PAKISTAN: MAJOR CONSTRAINTS HAMPER RELIEF EFFORT, FUNDING SLOWING DOWN

(New York / Geneva / Islamabad: 01 September 2010): The United Nations and its partners have delivered life-saving assistance to millions of people in need in flood-hit Pakistan, but major constraints hamper operations and make it impossible to deliver at the necessary speed.

The staggering scale of the disaster itself is the major obstacle. The floods have affected over 18 million people and ravaged an area of at least 160,000 square kilometres - larger than the surface area of England. This poses enormous challenges as regards procurement, handling, and delivery of relief supplies. "These floods have at times been able to displace one million persons in one day, and we simply cannot be as fast as the waters", said Martin Mogwanja, Humanitarian Coordinator for Pakistan, "We continue to work around the clock at the fastest possible speed, and are reaching hundreds of thousands more people every day".

"Given the number of those in need, this is a humanitarian operation of unprecedented scale", said Manuel Bessler, head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the country, "We need to reach at least eight million people, from the Karakoram Mountain Range in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south". OCHA has established five main inter-agency coordination hubs, to ensure that assessments and response plans are devised as effectively as possible in every part of the country.

Destroyed roads and bridges remain a major obstacle in many areas. Efforts are underway to repair this infrastructure, and more helicopters are being brought into the country in the coming days by the World Food Programme (WFP) and other entities. "Helicopters will remain key for some time to come, as 800,000 people are accessible only by air, both in the north where roads and bridges have been washed away and in other parts of the flood zone where entire communities have been cut off by rising waters", said Frances Kennedy, a WFP spokesperson in Pakistan.

"With so many people on the move searching for a place to stay, thousands of spontaneous settlements have sprung up everywhere," said Mengesha Kebede, Representative of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Pakistan, "This is why camp coordination and camp management structures are necessary, especially in Sindh, so we can work to improve the conditions in those camps that will need to accommodate people for some time, and make the response more systematic".

Funding for the activities envisaged in the Pakistan Initial Floods Emergency Response Plan (PIFERP) has improved significantly during the week following the visit to Pakistan by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 15 August, but it has been almost stalled since the beginning of last week. Contributions totaled US$ 274 million (59.6% of requirements) on 24 August, and are now at $ 291 million (63.4% of requirements). "The crisis is far from over", said Tammy Hasselfeldt, chair of the NGO consortium Pakistan Humanitarian Forum (PHF), "In fact, we are now entering the most difficult stages. Unless we can act fast enough, children and other vulnerable people may succumb". The PIFERP currently requires $ 459.7 million, but requirements are expected to increase very significantly when it is revised later this month.

Despite the challenges, the United Nations and its partners have so far delivered one-month food rations to almost three million people, in addition to high-energy biscuits to 750,000 children. Medical attention has been provided to 3.9 million, and supplies to cover the potential health needs of 3.6 million have reached health facilities across the country. Tents and plastic tarpaulins have been delivered to over 1.1 million, with the same materials in the pipeline for an additional 2.5 million. Clean water is provided every day to over two million people, without counting the provision of purification material as temporary relief.

For further information, please call: OCHA Islamabad: Maurizio Giuliano,+92 300 8502397, giuliano@un.org; Stacey Winston, +92 300 8502690, winston@un.org; OCHA New York: Stephanie Bunker, +1 917 3675126, mobile +1 347 2442106, bunker@un.org; Nicholas Reader, +1 212 963 4961, mobile +1 646 752 3117, reader@un.org; OCHA Geneva: Elisabeth Byrs, +41 22 917 2653, mobile +41 79 473 4570, byrs@un.org

OCHA press releases are available at http://ochaonline.un.org or www.reliefweb.int