Brussels, 05/03/2012 (Agence Europe) - As she arrived in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kinshasa, on Monday 5 March, Kristalina Georgieva, European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, announced she is scaling up funds for the plight of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people in the country. The European Commission will therefore channel €59 million in humanitarian aid instead of the €44 million initially planned for this country as part of the annual humanitarian spending programme (see EUROPE 10518).
The commissioner is on a four-day trip in the country (5-8 March) and has stated: “Millions of people in the DRC are going through one of the world's longest emergencies. Displacement on a massive scale is a problem unresolved for almost 20 years now. The country is struggling with tremendous difficulties. This is why we are increasing our funding for the DRC by ten percent compared to last year. The humanitarian needs are enormous. We need to prevent the whole country from becoming a forgotten crisis of 66 million people.” She has a packed agenda ahead of her because she will be combining meetings with Congolese leaders and humanitarian partners working on the field, as well as visits to EU funded humanitarian projects in Goma (capital city of North Kivu). On Monday she is expected to meet Adolphe Lumanu, the Congolese vice prime minister responsible for home affairs and security, representatives from the International Red Cross Committee, Luigi Giovine, head of World Bank operations in the DRC, and Roger A. Meece, head of the UN mission in the country. She will then meet Julien Paluku Kahongya, the governor of North Kivu, representatives from the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
On 8 March, the commissioner will conclude her visit on International Women's Day at the Commission-funded hospital of Panzi, which specialises in treating survivors of sexual violence. “I am particularly glad to spend this year's 8 March with the women of the DRC. Their resilience to conflict, poverty, displacement and sexual aggression is a lesson in human dignity”, Georgieva said.
There are 1.7 million internally displaced people and 426,000 Congolese refugees in neighbouring countries. As well as humanitarian aid (€367 million has been released by the Commission since 2005), the DRC can also count on €584 million in development aid allocated to it under the 10th European Development Fund for 2008-2013. (AN/transl.fl)