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June 04, 2009

Aid Groups Press Congress on Funds for Pakistan

Overwhelmed by the growing humanitarian emergency in Pakistan, aid organizations are calling on Congress to allocate more money for the nearly 3 million people who’ve fled a military offensive against the Taliban.

In a letter to members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Samuel A. Worthington, president of the umbrella organization InterAction, said aid workers are stretched thin trying to assist people who are arriving at a rate of nearly 126,000 per day. Money and supplies have been slow to arrive in the region, he said.

Mr. Worthington urged the government to spend an additional $150-million through the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and approve a Senate provision providing $345-million to the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration.

In addition, he said, the State Department — not the Department of Defense — ought to be given primary authority over $400-million appropriated for the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capabilities Fund. He warned in the letter that any perception of an association between aid work and military assistance “endangers humanitarian workers and compromises their ability to help those most in need.”

Mr. Worthington also expressed concern that money would be diverted from other crises to help victims in Pakistan. If the government allocated money for Pakistan without replenishing the State Department’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, he said, “other OFDA emergency assistance programs — such as those in Somalia — could suffer.”

— Caroline Preston

Thursday June 4, 2009 | Permalink

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