Two billion dollars are needed to fund this year's humanitarian aid programmes in Africa's Sahel region, dpa quoted United Nations agencies as saying on Monday. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization said a record twenty million people are facing hunger in the semi-arid and drought-prone region, which includes parts of Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal. "More people than ever are at risk in the Sahel and the scale of their needs is so great that no agency or organization can tackle it alone," the UN's top official for humanitarian aid, Valerie Amos, said. She took part in a conference in Rome where a three-year humanitarian plan was drafted for the Sahel, an impoverished area that is plagued by conflicts and the rising influence of groups linked to the al-Qaeda terrorist network. The European Union contributed to the UN's appeal with 142 million euros (192 million dollars), while the United States offered 85 million dollars, plus 130 million dollars over the next two years for a separate American initiative. Last year, only 63 per cent of the 1.7 billion dollars that had been requested in humanitarian aid for the Sahel were actually collected, said FAO, which hosted Monday's conference with another Rome-based UN agency, the World Food Programme. -- SPA 23:44 LOCAL TIME 20:44 GMT تغريد
