Brussels, 20/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - Basing itself on two joint assessments undertaken by the United Nations and the Georgian Ministry of Agriculture, the European Commission decided on Wednesday to release 700,000 euro to contribute in countering the impact of the drought that affected the most vulnerable farms in western Georgia in 2001. The funds will be made available through Echo, the EU's Humanitarian aid Office, which will work with its two traditional partners on the ground, Save the Children Fund (the Netherlands) and CARE (United Kingdom). This new intervention takes funds released by the Commission to help victims of drought in the southern Caucasus (Armenia and Georgia) since end-1999 to 5 million euro.