EU pledges $56m funding to tackle drought in the Horn of Africa
Wednesday August 07 2019
Displaced Somali children queue as they wait for food-aid rations on January 19, 2012 at a distribution centre during a visit to assess the progress of relief efforts by UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the capital Mogadishu. PHOTO | TONY KARUMBA | AFP
The European Commission is mobilising €50 million ($56 million) in emergency humanitarian funding to support drought-hit communities in the Horn of Africa.
On Wednesday, EU’s decision-implementing body—the European Commission—said it was raising the funds to help the communities buy food and other essential needs.
“Our funding will help extend humanitarian assistance in the affected areas, helping communities ward off the risk of famine,” Christos Stylianides, the EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management said in a statement.
Somalia, the worst of the crisis, will receive $28 million, followed by Ethiopia at $22 million. Kenya and Uganda—both hosting refugees from neighbouring countries—will receive $3.3 million and $2.2 million respectively.
The funding will also go towards public health services and treatment of severe malnutrition among toddlers and pregnant women as well as stipends for sustaining livelihoods.
Most of the targeted communities practice pastoral lifestyle in Kenya’s dry north, Uganda’s Karamoja region, Somalia and Ethiopia.
The pledge brings total EU humanitarian assistance to the region to $410 million since mid-last year when the draught started.
About 13 million people require urgent food assistance according to the UN Organisation for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).
“Late rainfall in May in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia was insufficient to compensate for the delayed start of the rainy season, resulting in reductions in planting and wilting of crops currently being harvested. The damage to crops this in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia season is irreversible,” reads a bulletin from UNOCHA.
Climate watch agency Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FewsNet) cautions that the food situation may run until early next year, despite predicted improvements in rainfall in October.