Humanitarian crises around the world continue to rise. While conflicts and violence are the source of major humanitarian needs, the situation is increasingly being worsened by natural disasters, such as drought or floods, fuelled by climate change and environmental degradation. To help those most affected worldwide, the Commission has adopted its initial annual humanitarian budget of €1.5 billion for 2022.
Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič said: “Humanitarian needs are at an all-time high and continue to grow. This is mostly due to conflicts but increasingly due to global challenges like climate change and COVID19. Our humanitarian funding will allow the EU to do its part and continue to save lives and cover the basic needs of affected populations. Next to responding to new and highly visible crises, the budget ensures that we do not detract from addressing existing, protracted or recurrent humanitarian crises, such as in Colombia or South Sudan or the situation of the Rohingya people.”
EU humanitarian aid in 2022 will be allocated as follows:
- €469 million will be allocated to Sub-Saharan Africa to support those suffering from the food and nutrition crisis exacerbated by conflict in the Sahel (Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger); and those displaced by violence in the Central African Republic, the Lake Chad basin (Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria), South Sudan and Horn of Africa (Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Ethiopia). It will also address the needs of the people affected by long-term conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- €351 million of EU humanitarian funding will be allocated for needs in the Middle East and North Africa to address the crisis in Syria as well as the needs of refugees in neighbouring countries in the Middle East, as well as the critical situation in Yemen.
- €152 million will fund projects in Southeast Europe and the European Neighbourhood addressing crises in Ukraine, Western Balkans and the Caucasus, as well as the effects of the Syria crisis in Turkey.
- €188 million will continue to help the most vulnerable populations in Asia and Latin America. In Asia this includes the Afghanistan and Rohingya crises (Bangladesh and Myanamar). In Latin America, the EU will continue to provide help to those affected by the crises in Venezuela and Colombia, as well as in Haiti.
- The remaining €370 million will be used for unanticipated crises or sudden peaks in existing crises, as well as other operations.
Funding will also help vulnerable populations in disaster-prone countries to prepare better for various natural hazards, such as floods, forest fires, earthquakes, and cyclones.
10% of the funding across all regions will be allocated to education in emergencies to allow children and youth to continue their schooling.
Background of the EU Humanitarian
The European Union has been providing humanitarian aid since 1992 in over 110 countries, reaching millions of people across the globe each year. EU assistance is delivered strictly through humanitarian partner organisations, including UN agencies, non-governmental organisations, and the Red Cross family, who have signed partnership agreements with the European Union. The EU closely tracks the use of EU funds via its global network of humanitarian experts and has firm rules in place to ensure funding is well spent.
In 2021 the European Commission published a Communication proposing to strengthen the European Union’s global humanitarian impact in order to meet the substantially rising humanitarian needs exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Communication proposes a series of key actions to expedite the provision of humanitarian aid by expanding the resource base, supporting a better enabling environment for humanitarian actors and addressing the root causes of crises through a ‘Team Europe‘ approach and an effective humanitarian-development-peace nexus. It highlights a renewed focus on international humanitarian law (IHL) and also sets out to tackle the dramatic humanitarian impact of climate change.
