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Church World Service Leaders Tell Top Donor Countries, "Make Pledges Real Now" to Save Pakistan Quake Survivors

November 18, 2005

NEW YORK - Following United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan's arrival in Pakistan yesterday for this weekend's International Donor Conference, the humanitarian agency Church World Service (CWS) is heightening its call to the international community to back the UN with swift delivery of promised funds for ongoing emergency aid, reconstruction and sustainable rehabilitation in the earthquake devastated region.

Church World Service Executive Director and CEO Rev. John L. McCullough, who visited Pakistan last week, says, "The job is far from over. The first snow fell in Kashmir this past week. Without immediate and major funds for food, for further shelter and medical aid, winter and disease will conspire to produce significant and further death and suffering.

"There's simply not enough to go around here," McCullough says. "The UN and World Food Program will run out of food before December is over and out of funds to keep helicopters and vehicles going by the end of this month. This is not NGO rhetoric," he said, "this is reality."

"Even though progress is being made," he said, "survivors in Pakistan are still in dire need. The expanses of still untouched destruction and rubble we saw boggle the mind in their scope."

Only 29% of the United Nations appeal is funded at this point. Pres. Musharraf has asked for $5.2 billion in emergency and reconstruction funds.

From Islamabad today, Church World Service Pakistan-Afghanistan Regional Director Marvin Parvez said, "The international community must come out and make a commitment to this enormous and hugely under-funded disaster. "And this is just the beginning of the journey," says Parvez. "We are still in the relief stage. Even for relief to be in full swing," says Parvez, "more commitment has to be made, and now. If the international community doesn't respond very quickly, we will see a huge emergency with the onslaught of winter."

As a lead-in to the donor conference, Parvez said regional and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) met today with the British Minister for International Development to discuss the disaster’s rehabilitation phase.

"Indigenous agencies and NGOs, such as Church World Service who have been working in Pakistan for years, know the context, know the communities, and are part of the communities," he said. "It's important that their voices and direct knowledge inform the rehabilitation process."

'Grants, not loans,' says aid agency's Pakistan director

Citing Pakistan's $32 billion debt, Parvez said, "We are urging that international commitments be materialized as grants, not loans, to prevent pushing the country further into debt. To date, the commitments are very small compared to the complexity and scale of the impacted communities," he says.

Parvez said he believes the international community still doesn’t fully grasp how the region's terrain is critically hindering relief efforts. "Compared to the more accessible terrain of areas hit by the tsunami, this is a complex geography," he says, "The terrain is very, very difficult, compounded by the heights and temperatures, and made incrementally worse by the earthquake's damage –- and, very soon, by winter's deep snow."

With offices throughout Pakistan, Church World Service's regional staff has been responding to the disaster since the day of the destructive October 8 quake.

Water, sanitation reconstruction alongside rescue and relief

McCullough said that the CWS team and its partners are now focusing on water and sanitation resources alongside ongoing critical emergency rescue, and delivering the shelter, food and medical assistance still needed. An estimated 800,000 are still without shelter after more than a month of international relief operations following the worst earthquake in Pakistan’s history.

CWS staff say repair of the water system in Balakot is still urgently needed, as aid workers rush to provide potable water across affected areas in an effort to stem the further spread of waterborne illnesses. In Balakot, working with Church World Service, Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) will lay a galvanized water-supply pipe, as well as repairing the 2.5-km remaining pipeline.

Church World Service and partner Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) are working in 10 locations across four districts to provide 49 water taps, over 275 latrines, 56 baths,and 830 tents for the quake's survivors.

CWS is also beginning to focus on psychosocial support and planned schooling for children now living in CWS's tent village in Bisyan. One hundred and fifty-two families reside in the tent village now. The agency is working with UNICEF to establish a school within the camp, with four teachers planned.

Meanwhile, CWS is focusing on areas where other organizations have not been working, to serve unmet needs. The CWS field team continues to assess more remote areas ravished by the quake, aiming to reach the most vulnerable survivors: widows, woman-headed households, orphans, and families whose members have been left disabled. Female team members are being deployed in order to best reach women survivors.

CWS's Parvez urged responders, "In dealing with the catastrophe's survivors, we must remember and closely follow the humanitarian codes of conduct we are bound by. In the rush of rescue, even as we are saving lives, and in the rush of many things to do before winter sets in, the care and dignity of people must be still be respected."

With the first snowfall and temperatures dropping for homeless survivors, Church World Service is now exploring shelter options beyond tents with the Red Cross, Red Crescent, and Swiss non-governmental organizations. Other aid agencies are similarly moving away from delivery of tents –- although to date 30,300 tents have been distributed by relief teams in Shangla, Kohistan, Balakot, Battagram, and Mansehra.

Media Contact:
Lesley Crosson, CWS/New York, 212-870-2676;
Jan Dragin, 781-925-1526;

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