UN donor conference elicits promises of funding for Central African Republic

An international donor conference has elicited promises of humanitarian aid for 1 million vulnerable people in the Central African Republic though no new financial commitments were made, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today.

Several regular donors promised to return to their capitals and push for funding to alleviate the crisis in the north of the nation, which UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Antonio Guterres has as “the world’s most neglected crisis.”

About 15,000 Central Africans have fled increasingly insecure and violent conditions in the north over the past 6 months, bringing the total number of CAR refugees in southern Chad to more than 43,000.

Held in the Cameroonian capital of Yaoundé on Monday, the donor meeting zeroed in on the agency’s 2006 Humanitarian Appeal for the country, which requested about $46 million under its Consolidated Appeal Process.

That appeal is not targeted at CAR refugees in southern Chad, but will help care for people displaced by attacks in the north who have remained within their home country, an OCHA spokesperson said.

Funds are also needed to provide assistance and help repatriate about 30,000 refugees from neighbouring countries, including the Congo, the Sudan, Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as internally displaced persons, an OCHA spokesperson said.

The donors for past appeals, which were funded at less than 40 per cent, have been Demark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United States and the World Bank.

Last year, the largest donors to CAR were UN agencies, using funds that had not been earmarked for other projects.