Commission grants EUR 1.2 million to support UN humanitarian work

The European Commission has approved a €1.2 million humanitarian aid package to support the work of the United Nation's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). Funds allocated via the Commission's Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO), which comes under the responsibility of Commissioner Poul Nielson, will: (i) strengthen UNOCHA's regional support office for Central and East Africa, and (ii) allow UNOCHA to expand its Integrated Regional Information Network System (IRIN) which provides information about humanitarian conditions and crises on the ground to international humanitarian actors in 60 countries across Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East.

Humanitarian information and co-ordination is vital to understand, prepare for, respond to, and where possible, avert humanitarian emergencies. The principal objectives of this funding is to strengthen the international humanitarian Community's ability to do just that.

UNOCHA has a regional support office in Nairobi, Kenya, which provides operational and strategic co-ordination for complex humanitarian crises - both natural and man-made - in Central and East Africa. Its activities include emergency preparedness, contingency planning, co-ordination of donor responses, and mobilisation of resources for humanitarian assistance. The support office takes into account the humanitarian needs of some 2 million refugees, 10 million Internally Displaced Persons and 40 million other vulnerable persons in countries in this region. This aid package provided by ECHO will enable the regional support office in Central and East Africa to increase its support to country operations, enhance capacity building, facilitate strategic co-ordination, and increase emergency preparedness, early warning and disaster mitigation capacities.

In 1995, OCHA established an Integrated Regional Information Network System (IRIN). The network provides valuable contextual information about humanitarian conditions and crises on the ground to international humanitarian actors. Its mission is to provide relevant, accurate and succinct humanitarian information to decision makers in aid, UN and donor agencies. The current funding will facilitate the expansion of IRIN's range of reporting and help improve its website create links to other humanitarian information sites, improve telecommunication equipment, provide training such as writing, and editorial workshops and introduce a French language service.


For the French text please see:

http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/03/899|0|RAPID&lg=FR

| Top |