The EU is reaffirming its solidarity with vulnerable people in countries in West and Central Africa through a humanitarian budget of €175 million in 2022. The funding will be allocated to humanitarian projects in the following eight countries: Burkina Faso (€23.5 million), Cameroon (€16 million), the Central African Republic (€17 million), Chad (€26.5 million), Mali (€25 million), Mauritania (€8.5 million), Niger (€24 million) and Nigeria (€34 million).
Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčič, said: “A complex humanitarian crisis continues to affect the populations of West and Central Africa. Grave violations against children, gender-based violence, abductions and assaults, arbitrary arrests, and extrajudicial executions are now systematic occurrences. The humanitarian needs are exacerbated further by an unprecedented food crisis, natural disasters, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The EU’s assistance will be used to alleviate basic needs, including through the provision of food, health and protection assistance as well as improved access to safe water.”
The EU’s humanitarian funding in West and Central African countries aims to:
- provide life-saving assistance to the people affected by conflict and to the communities hosting people who had to flee;
- provide protection to vulnerable people and support the respect of International Humanitarian Law and the humanitarian principles;
- support measures to address food crises and severe acute malnutrition among children under 5;
- enhance the immediate response in terms of basic services to a most vulnerable population, especially as concerns health care for all or education for children caught up in humanitarian crises; and
- strengthen fragile communities’ preparedness for crises, such as mass displacements of people, or recurrent food or climate-related crises.
This assistance is part of the wider EU support provided to the region, including through ‘Team Europe´ contributions to the Coronavirus Global Response, support to the vaccine distribution effort through the COVAX Facility, and other actions providing longer-term support to strengthen fragile health systems.
