Unmet UN aid appeals reach decade-high level

Steepest shortfall in U.N. humanitarian appeals in a decade - report Thu, 19 Jul 2012 15:41 GMT Source: alertnet // Lisa Anderson

South Sudanese carry food aid from a World Food Programme distribution centre in Pibor, Jonglei State, January 12, 2012. REUTERS/Hereward Holland By Lisa Anderson NEW YORK (AlertNet) - United Nations humanitarian appeals have seen the steepest shortfall in a decade as overall international humanitarian aid fell 9 percent to $17.1 billion in 2011, a report said on Thursday. The dip in funding partially reflected the absence of the colossal natural disasters of the earthquake in Haiti and floods in Pakistan that drove sharp increases in humanitarian aid in 2010, as well as the growing impact of the global economic crisis on government aid budgets, according to the latest annual report by Global Humanitarian Assistance (GHA), a U.K.-based aid monitoring group. In 2011, governments contributed $12.5 billion in humanitarian aid and private funders gave $4.6 billion for a total of $17.1 billion, down from $18.8 billion in 2010, according to preliminary estimates released by GHA. Despite the reduction, both private and government contributions remained above 2009 levels. What is most striking is the huge gap of 38 percent in unmet needs experienced in 2011 by the U.N. Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP), which seeks funding for the worst humanitarian crises. The United Nations had requested $8.9 billion to meet the humanitarian needs of 62 million people. That compared with an appeal for $11.3 billion to help 74 million people in 2010. Nonetheless, it received only $5.5 billion of its 2011 request. “This is one of the confusing or inconsistent trends that we’ve observed this year,” Lydia Poole, author of the report and GHA programme leader, told AlertNet. “The amount of the funding request within the appeal has gone down. The number of people affected within the appeal has gone down. And the overall funding has gone down, but it hasn’t gone down by as much as the appeal requirements actually went down,” she said in a telephone interview. “So you’d expect there would be more funding available, but that doesn’t seem to have happened,” Poole added. Poole said GHA can’t say conclusively why the gap widened but it is part of a progressive downward trend in which the U.N. appeal system has received a lower proportion of its request every year since 2007. “In 2011, what seems to have happened is that relatively small amounts of funding have gone to quite a large number of small-scale crises which are outside the U.N. funding appeal,” she said. Specific information on the aid given to these smaller crises, in places such as Myanmar, Turkey, Uganda, Bangladesh and Tanzania, is difficult to track but “collectively, it adds up to quite a bit”, she said. The report found, “unmet humanitarian financing needs rose across the board in 2011, for U.N. CAP and other appeals alike”. These included the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies which saw only half their needs met against an average of 67 percent in the period 2006-2011. One major area of funding by governments continues to be peace and security in conflict-affected states, where investments grew by 140 percent between 2001 and 2010, the report said. In terms of countries with fragile governments where years of humanitarian assistance have not yielded great results, Poole said “I think there is a growing consensus that building institutions of government is one of the most effective ways, long-term, of dealing with the state in providing basic services for their populations.”

THERE IS NEED FOR A NEW FORMULA TO DEMARCATE CONSTITUENCIES

Before the 2016 General Elections, Uganda should have evolved a new formula that will lead to a just demarcation of constituencies; this, where each constituency is determined by a given number of people. The current formula is very unfair, and has proved very expensive to the tax payer for no justifiable economic sense, probably it makes political sense to the NRM. We must accept that Uganda is so impoverished, and the more we have uneconomic expenditures, the more the country will sink. Can you imagine that by 2016 the Parliament may have not less than 400 MPs, surely, this does not make economic sense, if we have planners at all. It is important to come up with a new Voter Register as well. There is no doubt that the current voter register have a number of ghosts which gives those who cheat in any election to inflate the voter numbers without exceeding the number on the register! It should be realized that in absence of the Identity cards, the Voter cards issued in 2001 will by 2016 have long reached expiry as photos on them will not be reflecting the actual appearance of the holders. In a Budget Monitoring and Accountability Unit (BMAU) Briefing Paper No. 12/11 of September, 2011 on Wastage in Uganda's Primary Schools, it was found that 1.6% teachers in primary schools were ghosts; 2.7% primary schools were ghosts as well as ghost children. When ghosts are eliminated in primary schools, the Government would save a minimum of shs 26.68bn! Given the trend in primary schools, it is obvious that the Voter Register has ghosts, which ghosts ought to be removed to have elections that reflect the wishes of the people. William Kituuka Kiwanuka Refer to the link below for Electoral Commission Act 1997 http://www.ulii.org/ug/legislation/consolidated-act/140

THE PHOTO OF CHILDREN GREETING CLINTON SHOWS HOW MUCH WE YEARN TO BE ASSISTED

Former US President Bill Clinton greets pupils of Building Tomorrow Academy GITA in Matugga, about 40 kilometers from Kampala on yesterday. The Building Tomorrow Foundation is to build 60 schools in 14 districts by 2016. PHOTO BY ISAAC KASAMANI. By John Njoroge Posted Saturday, July 21 2012 at 01:00 In Summary Second visit. He is expected to initiate the implementation of the use of Oral Rehydration Solutions. Former US President William J. Clinton has arrived in the country as part of a campaign to end diarrheal deaths among Ugandan children by increasing access to the most effective treatment – zinc and Oral Rehydration Solutions (ORS). Mr Clinton was last in Uganda in March 1998 when he was US President. He arrived at Entebbe International Airport at 10.30am yesterday, accompanied by his daughter, Ms Chelsea Clinton. The duo then visited planted trees at the Building Tomorrow Academy in Matugga. His visit is expected to initiate the implementation of new steps to rapidly increase the use of Oral Rehydration Solutions in both public and private health channels. The new efforts in Uganda come on the heels of a growing global commitment to eradicating child deaths to diarrhoea. It is estimated that 8, 500 child deaths will be prevented each year if Uganda’s goal of increasing coverage of ORS to 80 per cent and zinc to 40 per cent by 2015 is achieved, as outlined in the national Child Survival Strategy. An estimated 14,000 children under the age of five die of diarrhea each year in Uganda. Zinc and ORS are able to prevent over 90 per cent of diarrhea-related deaths, but less than 5 per cent of children are currently using the complete treatment. Given the high effectiveness and affordability of zinc and ORS, increasing their use is one of the key pillars in Uganda’s extraordinary effort to reduce diarrhea and child mortality. The former US president will be joined by President Museveni, senior health ministry officials, UN Health agencies, representatives of leading non-governmental organizations, and business leaders at National Medical Store in this drive. Diarrhoea treatment Treatment of diarrhoea is an essential component of the comprehensive national effort to reduce diarrhea mortality, which also involves efforts to enhance hygiene; provide clean water; and introduce the rotavirus vaccine. Share This Story Share The Ministry of Health, in pursuit of the fourth Millennium Development Goal to reduce child mortality, has made progress in expanding access to essential medicines for children. Amongst other interventions, the Ministry and partners have implemented Integrated Community Case Management (ICCM), increasing access to medicines for diarrhea, pneumonia and malaria for children at the community level. National Medical Stores has also introduced ‘last-mile’ delivery, delivering drugs directly to all health centres. Compared to other, more expensive and complex treatments zinc and ORS are affordable and easy to scale. The Copenhagen consensus, a project that ranks global welfare priorities, rated it as one of the top buys of social impact. It also ranks among the most cost effective health investments when considering cost-per-life-saved. jnjoroge@ug.nationmedia.com

THREE LESSONS FROM NELSON MANDELA

On Nelson Mandela's birthday, we celebrate International Mandela Day by doing our part to make the world a better place. Four years ago, at a celebration to mark Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday, President Clinton reflected on the three lessons we can all take from Mandela's life. The text of his speech is below. Thank you very much Prime Minister, Madiba, Graca, ladies and gentlemen. First let me say, I speak tonight on behalf of all three members of our small family. Hillary, Chelsea, and I, each in different ways, have been blessed to know Nelson Mandela, to be moved by him, to be touched by him. On this, his 90th birthday, we should be grateful for three gifts, and we should respond in kind. You heard in the introduction that I once had the honor of being a student in this country, at Oxford, almost 40 years ago. I knew then three South Africans: two white, one black. One was a committed supporter of apartheid; he had a very big brain trapped inside a very narrow mind. One, also a white man, hated apartheid, but he could never go home and live according to his convictions. And tragically, the black student could not go home, because he was getting an education and therefore might be a danger to the system. Once at a party at our home, he literally broke down and started throwing things and screaming in anger, because he felt guilty that he chose the opportunity given at the price of his homeland and his people. All three of them were imprisoned. They were imprisoned because none of them were free. Nelson Mandela gave 27 years of his life, walked out of prison, and included his oppressors in his government so that they could all be free. He taught us that none of us can ever be free at another’s expense. The second thing he taught us was how to live a life. We served together as Presidents, and we sometimes had trouble keeping our personal friendship and official roles separate. We would have to play like Presidents half the time. We would talk, he would have his talking points, I would have mine, and unlike most of you I’ve actually seen him mad a time or two. But he never called me once, not once, without asking about my daughter and Hillary, and how they were, what their lives were like, and what was going on. In the most difficult periods of my life, he asked me to remember that he had survived in prison, because he remembered that no matter what anybody else said or did, no one can take your mind or you heart away. You had to give them up, and no one should ever give them away. He was always, always trying, first and foremost, to be a good person: to live and love and to give up resentment and anger. Just in his doing so, countless millions of people saw how they too could be better people. The third thing he has given us in these 90 years is the gift he gave us upon leaving office. First of all, he was quite well aware that the true merit of his life was not tied to his being President of South Africa. He was only too happy to honor the law, the constitution, and the passage of time. He gracefully left office as he had entered it. It is quite a cautionary tale today, in view of other events on the African continent and elsewhere around the world, that the greatest of all our Presidents gladly gave up power knowing that, as with everything else, it has its season. When he left office, it was almost as if his real work began. He didn’t have to worry about negotiating the fineries of trade details with the President of the United States or anybody else. He went to work trying to save the children of the world beginning in his country and on his continent. We closed the World AIDS Conference together in 2002 in Barcelona. At the time, there were only 200,000 people in poor countries around the world getting life-saving AIDS medicine. Today, there are well over 10 times as many, thanks in part to what governments have done and in part to what private citizens have done. I have done what I could, because he told me that I should spend my life doing this. He said, “You’d be good at this. You ought to figure out how to get more of these kids on medicine.” I’ve done a lot of things he told me to do, and I probably would have been better off if I’d done everything he told me to do. So I ask you to remember those three things. He gave up almost a third of these 90 years, because he thought he would never be free until all his people were free. He came out of the prison a better man than he went in, and he continued to work on it every single day. He has taught us how to live our lives. And finally, he has taught us that the power of public good does not require public office; it just requires a well- placed heart and a determined mind. These three gifts he has given in greater measure than any other living human being. I think we owe him just one thing in return: to try, each in our own way, to honor that legacy by supporting his work and doing our own as best we can, and like him, with a grateful, full heart. God bless you, friend.

ESSAY / POETRY COMPETITION

Essay/Poetry Competition The theme of the competition is personal experiences – WHAT DOES UGANDA MEAN TO YOU – restricted to children and grandchildren of the Ugandan diaspora. You may submit an essay or poem – 1,000 words in total, to be submitted by August 15 2012. To be submitted by email. There will be two categories: 1) Ages 18 and Under; 2) Age 19 – 35. One winner in each category will be announced on September 8th. Each winner will receive a prize of $500.00. These prizes were donated by an individual who suggested these age groups. We thought this was fine because the intention was to get our younger people who don’t have much contact with Uganda to think about Uganda. Those of you who are older, do write something as we would love to publish some interesting stories in our Souvenir Booklet. WEBSITE: http://uganda50toronto.wordpress.com/essaypoetry-competition/

WHO IS THE NRM WOMAN TAKING OVER FROM MUSEVENI COME 2016?

THUMBS UP FOR MINISTER NAKIWALA KIYINGI

Minister Nakiwala Kiyingi belongs to a class of her own. She is among the women in Uganda who cn move things. She is very devoted, and hard working as well innovative. She surely will take Buganda tourism to great hieghts. Thank you Madam Minister. William Kituuka Kiwanuka