Posted on 01/01/2005 7:01:45 PM PST by Pikamax
With $2 Billion Donated, U.N. Now Needs Help to Deliver Aid By WARREN HOGE
NITED NATIONS, Jan. 1 - Jan Egeland, the United Nations' emergency relief coordinator, said Saturday that the commitment of relief money from more than 40 nations had reached $2 billion, but he said that the scale of the response was overwhelming the capacity to deliver aid.
"The compassion has never ever been like this," he said, but then added, "The military and civil defense assets that many countries are providing us are as valuable as cash or gold would be today because it makes us move with the assistance and it makes us get there in the race against the clock."
Mr. Egeland said the food and medical relief that was arriving in thousands of shipments was running into "logistical constraints" caused by overloaded airports and other bottlenecks. He gave a list of equipment needs drawn up in a telephone conference meeting on Friday with representatives of the United States-led core group of nations that also includes Australia, India and Japan.
Those needs included helicopters and ships able to carry them, air-traffic-control units, landing craft, trucks, cargo planes, base camps for the aid workers, fuel storage and water treatment units, generators and medical kits.
He said that some of that equipment was already coming in and that in addition to the core-group nations, he had spoken with officials in Canada, Britain, the Netherlands and other European countries.
He said aid workers were feeding one million people in Indonesia and needed to feed 700,000 in Sri Lanka, a goal the World Food Program expected to reach by Thursday.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's pledge of $500 million, Mr. Egeland said, made Japan the largest single donor, but he said he had "huge pledges" from the United States, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, Britain, Sweden, China, the European Union "and so many other partners."
Mr. Egeland, who stirred anger in the Bush administration this week when he said that despite growing prosperity, rich nations were becoming stingy in providing development aid to poor countries, went out of his way on Saturday to praise the American effort in the current campaign. Since his earlier comments, the United States has raised its commitment from an initial figure of $15 million to $350 million, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Friday that it was likely to go higher still.
"The United States, the wealthiest nation in the world, is doing a phenomenal job in this unprecedented challenge, not only with a very large cash donation but also bringing in military and civil defense assets that is precisely what we need," he said.
But he coupled the praise with a New Year's wish that the kind of response seen this week become the new norm.
"What we got in six days in this natural disaster was as much as we got for the more than 20 countries with phenomenal emergencies with hundreds if not millions of lives at stake all combined in 2004," he said. "What I hope in 2005 is that this is the level of international generosity when people are dying from natural disasters or conflict, because it hasn't been that in 2003 and 2004."
The U.N. can pool all its money and all its people and lease aircraft and ships, and they can all go to Sumatra and get to work, there.
Its not the UN's money
I would have hope that Egeland would have considered how much its costing the US to keep those ships in fuel, supplies etc.
That task group is costing well over a million a day (actually closer to two million) alone to run---in addition to the 350 million monatary pledge by DC.
Just keep your hands out of the till!
Sucks that we have to go through the UN to do good deeds, their track record does not merit handling the world's goodwill.
Air Canada has pledged a couple of aircraft for the relief effort- have any other airlines done so? It seems to me that private carriers probably have far more transport capability than most military organizations.
Aside from the typical slams against the UN I am particularly confused about something. The money is coming from sources outside of the UN and the UN is in need of other people to actually do the relief work. So what exactly is the UN's role in this?
I'm being serious. What specifically are they doing? Co-ordinating? Supervising? Anything?
Sorry UN no help needed.
After spending $1.9 billion to set up relief offices
and hire UN staff, we will then have $100 million left
to help these poor victims.
pilfering
They also abscond.
Two billion!!! Boy, howdy, the NYC mistresses of some UN diplomats and officials are going to get new BMWs this quarter!! That pool of money almost replaces the lost Iraqi oil money!! Great!!
Our money is NOT going to the UN.
Why do they need more money?
but he said that the scale of the response was overwhelming the capacity to deliver aid.
Odd, we don't seem to be having any trouble!
But, you see, the UN is just a building; the only "assets" they have are what we "loan" them. Poor Jan shot himself in the foot, calling us stingy.
By the time Kofi drug his butt of the slopes at Jackson Hole, Bush had formed a "coalition" which left Kofi in a position of having to BEG Colin Powell to let them "participate."
Screw them; by the time they decide the shape of their meeting table, we will be halfway to done.
Of course, after it goes through the UN, it will total $47.50 and a box of ramen noodles.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.