I speak with Stephanie Bunker of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs about the catastrophic flooding in Pakistan.
A country that is at the center of US foreign policy is experiencing a calamity the likes of which it has never seen. So why in the world is there nary a mention of the Pakistan floods on the homepages of both the New York Times and Washington Post? There is nothing above the fold on the homepage, no mention below the fold and not even a link in the lower headline boxes:
The flooding just keeps getting worse and worse. On Saturday, the UN estimated that 4 million people were affected by the flooding in Pakistan. By Sunday they revised that estimate to 6 million people. Today, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that over 13 million people are affected.
Mariko Hall of the World Food Program reports on the ICT aspect of the humanitarian response to massive flooding in northwest Pakistan:
The IT Emergency Preparedness and Response team of WFP is deploying an emergency mission to support the team of five national ICT staff in Islamabad currently managing the operation.
Poor rainfall last year means children are beginning to starve in Niger. UNICEF is putting that number at 400,000 severely malnourished children. As I have said before, this is the biggest humanitarian emergency that you have never heard about. Here is the latest video dispatch from UNICEF.
Terrible flooding in Pakistan's Swat valley. Al Jazeera has some breathtaking footage of the power of these floods.
The International Federation of the Red Cross just posted this video about one woman's day to day struggle to survive the food crisis in Niger. The World Food Program declared it an emergency operation in which millions of people risk starvation. So far, though, the international response has been weak.
When you watch this video keep in mind that 500 CFR = about $1 USD. That means one cup of millet, not a very nutritious grain, costs her about $1.25. But that is just one cup and she has 10 mouths to feed.
ALNAP – the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in humanitarian action – just released a pilot study on the humanitarian system. The study was very ambitious - it looked at the humanitarian system’s performance and progress, defining key criteria, assessing system performance and progress, and present new statistics. Their conclusion? The system gets a B-.
Presidents Bush and Clinton team up for a new public service announcement for Haiti relief efforts.