ISLAMABAD: The United Nations and Pakistan’s joint flash appeal has generated $150 million commitments out of which $38.35 million have been converted into assistance.
Julien Harneis, the United Nations’ Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator shared this information with media today.
“We have been very successful in our fund-raising drive, and pledges of $150 million [are] excellent in the current circumstances. The main donors are the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Japan, Denmark, Australia, Singapore and others besides the Central Emergency Response Fund of the United Nations, which raised $10 million,” Mr Haneis told newsmen at a press briefing on relief operations being carried out by the UN.
He said that although “funding is looking good” the needs across Pakistan in this emergency are fast-changing, with the health situation being especially worrying.
“Across the board, we can say this $160 million flash appeal is not going to be sufficient. We are in discussion with the government and other partners, and based on evaluations and assessments, revision of the flash appeal is required,” the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator said.
Saying that the flash appeal is for six months (September 2022 to February 2023), it is targeted at only six million the most affected people from floods and the UN and its partners were focusing on those people. The government has estimated that 33 million people had been affected by the countrywide flooding, Mr Haneis said.
“We are still in early days; not enough has been delivered and we need to speed up the response. UN and NGOs have some reserve monies in hand, those are being redirected to respond to emergencies, but there is a limit how much we can do. So use against scale, we need money quickly that can be converted into assistance,” the top UN official in Pakistan said.
The UN resident coordinator said that a very significant amount of cash grants was being doled out through the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP).
He said that the UN had an obligation to be transparent financially and accountable so that food aid did not diversified away from the needy people. Every UN agency and all NGOs have internal control and means of monitoring.
He lauded Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s decision to engage a reputed international accounting company to ensure that international assistance was being used properly, and there were no pilferages.
