African Crises Take Back Seat to Tsunami, U.N. Relief Chief Says
/Jan Egeland, the United Nations' emergency relief coordinator, said
Thursday that while the international community had provided
unprecedented assistance to countries ravaged by the Asian tsunamis, it
continued to ignore chronic crises of equally catastrophic consequences
in Africa. Mr. Egeland, who raised the ire of the Bush administration
last month by accusing wealthy countries of having been "stingy" in
meeting the needs of poor countries in recent years, said Thursday that
with more money, the United Nations could save hundreds of thousands of
lives in Africa, "and it is beyond me really why we are not getting the
resources we need." He described Africa's predicament as "a forgotten
and neglected quadruple tsunami of AIDS and preventable disease, of
ongoing terrible conflicts, of lack of good governance or lack of
governance at all in addition to chronic lack of food due to droughts."
"There are 40, 50 rich countries that can foot the bill of vaccinating
children and feeding children, and Africa should have exactly the same
worth as the tsunami-affected region," he said. "We have to do a better job in
advocating on behalf of Africa, not only how bad it is but how it can
be fixed if you invest," he said. [more]
- Africa Doubts Results From World Forum Aid [more]
- Bill Clinton questioned the Bush administration's $80 billion request to finance the war in Iraq when "a pittance'' of that amount would allow the United States to double its aid and help end massive poverty in Africa. "You want to go save 4 million lives?'' Clinton asked. ``Give them the medicine. It's not rocket science, and it's so cheap compared to everything else all these rich countries do.'' "Anybody who says we shouldn't do this because there's corruption and incompetence should be put in a closet,'' he added. ``I mean, this is ridiculous.'' [more]
