Brussels, 24/05/2016 (Agence Europe) - While the EU subscribes to the commitments of the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, the international community's commitments now have to be made concrete.
“Our work towards a new global partnership linking political action to prevent crises, development assistance and more effective principled humanitarian aid has only just begun”, European Commission Vice-President for Budget and Humanitarian Resources Kristalina Georgieva, and European Commissioners Neven Mimica (International Cooperation and Development) and Christos Stylianides (Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management) said in a press statement on Tuesday 24 May after the summit.
The previous day, the UN (WFP and FAO) and EU had launched the global network on food insecurity, risk reduction and response to food crises in order to increase the impact of humanitarian intervention in cases of food crisis through joint assessment of the needs and coordinated action.
This initiative is aimed at promoting the planning and joint intervention in food crises by producing regular updated reports, in addition to analyses, and proposing swift intervention. It will also enable lessons to be learned from previous crises, and will enable the level of transparency and availability of needs analyses to be improved at global level.
The European Commission has committed up to €539 million to address recent food crises, especially those related to El Nino. “We must do more to improve the effectiveness and impact of these responses, both in the short and long term”, Mimica stated. “This will enable us to take better decisions on how to respond to the food and nutrition needs of people affected by crises and disasters. A better assessment makes our assistance to the most vulnerable more targeted and thus more effective”, Styliandes commented.
In December the Commission approved the granting of €125 million emergency aid in response to El Nino. The approval procedure is under way for a second tranche of €414 million, both in humanitarian and development aid. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)