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'Emergency' fear for 220m people Billions 'wasted' by aid system
(about 9 hours later)
The number of people living "on the edge of emergency" has nearly doubled to 220m in just two years, one of the world's biggest aid agencies has said. Billions of dollars will be wasted unless there is a radical overhaul of the system of giving aid, a report from a leading aid agency warns.
Care International says billions of dollars in aid will be wasted if it continues to be spent in the wrong way. Care International says too much money is being spent on short-term fixes during emergencies, rather than on longer-term prevention work.
Failure to resolve underlying issues trapping people in extreme poverty has left millions unable to cope with surging food prices, the agency warns. The number of people living "on the edge of emergency" has nearly doubled to 220 million in two years, Care says.
Halving poverty and hunger around the world by 2015 are key UN goals. The report comes ahead of a high-level UN meeting on poverty goals next week.
"The world's inaction on food emergencies has proved costly and it is the world's poorest people - stripped of enough to eat - who are paying the price," said Geoffrey Dennis, chief executive of Care International UK. Halving poverty and hunger around the world by 2015 are key objectives of the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDG).
The report, "Living on the edge of emergency: Paying the price of inaction", comes ahead of a UN summit on the organisation's Millennium Development Goals (MDG), to be held in New York next week. Co-ordination call
The top priority of the MDGs is to halve the number of people whose income is less than $1 (56 pence) a day by 2015. Care says a failure to resolve the underlying issues trapping people in extreme poverty has left millions now unable to cope with surging food prices. In countless previous emergencies, aid has often arrived too late, was short-term, and policies were targeted too heavily on saving lives rather than building resilience in the population, the report says.
Coordination call It's much more cost effective to respond when you know people are vulnerable... than fire-fighting, when you have to manage an emergency response Vanessa RubinCare International Vanessa Rubin, a hunger adviser for Care, told the BBC it was much more cost effective to support people who were on the brink of a disaster, rather than "fire-fighting when you have to manage an emergency response".
Care's report, released on Thursday, says the international community has failed to learn the lessons of countless emergencies. "If we take the example of Niger, in west Africa. In 2005, it was costing about $80 (£44) to save a malnourished child at the height of the crisis," she said.
Governments must take this opportunity to... protect the most vulnerable from emergency Geoffrey DennisCare International UK class="" href="http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=5356&edition=1">Send us your comments "Months before that, at the point where children were vulnerable, the equivalent intervention would have been about $1 a day."
Too often aid arrived too late, was short-term, and policies were targeted too heavily on saving lives rather than building resilience in the population, the report says. She said it was time to take stock, "admitting that business-as-usual hasn't worked, and agreeing to change mind-sets, and really change the way that everyone works".
"It is a disgrace that, despite warnings, money is still being spent in the wrong ways," said Mr Dennis. "That's a big call for the agencies, for donor governments, for governments in the big countries where there are hungry people, and for the UN," she said.
The report calls for donors to better coordinate their emergency aid and long-term development commitments, and focus on food production and support for the world's poor, as well as developing early warning systems for disasters. Acute hunger
"Governments, the UN, donors and aid agencies must take this opportunity to deliver the long-term structural reforms to the aid system that will protect the most vulnerable from emergency and build their resilience to food price rises, drought and other shocks." The report, Living on the edge of emergency: Paying the price of inaction, urges donors to better co-ordinate their emergency aid and long-term development commitments.
The report comes a day after the head of the UN's food agency, Jacques Diouf, said the number of people suffering from acute hunger rose by 75m to an estimated 925m last year. It also calls for more focus on food production and support for the world's poor, as well as developing early warning systems for disasters.
Next week's meeting of the MDG is aimed at boosting international commitment to halve the number of people whose income is less than $1 (55p) a day by 2015.
The Care report comes a day after the head of the UN's food agency, Jacques Diouf, said the number of people suffering from acute hunger rose by 75 million to an estimated 925 million last year.