From: Yemane Natnael (yemane_natnael@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Jul 21 2008 - 12:30:43 EDT
Worsening situation in Somalia pushes aid costs to $641 mln
By Daniel Van Oudenaren
July 20, 2008 (WASHINGTON) – Aid operations in Somalia
will cost $641 million this year, according to a mid-year review issued
on Wednesday July 16 by the UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The UN is appealing for $435 million in
new funding pledges to meet the cost.
"Nutritional surveillance has indicated widespread and
worsening high levels of malnutrition, exceeding the WHO emergency
threshold (15%), and worsening food security in various regions of
South Central Somalia," said the OCHA report.
Market data released on July 8 by monitors at the Food
Security Analysis Unit - Somalia (FSAU) shows that the price of maize
rose to 15,000-18,500 Somali shillings per kilogram in four markets in
the Shabelle Valley, from around 3,000 shillings at the same time last
year.
Other market indicators point to danger for Somalia’s
significant pastoral populations. The terms of trade for goats have
fallen in all regions of Somalia, with particularly dramatic changes in
the Juba Valley, the Shabelle Valley, and the southern Sorghum
belt—where a goat’s price relative to cereal dropped about 75% since
July of last year.
Civil insecurity is a key immediate cause of
humanitarian emergency in the Somali regions of Lower Shabelle,
Banadir, Middle Shabelle, Hiiran, Bakool, Gedo, Galgadud, and Mudug,
according to FSAU, which is funded by USAID and the European Community.
Environmental degradation and poor rains are also
contributing to food insecurity. South and central Somalia received
below-average rains during the gu (main) rainy season, which ends in
June. Last year south and central Somalia faced the lowest gu harvest
in 13 years.
Over the past week aid workers have faced a spate of
fatal attacks. A spokesman for an armed Islamist group, identifying
himself only as Sheikh Mohamed, told Garowe Online that his
organization blamed aid workers for supplying the enemy.
The UN World Food Program says that it is trying to
assist 2.6 million Somalis in need - a number that is expected to reach
3.5 million by the end of the year.
The United States is the largest donor of humanitarian
assistance in Somalia, granting $85 million so far this year. In the
fiscal year 2009, Congress will also provide $11.6 million in security
assistance to the UN Peacekeeping Operations.
But the Bush administration faces criticism for its involvement in the Somali conflict.
The Enough Project, a research and advocacy group,
questioned U.S. support for Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government
in an April strategy paper. Further in an opinion piece this week for
the Washington Post, Frankie Martin, a fellow at American University in
Washington, D.C., says that "the United States must immediately change
a failed policy. Instead of effectively fighting those individuals who
wish America harm, it has taken on the Somali people."
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article27956
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