The return of UN humanitarian staff to the region is still being discussed. Aid workers say relief operations are likely to resume gradually in the town of Duekoue, with staff planning to travel between there and Guiglo. Local authorities in the region say they want UN humanitarian personnel to return, but authorities do not agree on an immediate return of UN peacekeepers.