The New York Times
UNITED NATIONS — Aid organizations and the United Nations itself expressed alarm on Tuesday that the plight of millions of Pakistanis flooded from their land has yet to strike a sufficiently sympathetic nerve among donors — neither governments nor the general public — with aid trickling in far more slowly than needed.
They cited a variety of factors for the sluggish reaction, starting with minimal media coverage globally and a relatively low death toll. Other elements, they said, included the preoccupation with economic problems; donor fatigue with natural disasters and the August vacation season when many people pay less attention to the news. Finally, Pakistan itself suffers from an image problem as a hotbed of Taliban activity and the source of renegade nuclear sales, which can give donors pause.
“What is clear is that we need a lot more and we need it quickly,” said John Holmes, the humanitarian coordinator for the United Nations. The international outpouring after recent disasters like Haiti or the Asian tsunami in 2004 was driven partly by the huge, sudden loss of life and the striking images of rescue efforts, he said.
A slow-moving flood with a death toll of about 1,500 people fails to provoke a similar reaction. “An earthquake is a much more dramatic, emotional, telegenic event because it happens so quickly,” Mr. Holmes said.
The United Nations began an appeal on Aug. 11 for $460 million for food, clean water, shelter and medical care for an estimated six million people, many of whom, it says, have not been reached with aid. As of Tuesday, nations had sent $182 million, or nearly 40 percent, and pledged $43 million more. Mr. Holmes said that it was hard to quantify aid being sent directly to Pakistan outside the United Nations system, from blankets to helicopters, but that it had probably reached $200 million.
Still, the official reaction of several governments was telling.
France announced that it was sending nearly 70 tons of aid but donated just under $1.3 million in cash, with Foreign Ministry official telling the newspaper Liberation that Paris was “really scraping the money from the bottom of the barrel in this tough period.”
President Nicolas Sarkozy also sent a letter to the European Union suggesting that it send more than the $51.5 million already allocated, to show European “solidarity” with the Pakistanis, news reports said.
“Pakistan has bad press,” Filipe Ribeiro, director general of the French branch of Doctors Without Borders, told Le Monde. “The country evokes corruption, war, the Taliban. This doesn’t help spark emotion.”
German television raised $25 million for Haiti with a telethon a week after the Jan. 12 earthquake. No similar effort has materialized for Pakistan, two weeks into the crisis, although the German government itself raised its initial donation from $1.3 million to nearly $20 million over the weekend. After that announcement, aid organizations said, private donations picked up.
Images of people slogging through water did not generate the same kind of sympathy as a leveled city, even though the dimensions are similar, aid groups noted, especially since, according to the United Nations, more than 15 million people have been affected and are often difficult to reach.
“That should be enough to get anybody’s attention,” said George Rupp, the president of the International Rescue Committee. The organization has raised just $1.18 million of the $5 million it is seeking, with about $700,000 coming from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Online donations are far below the response to past disasters, he noted.
Many aid groups are increasing their efforts as the scope of the disaster unfolds. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies began an appeal for more than $16 million on Aug. 2, of which about 60 percent has been donated, but now expects to double the appeal, said Elyse Mosquini of the federation’s United Nations office.
Given the threat of more rain and the potential spread of disease, time is not an ally. “People are starting to appreciate the scale, but I don’t know that people are appreciating the urgency,” said Rebecca Barber of Oxfam, speaking by telephone from Pakistan.
There were limited signs on Tuesday that change might be in the offing. At the London premiere of the movie “Salt,” Angelina Jolie lent glamour to the cause, saying on the red carpet that donating to Pakistan was an urgent matter. “It is millions and millions of people who will be uprooted for a very long time,” she said.
In Germany, the foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, described the flooding as an “unparalleled catastrophe” and called on the German people to contribute more.
The official Saudi Press Agency said Saudi Arabia had raised more than $20 million on the first day of a campaign inaugurated Monday by King Abdullah.
The United Nations was planning a special session of the General Assembly on Thursday to focus on Pakistan, with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon scheduled to speak about his weekend visit to the flooded areas. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and her Pakistani counterpart are among those expected to attend.
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