Rich nations are accused of giving ‘nothing’
By Justin Huggler, Asia Correspondent Published: 27 October 2005 The United Nations almost doubled its appeal for donations for victims of the Pakistan earthquake as some rich nations were accused of contributing nothing to help the survivors.
The UN raised its appeal to about $550m (£310m) from its original target of $312m. “The scale of this tragedy almost defies our darkest imagination,” Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, told a donors conference in Geneva yesterday, where a minute’s silence was observed in honour of the 79,000 people killed by the 8 October quake. “We meet today to prevent a second shockwave of deaths and to prevent further suffering.”
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which increased its emergency shelter programme appeal to $30m from $22m, said it had only received $4m - from Sweden, Japan and Italy. “We need more resources to save two million to three million lives and we need much more resources in the next few days,” Jan Egeland, the UN’s under secretary general for humanitarian relief, said.
The charity Oxfam said less than 30 per cent of the UN’s original target had been pledged.
It named France, Austria and Spain among seven of the world’s richest countries which had not contributed a single penny to the UN’s emergency appeal for the earthquake. Oxfam also accused the US, Japan, Germany and Italy of not giving their “fair share” to the appeal in proportion to the size of their economies.
The Independent, UK: Rich nations are accused of giving ‘nothing’ 10/27/05