New York: The United Nations has made an appeal for USD 47.2 million to provide life-saving assistance to crisis-hit Sri Lanka, as it noted that the shortage of medicines and surgical consumables will ease in the medium term with the support of a credit line from India and other partners.
The United Nations team in Sri Lanka and non-governmental organisations launched the joint Humanitarian Needs and Priorities (HNP) Plan on Thursday, calling for USD 47.2 million to provide life-saving assistance to 1.7 million people worst-hit by the economic crisis in Sri Lanka over a four-month period between June and September.
The plan that directly responds to the Sri Lankan government’s request for a United Nations-backed multi-sector international assistance to fulfil the most urgent needs, including focus on health care and essential medicines, food and agriculture — particularly targeted nutrition services — safe drinking water, emergency livelihoods and protection.
A report on the Humanitarian Needs and Priorities — Food Security Crisis in Sri Lanka by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on behalf of the humanitarian country team and partners — said that for the next three months health support provided by humanitarian partners will focus on ensuring the availability of vital and essential medicines and medical supplies in order to save lives and keep vital health services functioning.
The World Health Organisation has been able to spearhead the provision of donations in the short term (to meet the urgent gap for medicines and supplies) while in the medium term the shortage of medicines /surgical equipments will ease with the support of a credit line from India, and support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank (WB) from August onwards, it said.
