Ebola: $1billion target met with only $100,000 in donations as UN relaunches urgent appeal

The UN chief has said that the campaign to raise $1bn trust fund to fight Ebola has failed; raising only $100,000.

13:36 17 October 2014

The global effort to fight Ebola outbreak is simply not enough, officials have stated. This is the message that the UN chief is trying to send after failing to raise $1billion to stop the outbreak. 

UN agencies and aid organisations have received almost $400million so far. However, the UN trust fund, which is intended to act as a flexible spending reserve, only received pledges of just $20million. So far, only Colombia has paid giving up $100,000.

The UN special envoy on Ebola, David Nabarro, said the fund was intended to offer "flexibility in responding to a crisis which every day brings new challenges".

"It allows the areas of greatest need to be identified and funds to be directed accordingly," he added.

Meanwhile, Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has told the BBC he was "bitterly disappointed" with the international community's response.

"If the crisis had hit some other region it probably would have been handled very differently," he said in an interview with BBC Newsnight.

"In fact when you look at the evolution of the crisis, the international community really woke up when the disease got to America and Europe."