NEW YORK/LIMA, 29 August 2007-UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is seeking $850,000 in emergency funding to help up to 250,000 victims of the recent earthquake in Peru. The call for funding is part of a United Nations system-wide appeal for emergency donations of nearly $37 million launched this week in Geneva.
The funds will help restore and strengthen local primary health services following the 15 August earthquake, which measured 7.9 on the Richter scale.
UNFPA will help the country improve emergency reproductive health care and to finalize a rapid assessment of local health services, particularly in isolated rural mountain villages. The Fund will also provide affected communities with reproductive health supplies and emergency kits to ensure that 800 women per month give birth safely. These activities will benefit a total of 50,000 women and girls of childbearing age, including 15,000 pregnant women.
The emergency funds will also help establish 15 community centres within, and nearby, 12 camps and among approximately 35,000 shelters for people who have lost their homes in the earthquake. The centres will provide hygiene kits and offer protection to vulnerable groups, such as women, girls, the elderly and disabled people from gender-based and other violence, and provide legal, medical, psychosocial and vocational services to those in need. UNFPA will help establish a mobile team of professionals that can provide information to victims of sexual violence and refer them to medical facilities.
In cooperation with Peru's National Institute for Statistics and Information and with local authorities, UNFPA will help carry out a census of the population affected by the earthquake. The headcount will identify and register the number of people and the losses suffered by each household. It will also provide information regarding damage to commercial, industrial and institutional services and help determine access to basic services.
UNFPA has already allocated $90,000 which is being used to provide 6,000 emergency hygiene kits delivered in the provinceof Cañetethis week, and to fund the initiation of the emergency census of the affected population.
UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.
For further information, please contact:
In Lima: Gabriela Ayzanoa, e-mail: ayzanoa@unfpa.org,
tel.: + 51 1 226-1026, ext: 225;
In Mexico City: Trygve Olfarnes, e-mail: olfarnes@unfpa.org, tel.: +52
1 55 1353-8451;
In New York: David Delvecchio, e-mail: delvecchio@unfpa.org, tel.: +1 212
297-4975.