/ 19 November 2008

Red Cross asks for $420-million for development

The international Red Cross is asking for $420-million to help better prepare for floods, earthquakes and disease outbreaks around the world, but acknowledged on Tuesday that the global financial crisis means donors will be less generous.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies made its annual development fund appeal during a presentation in South Africa.

”We must not allow the looming financial and economic crisis to dampen our resolve to address the humanitarian needs of those who do not make the international headlines,” Bekele Geleta, secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said in a statement.

The agency’s Southern African operations director, Francoise Le Goff, said a special effort had been made to limit the request to the most essential projects.

Kelly David, head of UN aid efforts in Southern Africa, joined Le Goff on Tuesday to underline humanitarian workers’ fears.

”We are probably going to have to do more with less,” David said.

Budgets for 2009 were likely safe, she said, but ”we will begin to feel the crunch” in 2010.

Le Goff said Western leaders were quick to devise bail-out plans for their economies, but said humanitarian needs rarely got such attention.

”It’s an enormous frustration,” she said. ”It’s revolting.”

Le Goff said Southern Africa is particularly vulnerable because HIV/Aids, poverty and weak governance have combined to create an ongoing emergency, with malnutrition and diseases like cholera chronically at levels seen elsewhere only when disaster strikes.

While in the West the economic crisis might mean tumbling from working class to welfare, a family in Zimbabwe, for example, could face starvation if a relative who had been sending money home loses a job in England.

The $420-million from Tuesday’s appeal is for developing technology and communications for disaster management, building water supply systems, training volunteers and other logistics and infrastructure programmes.

Typically, the Red Cross is able to raise 65% to 80% of its development request, Le Goff said. Donors are more likely to respond to emergencies than to spend on development projects, she said. – Sapa-AP