Press Release No. 10/317

August 23, 2010 -- An International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission led by Mr. Brian Aitken of the Asia and Pacific Department visited Colombo August 11-23, 2010, to conduct discussions for the fourth review of the Stand-By Arrangement, approved on July 24, 2009. The mission also held discussions as part of the Article IV consultation, a regular surveillance exercise that the IMF undertakes with all its member countries. The mission met with officials from the Central Bank, the Ministry of Finance and Planning, the Presidential Tax Commission, and other government ministries and departments, as well as representatives of civil society and the private sector.

The mission issued the following statement today at the conclusion of its visit:

20 August 2010, Rome - Millions of livestock have been affected by the floods in Pakistan and are badly in need of food and medicine, FAO said today.

Around 200 000 cows, sheep, buffalo, goats and donkeys have already been confirmed as dead or missing but the final numbers will be much higher, possibly into the millions. If you count poultry losses, then millions of animals have already died with the entire poultry stock wiped out in some areas. FAO estimates that millions of surviving animals are now facing severe feed shortages, threatening generations of Pakistan's livestock.

19 August 2010 – United Nations projects in health, education, job creation, rubble removal, reproductive health and improving access to food have been approved for Haiti as the poor Caribbean country continues its effort to rebuild after January’s catastrophic earthquake.

The Interim Haitian Recovery Commission (IHRC), which was set up in April to coordinate and oversee the recovery and reconstruction campaign, announced yesterday in Port-au-Prince, the capital, that it will back $220 million worth of UN projects.

The UN Development Programme (UNDP) reported that it has received approval for a $65 million project to rehabilitate infrastructure, building on earlier cash-for-work projects that have given more than 120,000 jobs since the quake.

Video report

August 17, 2010—Farmers who once relied on food aid, and were too poor to buy seeds, are once again farming remote parts of Tajikistan.

Ten years ago, the Red River watershed and its people were ravaged by a brutal civil war and the collapse of the Soviet agrarian system.Today trees, bees and livestock are raised again, thanks in part to a project supported by the World Bank that aims to help farmers—working in groups--to produce more and earn more while rehabilitating the ecosystem.

17 August 2010 – Efforts by the United Nations agencies to scale up aid delivery to those affected by the massive floods in Pakistan continued today despite enormous logistical challenges posed by the devastated infrastructure that has left many areas accessible only by air after roads and bridges were destroyed by the deluge.

“We’re putting the final pieces in place on a distribution system which can reach the huge number of people in need in the shortest possible time,” said Wolfgang Herbinger, the country director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Pakistan.

“It’s a huge challenge, particularly in Sindh [province], where the delivery infrastructure is most constrained.

17 August 2010 – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is expanding the scope of its cash-for-work programme in Iraq in a bid to help more than 11,000 vulnerable people in areas hardest hit by violence.

The WFP scheme provides beneficiaries with short-term employment in agricultural infrastructure projects with the long-term aim of ensuring they do not lack food.

“Cash-for-work projects work really effectively in places where food is available in the market yet people cannot afford it – as is the case in Iraq,” said Edward Kallon, WFP’s Country Director for Iraq. “This project not only gives beneficiaries a job but it secures future food production by focusing on the agricultural sector,” he added.

6 August 2010 – The United Nations today unveiled a decade-long push to raise awareness and mobilize action to fight desertification, which threatens the livelihoods of more than 1 billion people in 100 countries.

Desertification is defined as the degradation of drylands, which comprise more than 40 per cent of the world’s land surface and are home to 2.1 billion people – one in every three people worldwide.

One third of all crops cultivated today have their origins in drylands, which also support half of all livestock.

16 August 2010 – In an effort to alleviate alarming food shortages that have caused high malnutrition rates among children in Niger, the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) has allocated an additional $15 million to enable the UN food agency to provide relief to an estimated 1.7 million people.

The CERF allocation made available to the UN World Food Programme (WFP) last week will be used to improve nutrition and provide livelihood support to people most affected by the crisis.

15 August 2010 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday called for the rapid delivery of assistance for millions of people in flood-stricken Pakistan, as he saw for himself the devastation wrought by the recent disaster.

Mr. Ban arrived in the South Asian nation to demonstrate the support of the United Nations and the international community in the wake of what has been called the country's worst disaster in living memory, having claimed more than 1,200 lives and leaving at least 2 million homeless.

13 August 2010 – The United Nations refugee agency is delivering emergency assistance to thousands of flood victims in Chad, where entire villages have been destroyed and cultivated land ruined by the country’s heaviest rainfall in 40 years.

About 2,500 families have received blankets, bed mats and plastic sheeting so far, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Adrian Edwards told reporters today. The assistance is part of wider relief efforts involving the Chadian Government, other UN aid agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).