United Nations, Nov 19: Declaring that no one should die because they lack food and medicine that are available in surplus elsewhere, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday called for three billion dollar of aid for 45 million people in 21 countries. Annan made the 'consolidated appeal' for the year 2004 on behalf of the UN humanitarian agencies. "Let us be clear: The aid we give them is not charity, it is their right," Annan said at a ceremony at UN Headquarters in New York.
He stressed that most of the proposed beneficiaries were children, women and the elderly struggling to survive displacement, loss and severe disruption to their lives in wars, conflicts and natural disasters. Victims of natural and man-made disasters have a right to the fulfillment of their basic needs. And donors and citizens who can help have not only a moral responsibility to provide emergency and life-sustaining assistance, but an obligation to do so under international humanitarian and human rights law, he added. Noting that the three billion dollars sought amounted to little more than three dollars per person in donor countries, "the cost of a magazine or two cups of coffee," Annan said, "with that amount we will help save lives in 21 of the world's most serious crises from Chechnya to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea and many countries and regions in Africa."

Bureau Report