Un monde en développement

[L93]

Nowadays, what is the country which has been the most helped and why ?
How much money has been spent for the tsunami ?
What are the most "generous" country in Europe ?
How are the expenses shared out ?

[Aurélie]

Hey,

Difficult and precise questions. I will try to give some clues.

If we have a look on 2006 European Union's activity report for humanitarian Aid, we might see that EU (through ECHO office) allocated a total budget of 671 million, the main recipients being African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states (322 million / 48%), Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the New Independent States (177.9 million / 27%), Latin America and Asia (105.5 million / 16%).

The most important actions in the ACP countries took place in Sudan (worsening of the Darfur crisis), Northern Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia. In the Mediterranean and the Middle East, ECHO provided assistance to victims of the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon and continued to help Palestinian refugees in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon as well as the most vulnerable populations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. In Asia, ECHO's activity focused primarily on the Thai-Burma border (Burmese refugees) and on providing assistance to Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran. In Latin America, ECHO again provided assistance to populations affected by the violence in Colombia.

ECHO continued to pay particular attention to forgotten crises (crises that receive little or no media attention and whose victims receive relatively little or no international assistance) too. The forgotten crises identified in 2006 were Algeria (Western Sahara), Myanmar, Nepal, Chechnya and India (Kashmir).

With regard to disaster preparedness activities, ECHO also allocated 10 million for pastoralist populations in the Horn of Africa (Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda), to help them prepare for drought.

To implement its operations, ECHO relied on some 200 partners in the field, most of them NGOs (54%), UN agencies (32%) and other international organisations (11%).

Added to the European Aid - which exists from European Union's common budget and agremented by each one of the Member States, each European country has its own national policy and budget for helping developing countries. Thus, France has a relatively large national budget for its national external policy. However, Member States and European Commission are working together to coordinate their action on the field.

You may find more details on the following links :

http://ec.europa.eu/echo/funding/key_figures/echo_fr.htm

http://ec.europa.eu/echo/funding/key_figures/ms_fr.htm


Thank for your participation!!!
Aurélie