As crises erupt faster than aid workers can cope — in places like Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and Angola — agencies like the United Nations and Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) are debating why thousands of people may die despite strenuous — and expensive — efforts to save them.

Some say the core problem is a lack of money. Others cite a failure to effectively coordinate aid efforts in "politicised emergencies", where different groups are operating with conflicting agendas.

Take war-torn Angola, for example. Erick de Mul, in charge of the myriad UN operations in the country, points out that only a third of the needed funds have trickled in this year.

The civil war in the Southern African country has been officially over since April 4. But vast areas remain off-limits to aid workers due to bombed-out roads and the peril posed by thousands of landmines.

Three million Angolans are estimated to be in need of medical and food assistance, and another half million have had no access to humanitarian aid since the civil war resumed in 1998.

This despite the best efforts of 10 UN agencies, 100 international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and more than 300 local groups, working with 11 government departments and ministries.

As the Southern African region confronts the worst drought in decades, and 12 million people face starvation, the question of how best to handle massive humanitarian crises has taken on new urgency.

Funding a constraint

"Funding is one of several key constraints," de Mul told IPS. "The other constraints include logistical problems related to the appalling state of the country's infrastructure and massive mine infestation throughout the countryside."

"We also need to acknowledge that the government needs to do much more to help alleviate the suffering of its own people," he said in an e-mail interview. "If we receive money now, we can help to shorten the crisis - if we don't, the crisis will continue for a much longer period."

De Mul published an article in this week's edition of the British medical journal, The Lancet defending the UN against accusations made by Nathan Ford of MSF, who wrote an editorial in last month's Lancet titled "Slow Response to Angola's Food Crisis".

On June 11, MSF also held a press conference in Angola's capital Luanda accusing the government and UN agencies, especially the World Food Program and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) which de Mul leads in the country, of being "unacceptably slow to respond" to the crisis.

The Angolan authorities, MSF said, are unimpressed by the "catastrophic scope of the crisis and continue to pursue a policy of chronic criminal neglect of their own people", with the result that "the world is knowingly allowing Angolans to die of starvation".

In response, the OCHA said "the ability of humanitarian organisations to address the needs of internally displaced persons and newly accessible populations is strained" in Angola.

And de Mul says aid workers there have accomplished a great deal — for instance, reaching isolated populations with food and medical assistance despite impassable roads, broken bridges and mined airstrips.

Coordinating the work of the various agencies has also been a priority, he says.

"More than 80 separate co-ordination structures exist at the central and provincial levels," he told IPS. "There are weekly meetings, both policy as well as technical, with all stakeholders, including government counterparts, UN agencies and international and national NGOs, where priorities are agreed, strategies set and operational plans shared."

Immediate needs

But in his editorial, MSF's Ford said "in politicised emergencies such as Angola, Afghanistan, and Sierra Leone, coordination between different groups with differing agendas — governments, the UN, non- governmental organisations, and donors — can lead to subordination of humanitarian needs to broader political, economic, and military concerns."

"A clear separation of these issues is necessary if the immediate needs of populations in danger are to be adequately met."

For de Mul, all efforts will falter without the needed funding.

The United Nations lacks nearly two-thirds of the money it needs for relief efforts in countries including Angola, Burundi, Guinea, North Korea, and Sudan — a total of about US$3.6 billion.

In Angola, de Mul says, the situation has become critical. If significant funds are not poured into the country soon, he said, "people will die and suffering will increase. We estimate that as much as 25 percent of the population could slip into crisis during the next year if humanitarian assistance is withdrawn or slows down."

Time is also running out in the rest of the region, the UN says.

"The window of opportunity to avert a major humanitarian crisis is closing," said Judith Lewis, the World Food Programme's (WFP) director for east and southern Africa.

"The situation is becoming more and more acute. More and more people are in need of assistance more quickly than we had anticipated," Lewis added Wednesday.

The WFP says donor pledges to six African states only equalled 20 percent of the 507 million dollars the agency appealed for in early July. — IPS