Many access roads are too dangerous for relief workers, preventing them from carrying out assessments or reaching people in need.

No amount of humanitarian assistance can protect people from being attacked.

I have been working, as emergency relief coordinator, on an international scale, very hard to build a wider alliance of partners in assistance efforts.

We estimate that humanitarian agencies have access to about 350,000 vulnerable people in Darfur - only about one third of the estimated total population in need.

We need better coordination on the international side, just as they need better and more effective efforts on the Somali side. We have too many reconstruction and development assistance plans.

It's a cruel reality. But after a week, very few people survive.

I think now Somalia is turning a corner and we can, with the new political development, build on momentum - really build a peaceful future.