Officials in the United Nations office for emergency relief coordination say they have raised US$3 million and gotten pledges for another $6 million in response to an appeal from Harare and 46 nongovernmental organizations for some $277 million.
The February appeal to the UN represented something of a U-turn for the government which had previously declined to issue such appeals and characterized such aid as supplementary to state resources, which it insisted were adequate to needs.
Most of the funding will be spent on food aid, said Fambai Girande, a spokesman for the National Association of Nongovernmental Organizations, which coordinated the requests of local and international NGOs and worked with the Ministry of Public Service, Labor and Social Welfare in formulating the request to the U.N.
Ngirande told reporter Patience Rusere of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that whatever the state of Harare's relations with the U.N., aid is urgently needed.
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