$484 North East Humanitarian Response Plan underfunded – UN official

The $484 million Humanitarian Response Plan appeal for the North East by the UN is grossly underfunded, the immediate past UN Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator, Mohamed Safieldin, has said.
Safieldin told the News Agency of Nigeria in New York on Wednesday that about a quarter of the funding was received as at October.
He, however, stated that at the moment, there is a funding shortfall of about 300 million dollars.
Safieldin said: “From the government, we don’t know in figures how much the government has provided in terms of aid; for the UN, we know how much the UN and the international NGOs have been able to mobilise in terms of funding for our humanitarian appeal.
“At the moment, the appeal from the UN and the international NGOs together to provide assistance has been based on an estimated budget of $484 million.
“And we have received only 23 per cent of the funds we have asked (for) from the international humanitarian donors to support the humanitarian operations by international NGOs and the UN (as at October).
“If you asked for $484 million and you received less than a quarter, it simply means you are unable to reach or provide services for more than a quarter of the target population of people, who need humanitarian aid.
“The humanitarian situation in the North East of Nigeria, specifically in Borno State, can simply be described as a humanitarian crisis and the statistics and the numbers as we speak to the fact that there is a humanitarian crisis of a very large scale.
“At the moment, there are at least 1.8 million civilians, who have been internally displaced as a result of the violence instigated by Boko Haram in the North East of Nigeria.
“And at the moment, international organisations are saying up to last year or specifically between 2011 and 2015, at least 23,000 civilians have been killed or (have) lost their lives as a result of the violence.
“But I have been spoken to the Governor of Borno (Kashim Shettima) and I trust his own estimations are much reliable when he said at least 100,000 civilians lost their lives as a result of the conflict and the violence instigated by Boko Haram in the North East.”
With the funding shortfall, however, Safieldin said civil servants should be encouraged to return to liberated communities to provide basic social services that would encourage spontaneous return of IDPs.
He said: “What is needed urgently, and I thank the Governor of Borno, he’s mentioned this several times as part of his strategy is to encourage civil servants from the LGAs, which have been liberated by the army to return to make the life at least comfortable.
“With the basic services, whether it is health, sanitation, drinking water, education, you need the teachers, you need the medical personnel; you need the engineers and the administrators from the LGAs to go back to the areas, which have been secured by the army to re-establish the civil services there.
“That is the most critical step.
“Unless these civil servants return and stay and resume the provision of services for the people, life is not going to be normal in these places and the spontaneous returnees will not find it conducive to stay.
“They will come back to the camps and this prolonged process of displacement will continue which is not in the interest of Nigeria economically and socially.
“I have many messages not necessarily only for the victims; definitely for the victims, we sympathise with them and we are trying our best to support them and we would continue with this commitment to support them.
“What is very important in my view now looking beyond the victims, looking beyond the IDPs is that what is it that we need, all of us national authorities, international community to do?
“We need to put our hands together. We need to look into the suffering of the people and forget about some of the political issues, sensitivities here and there.
“And focus on saving the lives and focus in giving the Nigerian people who are from this place the best we can give to them at the moment.”
NAN reports that the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, on Tuesday, released the Northeast Nigeria Humanitarian emergency-situation Report covering the period from October 1 to November 28, 2016.
The report highlighted 1.82 million IDPs, with 5.9 million people in need of health assistance and 400,000 children under five with severe acute malnutrition.
The report also showed a current funding overview of 192 million dollars out of the 484 million dollars projects listed for the 2016, as of November 1, with 292 million dollars funding shortfall.