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UN chief names high-level panel on humanitarian financing

Xinhua, May 22, 2015 Adjust font size:

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon on Thursday appointed a high-level panel on humanitarian financing, and he has appointed Kristalina Georgieva and Sultan Nazrin Shah as co-chairs of the panel, Farhan Haq, the deputy UN spokesman, told reporters here.

"This initiative also brings together distinguished individuals with a wide range of experience and expertise," including Hadeel Ibrahim, Badr Jafar, Trevor Manuel, Haq said at a daily news briefing here.

The panel will be tasked with examining humanitarian financing challenges, identifying ways in which the gap between rising needs and the resources available to meet them can be closed, as well as working on generating solutions around the issues of more timely and predictable funding, and ways in which resources can be used more effectively, according to Haq.

The panel is expected to submit its recommendations to UN Secretary-General Ban in November 2015 and these recommendations will help frame the discussion at the World Humanitarian Summit in May 2016, he said.

"The secretary-general said that one of the most important challenges facing the humanitarian system today is the growing gap between the increasing numbers of people in need of assistance and sufficient resources to provide relief," he said.

The number of people in need has more than doubled since 2004 to more than 100 million today, and the current humanitarian funding requirements for this year stands at 19.1 billion U.S. dollars, up from 3.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2004. Endite