Development NGOs and MEPs, as well as the UN, welcomed the EU’s aid plan of over €20 billion agreed on Wednesday 8 April to support developing countries and those in crisis in the fight against coronavirus. They all particularly welcomed the importance the plan attaches to taking into account the potentially devastating humanitarian consequences of COVID-19 for these countries (see EUROPE 12464/13, 12464/14).
For this plan to be effective, however, Oxfam considers “crucial that the EU supports local organisations who are at the forefront, yet who appear to be absent from this plan”, underlines Marissa Ryan, head of the European office of the NGO in a statement.
Furthermore, she added, “it’s good that the EU is using its existing development funds, but additional money is urgently needed, particularly to fund social protection schemes and protect women and girls” who are disproportionately affected, as they make up 70% of the world’s health workers and are at increased risk of sexual and gender-based violence in the home.
The European Parliament's political group coordinators felt that the EU should take the lead in coordinating the international response to mobilise more funds, according to the European Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčič, who met with them by videoconference.
The Commissioner and the Director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Achim Steiner, agreed by phone to strengthen the UNDP’s role in coordinating country assistance under the Global Humanitarian Response Plan (GHRP) and with OCHA, the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs.
Steiner had this to say on his Twitter account: “ECHO humanitarian support remains vital European life line of many of world’s most vulnerable and crisis-affected people”. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)