EU pledges €46M in food aid to Sudan

The European Union has agreed to provide €46 million to a UN agency (the World Food Program – WFP) to enhance its food assistance initiatives in the conflict-stricken regions of Sudan.

An agreement to this effect was signed in Rome between European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, Kristalina Georgieva, and the Executive director of the World Food Program Josette Sheeran on June 7. After the official announcement of the aid, Georgieva said, “Humanitarian needs have increased dramatically in Sudan, so additional funding is vital. Several thousands of people have been displaced and urgently need our assistance and, worryingly, humanitarian agencies have no access to them.”

The European Commission Humanitarian Aid or ECHO’s allocation of 46 million euros is part of its 2010 Global Plan for Sudan, worth €114 million. This contribution is also expected to enable the WFP to extend the aid to more than four million people in Darfur and 4.3 million people in South Sudan, who are in desperate need of food assistance. In Southern Sudan, political and ethnic tensions have led to an upsurge of violent conflicts, threatening the relative peace experienced in the region since the end of an over two decades-long civil war in 2005.