It is appalling that so little of the United Nations emergency appeal for aid to victims of the huge earthquake in Pakistani and Indian-administered Kashmir has so far been pledged. Kofi Annan and Jan Egeland yesterday complained that only a small proportion of the $312 million needed has materialised, compared to 80 per cent of the tsunami appeal. This crisis is much worse.
They fear a second wave of mass deaths is looming as winter closes in on the Himalayan areas, where the death toll so far now stands at 78,000. All essential infrastructure has been destroyed, including roads, water supply, hospitals, schools and public administration. 450,000 tents are needed and 2 million blankets and sleeping bags. Only 15 of the 54 helicopters working on the disaster in Pakistan this week are foreign. While Nato has begun emergency airlifts from Turkey the capacity available falls far behind what is needed. The scale of the damage is much more than Pakistan and India can handle.
This lamentable state of affairs bears out the case made by several NGOs that such ad-hoc funding is no way to run an international emergency service. Oxfam has published a study describing 2005 as a year of disasters, starting with the tsunami and including crises in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Niger and the Sahel as well as the hurricanes which hit the United States. It argues that aid is very unevenly provided, often late, sometimes inefficiently administered and usually a response to inconsistent media coverage.
Oxfam calls for an extra $1 billion commitment to a UN emergency fund, roughly equivalent to the shortfall in appeals made over the last year. Millions of lives could be saved if there was a greater ability to respond promptly to emergencies. The case for a standing helicopter force is also strong after this year's experiences - and given the prospect that there will be many more environmental crises arising from global warming in coming years. It seems obscene that so many helicopters are being used on military assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan while so few are available in this emergency.
Only the United Nations has the scope and legitimacy to organise such an emergency facility; but the existing UN fund needs close scrutiny and reform during this session of the General Assembly. As always with the UN, political will is essential if progress is to be made on this. The Government has committed $10 million to it in a welcome gesture. But unless a lot more public and political attention is paid to the case made by Mr Annan and Mr Egeland yesterday the world will fail these desperate people as their winter looms.