EU Commission to grant €4.5m for disaster preparedness in Andean Community

The European Commission has granted €4.5 million in humanitarian aid to continue its disaster-preparedness activities in the Andean Community. The funds are to be channelled through ECHO, the European Union's humanitarian aid service, which comes under the responsibility of Commissioner Louis Michel. The aid is intended to boost the response capacity of vulnerable sections of the population living in disaster-prone regions.

The American continent is, after Asia, the region of the world most vulnerable to natural disasters. The geography, geology and climate of the Andean region make it one of the worst affected areas of the continent, where natural disasters such as flooding, landslides, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, drought, cold waves, hurricanes and cyclones are recurrent problems. Scientists believe that global warming will probably increase the frequency and intensity of such natural disasters in the years ahead.

ECHO's fourth DIPECHO (disaster preparedness ECHO) action programme for the Andean Community will strengthen the local capacity to cope with extreme hydrometeorological or geophysical phenomena through a whole series of activities to build the knowledge, capacity and resources available to the most vulnerable sectors of society, which are generally the worst affected by such events.

This fourth action plan will be targeted primarily on strengthening local response committees, and the beneficiary communities will participate directly in defining and drawing up the contingency plans. Activities will also include small-scale works to reduce the physical vulnerability of sites (building protective walls along river banks, drainage and reforestation works, etc.), mapping dangers, threats and risks in conjunction with the contingency plans, participation in the development of early warning systems, public information campaigns, and the transfer of scientific know-how to local communities.

The main target countries are Bolivia, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.

The Andean Community was included in the DIPECHO programme in 1999. Since then, three action plans have been implemented with the assistance of NGOs, UN agencies and other regional partners, at a total cost of €12.7 million.

For further details, see:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/echo/field/dipecho/index_en.htm

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