Emergency needs total $1 billion; resolve to solve African crisis must not waver, Secretary-General says.

Emergency needs total $1 billion; resolve to solve African crisis must not waver, Secretary-General says

A "very cautious and conditional expression of hope" was delivered by Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar on 17 December 1985 to an informal meeting of Member States on the African emergency situation.

Thanks to the generous international response and to rain which promised better harvests, he said, emergency needs would be down significantly in 1986 but still amount to nearly $1 billion. However, as the situation improved and news of the famine "faded from the front pages", the resolve of the international community to respond adequately might weaken.

"We cannot let that happen", said the Secretary-General. "The momentum that has been generated this year must be maintained."

The drought highlighted the seriousness of Africa's development crisis, he said, which must be addressed "with the same sense of urgency and in the same concerted and sustained manner which characterized the response to the drought".

The meeting of Permanent Representatives to the United Nations was called by the Secretary-General to alert the international community to the continuing crisis and to review the accomplisments of 1985. Speakers called for continuing efforts to deal with the crisis and emphasized the need to formulate long-term solutions. They welcomed the General Assembly's decision to convene a special session on the critical economic situation in Africa in 1986.

Bradford Morse, Director of the Office of Emergency Operations for Africa, said that poverty, not drought, was the fundamental cause of the crisis. The task of mobilizing resources to meet more than $1 billion in emergency needs in 1986 was "formidable", he said. The momentum of the 1985 relief operations must be maintained while deploying resources for recovery and development.

Mr. Morse suggested that:

-- Food needs be met mostly by cash contributions so that food surpluses in some areas of Africa could be purchased and delivered to areas of need. Although it would be easier for donor countries to provide their own food surpluses, he said, it would be wrong to use external food to replace locally available supplies which could undermine the local agricultural economy, reduce incentives to increase local food production and perpetuate dependency on foreign food aid;

-- Donors give higher priority in 1986 to non-food aid needs. Deficiencies in non-food assistance in 1985, he said, must be made up in 1986 to assure the health and nutrition of the most severely affected, vulnerable people:

-- Emergency relief be administered in ways supportive of recovery and long-term development, including food-for-work programmes and assistance in transport, health, water supply and sanitation areas;

-- Special assistance be available beyond providing relief to those displaced from their homes and two may have lost all their possessions; and

-- Strong support be given to African Government requests for assistance to improve their capacities to prepare for future drought emergencies.

On behalf of the African Group, Melchoir Bwakira (Burundi) said that African countries were grateful to the international community for assisting the victims of drought and famine over the past year. The situation, however, remained precarious. Africa was still relying on the international community to help it cope with the continuing crisis. The special session of the General Assembly would provide an opportunity for African States to assume their responsibility together with the international community, he said.

Report

The 1984/1985 international effort was the "greatest peace-time relief operation in history" according to the December 1985 status report on the emergency situation in Africa, prepared by the Office for Emergency Operations in Africa (OEOA).

An unprecedented array of Governments and non-governmental groups raised $2.9 billion and saved at least 3 million lives, it stated. More than $1 billion in external assistance would be required in 1986 to meet emergency-related needs of some 19 million Africans affected by the continuing crisis. Although that was considerably, less than the amount raised in 1985, it was expected that future contributions would be harder to raise. On reason for that "is the misperception, fostered partly by a significant diminution of media coverage of the famine, that the crisis in Africa is over", the report stated.

The emergency situation for 1986 remained serious i n Ethiopia, the Sudan, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde and Botswana. While the number of critically affected countries fell from 20 to 6 in early 1985, the report stated that affected populations of those six nations accounted for nearly 70 per cent of all in need of external food and non-food assistance during 1984-1985.

The situations of eight other countries--Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Senegal, Lesotho and Rwanda--substantially improved during 1985, although more than half of the non-food needs of Mauritania, Senegal, Lesotho and Rwanda went unfulfilled. All eight continued to need assistance but were considered by the OEOA to be on a "hopeful road to recovery".

The relief operation in 1986 would require a much greater proportion than before of aid in the form of cash for the purchase and transport of local food. The effort should also be much more closely tailored to develop-mental goals than was the case in 1985 when the overriding priority was provision of aid to those on the verge of death.

While rains had brought about good harvests, the report warned, one good rainy season could not undo the damage of several years of drought. Drought was likely to return to Africa, the report stated, but its effects could be mitigated through planning and addressing the root cause of the crisis--lack of development.

If future catastrophes were to be avoided, the report stated, recovery and medium- and long-term development must be given the same king of urgent attention that was accorded the relief effort in the past year.