{"id":68779,"date":"2016-04-27T01:24:19","date_gmt":"2016-04-26T23:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/un-and-partners-call-for-action-and-support-to-help-60-million-people-affected-by-strong-el-nino\/"},"modified":"2016-04-27T01:24:19","modified_gmt":"2016-04-26T23:24:19","slug":"un-and-partners-call-for-action-and-support-to-help-60-million-people-affected-by-strong-el-nino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/un-and-partners-call-for-action-and-support-to-help-60-million-people-affected-by-strong-el-nino\/","title":{"rendered":"UN and partners call for action and support to help 60 million people affected by strong El Ni\u00f1o"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK, United States of America, April 26, 2016\/APO (African Press Organization)\/ — <\/span><\/p>\n

With millions of people across the world affected by droughts, floods and other extreme weather events triggered by El Ni\u00f1o, the international community must act now to address urgent humanitarian needs and support building communities\u2019 resilience to future shocks, Stephen O\u2019Brien, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, has said.<\/p>\n

The current El Ni\u00f1o is one of the strongest on record affecting an estimated 60 million people including some of the most vulnerable in Africa, Asia, Central and South America and the Pacific. The impact of El Ni\u00f1o-induced droughts is reaching an expected peak in late 2016 and early 2017. The situation could become even worse if a La Ni\u00f1a event – which often follows an El Ni\u00f1o \u2013 strikes towards the end of this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must act today to help people whose entire way of life and survival is threatened,\u201d Mr. O\u2019Brien said during a conference in Geneva today. \u201cEl Ni\u00f1o has already severely affected the health and food security of so many families and communities across the world. I am deeply worried about rising acute malnutrition among children under five and the increase in water- and vector-borne diseases. People urgently need food, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene as well as health services,\u201d Mr. O\u2019Brien said.<\/p>\n

Over the past months, governments, UN, NGOs and other humanitarian partners have stepped up El Ni\u00f1o-related preparedness and response work. Response plans have been completed in 13 countries, requesting some US$3.6 billion to meet critical needs for food and agricultural support, as well as nutrition, health and emergency water and sanitation needs. But the funding gap for the combined global El Ni\u00f1o-related response stands at over $2.2 billion. As some countries have not yet finalized their humanitarian response plans, this figure is expected to rise.<\/p>\n

UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Assistant Administrator, Izumi Nakamitsu, said it was critical to invest now to help ensure vulnerable communities can cope better with the next El Ni\u00f1o or other crises.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis shows again the importance of humanitarian and development agencies working together to support national and local governments during crises, to identify the risks for future disasters and build resilience. We can predict most crises, which gives us an opportunity to invest in prevention, preparedness and disaster risk reduction to reduce or end humanitarian need,\u201d Ms Nakamitsu said.<\/p>\n

Care International Secretary General and CEO, Dr. Wolfgang Jamann, said: \u201cWe need both the resources to respond now \u2013 and NGOs both local and international can respond at huge scale if provided with the funding we need \u2013 and the political will to break this cycle whereby early warning does not result in early response, despite the clear human and financial advantages of doing so\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK, United States of America, April 26, 2016\/APO (African Press Organization)\/ — With millions of people across the world affected by droughts, floods and other extreme weather events triggered by El Ni\u00f1o, the international community must act now to address urgent humanitarian needs and support building communities\u2019 resilience to future shocks, Stephen O\u2019Brien, UN […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[428,4585,830],"class_list":{"0":"post-68779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-africa","8":"tag-apo","9":"tag-news","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}