Facts and Figures
A decade of disasters
2002 saw more disasters reported than any year of the preceding decade.
In 2002 disasters had more impact than ever. A colossal 608 million people were affected – three times the annual average from 1992-2001.
24,500 people were reported killed in 2002, compared to the decade's average of 62,000 per year.
Drought in India alone affected 300 million people during 2002.
Disasters continue to target the world's poorest and least developed. Of those killed in 2002, just 6 per cent lived in countries of high human development.
Weather-related disasters continue to rise, from an annual average of 200 between 1993-1997, to 331 per year between 1998-2002.
The role of donors
Humanitarian aid (at 1999 prices) rose from US$ 2.1 billion in 1990 to an all-time high of US$ 5.9 billion in 2000 (The new humanitarianisms: a review of trends in global humanitarian action – published by ODI).
Between 1993-2000, 47 per cent of ECHO's humanitarian funds were spent in central and Eastern Europe (ODI).
Emergency aid allocated per head from UN appeals in 2000 varied from less than US$ 10 for North Korea or Uganda to as much as US$ 185 per person in south eastern Europe.
Performance of aid agencies
In the aftermath of 1999's devastating Marmara earthquakes in Turkey, 98 per cent of the 50,000 people pulled alive from the rubble were rescued by local people.
227 relief agencies have signed up to the Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Response – a globally-accepted benchmark for good practice
Southern Africa: HIV/AIDS and Food Security
Southern Africa has the world's highest HIV prevalence rates, ranging from 15 per cent in Malawi to 33.7 per cent in Zimbabwe.
On average, Malawi and its southern African neighbours suffer a serious drought and food shortage once every ten years.
One AIDS-related adult death in a Zimbabwean farming household reduces the maize crop by 60 per cent, according to UNAIDS. By early 2003, seven million people – more than half Zimbabwe's population – needed food aid.
Afghanistan and building local capacity
The British charity Christian Aid has reported that the profit from opium production is 20 to 40 times that of wheat.
Two thirds of the money pledged at the donor conference in Tokyo (January 2002) was for humanitarian assistance, much of it as food aid.
By November 2002, the number of NGOs registered with the Ministry of Planning had risen from 250 in 1999 (of which 46 were international) to 1,005 (of which 350 were international).
In autumn 2002 an advert in the local Kabul paper for a driver at the US Embassy offered a salary of over US$ 500 a month (at current exchange rates), while a doctor in a government clinic gets about US$ 45.
Aschiana, an Afghan NGO that provided 'drop-in' centres for street-working children in Kabul throughout the Taliban years, lost four of its centres following the arrival of international agencies. One landlord increased the monthly rent from US$ 100 to US$ 4,000.
Migrants – a forgotten disaster
Migrants remit about US$ 80 billion per year to developing countries – considerably more than the US$ 50-55 billion of official development assistance (ODA) that flows from rich to poor countries every year.
With over 175 million people living outside their countries of birth, international migration has more than doubled in the past 25 years (UN).
According to the UN's Population Division, the population of the European Union (EU) is shrinking at such a rate that if it wishes to maintain its labour force at 2000 levels for the next half century, it will need 207 million migrant workers.
Although there are no official data, some scholars estimate there are 25 million environmental migrants – a number which may grow as global warming, desertification and other environmental problems render more areas uninhabitable.
