admin January 17th, 2011
We write a lot on this blog about disasters that are perceived not to have happened because they are not covered on CNN – or in the British papers. Amongst the pernicious effects of this ‘not on CNN’ syndrome are not just the under-resourcing of smaller (and not so small if they are in Africa) emergencies, but the over-funding of the ones that do generate all of the media coverage.
But last week Valerie (Baroness) Amos, who took over as head of OCHA in July last year did something about this by allocating around $84m, as part of the first round of allocations for 2011 from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), to assist people affected by hunger, malnutrition, disease, displacement and conflict in 15 ‘neglected’ emergencies around the world.
Nearly three quarters of the $84m is going to ‘neglected’ emergencies (as defined by OCHA) in Africa. And, to some extent, the locations of these emergencies will not surprise – Somalia receives $15m, the largest single allocation, with $11m going to Ethiopia. Agencies working in Chad will receive $8m, while humanitarian partners in Kenya will receive $6 million to start up programmes for 2011.
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Tags: Baroness Amos, Burundi, Central African Republic, CERF, Chad, CNN, Colombia, DFID, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Iran, Kenya, Madagascar, Myanmar, North Korea, OCHA, Palestine, Somalia, Sri Lanka, UN, Zimbabwe
