Lending a hand: EU grants 20m euros in aid to flood victims

The organisation’s assistance amounts to a third of the total.

BRUSSELS:

Brussels on Monday announced a further 20 million euros in aid to victims of 2011 monsoon floods in Pakistan, as well as people displaced by conflict, bringing funding this year to 55 million euros.

“We must not forget that millions of people are still struggling to recover, especially in the province of Sindh,” said the EU’s Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid, Kristalina Georgieva.

The 2011 floods affected 5.8 million people in the country, with floodwaters killing livestock, destroying crops, homes and infrastructure, as the nation was still recovering from record floods the previous year.

At the same time, conflicts linked to army raids against insurgents have left more than 300,000 people displaced in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P).

Presently, three out of four households have insufficient food in Sindh, according to EU estimates.

In 2011, the EU executive gave 94.9 million euros to Pakistan of emergency aid due to flooding, conflict and the needs of Afghan refugees in the country.

The European Union’s total assistance to Pakistan, including aid from the Commission and member states, amounts to 2,458 billion euros for 2009-2013, or around a third of total annual development assistance to the country.

In a ground-breaking move in February, the World Trade Organisation approved a waiver allowing 75 Pakistani products duty free access to European markets for two years to help textile exports after devastating floods in 2010.

The EU is Pakistan’s largest trading partner, receiving almost 30 percent of its exports, worth almost 3 billion euros.

Pakistan’s trade with the EU consists mainly of textiles, which account for more than 70 percent of its exports to European countries.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 1^st, 2012.