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Emergencies, the international response and FAO
Droughts and floods, earthquakes and hurricanes, locust swarms and livestock plagues, war and civil strife - natural and man-made disasters take a heavy toll, whether measured in human fatalities and suffering or in economic losses.
The devastating drought that afflicted Ethiopia and several other African countries in 1984/85 triggered a famine estimated to have killed more than 1 million people. A single cyclone that struck Bangladesh in May 1991 with wind speeds of up to 270 km per hour left the lives of an estimated 140 000 people in ruins. Some 800 000 people were killed during the civil strife that ravaged Rwanda in 1994; more than 2 million fled into neighbouring countries, and another 380 000 sought refuge in camps within Rwanda. Natural disasters do not discriminate. They strike rich and poor countries alike. But it is the rural poor in the developing world who suffer most, those who are least able to protect themselves, those who have no cushion of savings and no alternative means of making a living. It is the poor, too, who have least choice about where they live, even when they know that their home or livelihood may be endangered. Poverty and vulnerability also increase in the face of man-made disasters that erupt as civil wars rage and governments collapse. Essential services, including law and order, break down. Infrastructure is destroyed and people flee the land, taking with them what few possessions they can carry. Food production is no longer possible. People face immediate hunger, and mass starvation threatens. Relief agencies rush to help, but unless action is taken quickly to create the conditions in which people can return to their homes and farming can start again, large numbers risk becoming dependent on relief in the long term. The cost of disasters in human terms is intolerably high. In 1996 some 50 million people were displaced within their own countries or scattered abroad as refugees - a dispersed nation of the dispossessed with a population equivalent to that of Spain and Portugal combined. In that year, as a result of complex emergencies, around 40 million people were depending on international assistance for protection or survival. The economic cost is high, too. During the 1960s, worldwide losses from both man-made and natural disasters were estimated at US$1 000 million a year. Annual losses jumped to US$3 000 million in the 1970s and to US$9 000 million in the 1980s, and they are likely to rise even higher as the century draws to a close. The flow of aid has reflected this increasing need. Funding for humanitarian assistance has doubled since 1990, in a period when the overall volume of development aid has been falling. In 1994, US$6 000 million was devoted to humanitarian assistance, representing 10 percent of all the money spent on development aid around the world. The United Nations now spends more than 50 percent of its budget on emergency relief, compared with 25 percent in 1989. The bill for emergency operations managed by FAO has climbed from $150 million for the entire decade of the 1980s to $170 million for just six years since 1991.
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