USAID enhances role in providing relief to displaced

KILAVEDI: Michael Hess, a top official with the US Agency for International Development (USAID), said he was encouraged that the international humanitarian community was delivering a coordinated response to the basic needs of the displaced in the Eastern and pledged USAID would do its part in contributing to the effort following a recent visit to Sri Lanka.

The centrepiece of the visit was the Kilavedi transit camp, where he met with camp residents as well as civilian and military officials managing the displaced populations.

Hess, Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, said he came to Sri Lanka to assess whether the international community, together with the Sri Lanka Government has the capability to provide assistance to meet the displaced population basic needs.

Hess said USAID alone has already provided more than $4 million to displaced population’s relief in Sri Lanka, and pledged that additional contributions to the humanitarian effort would be forthcoming in the near future.

Hess said he was especially concerned about the nutritional aspect of the displaced, noting that according to the UN, the global acute malnutrition rate among the population is about 14 per cent, dangerously close to the accepted “emergency level” of 15 per cent.

“But there many aspects of their diet and nutrition we need to look at —it’s not just quantity of food. Our Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance is working with UNICEF and the International Medical Corps to see what are the real causes of this malnutrition.”

Hess said he also wanted to observe progress on the $134 million U.S. commitment to tsunami relief and reconstruction in Sri Lanka, and the affect those interventions may have had on national reconciliation.