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Secretary-General seeks $7.1 billion to aid 48 million people in 2010

(Geneva: 30 November 2009): United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called for $7.1 billion to provide urgent humanitarian aid to 48 million people in 25 countries worldwide.

"Our aim is to help people survive the coming year, and start working their way out of vulnerability towards the dignity, safety and self-sufficiency to which every human being has a right" the Secretary-General said in the foreword to the Appeal.

The Humanitarian Appeal 2010 is the biggest Appeal ever launched since the creation of the Consolidated Appeal Process (CAP) in 1991. It comprises twelve consolidated appeals, for Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, the occupied Palestinian territory, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, the West Africa region, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.

The Appeal marks the culmination of a vast undertaking in which 380 aid organizations including United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations and other international organizations have united to meet the world's major humanitarian challenges in a strategic, coordinated, effective, and prioritized way.

"We are here to ask for a response to the urgent call of people whose lives have been wrecked by conflict and natural disasters. The 2010 Appeal offers concrete help to these people in need," said John Holmes, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. ""As we enter the last month of 2009, many governments have put in place large-scale financial bailouts and economic stimulus packages, putting pressure on other budget needs. [...] My most important message for you here today is that humanitarian aid should be insulated from these budget pressures. If not, the people desperately affected by the severest natural disasters and conflicts will pay the price for a recession not of their making. To put today's appeal into perspective, the amount of humanitarian funding that we request for 2010 is far less than one percent of the amount spent on financial bailouts and economic stimulus," he added.

John Holmes presided over the launch of the Humanitarian Appeal 2010 this afternoon. The Director-General of the European Commission Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid (ECHO), Peter Zangl, the Secretary-General of Deutsche Welthungerhilfe, Wolfgang Jamann, and the Deputy Permanent Representative of the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Indonesia in Geneva, Desra Percaya, also participated. Topic-specific presentations were given by the Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organisation in charge of Health Action in Crises, Eric Laroche, the Director of the Emergency Operations and Rehabilitation Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization, Laurent Thomas, the Deputy Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of the World Food Programme, Amir Abdulla, and the Chair of the Cluster Working Group on Early Recovery, Jennifer Worrell.

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