EU allocates €201 million in humanitarian aid for Sahel and Africa’s Lake Chad countries

By Linda Ike

The European Union (EU) has allocated €201 million in humanitarian funding to address the needs of the most vulnerable people affected by the humanitarian crisis in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Nigeria.

This was announced at the occasion of the Senior Officials Meeting on Sahel and Lake Chad, attended by the Commissioner, Janez Lenarčič in Brussels.

According to the EU, the funding will support food security and assistance for malnutrition, health care and protection, water, sanitation, and hygiene, shelter and education activities, as well as the transportation of humanitarian workers and supplies to remote and inaccessible locations.

The EU said more than 35 million people need humanitarian assistance in 2024 across Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Nigeria, stating that this represents one in five people in the Central Sahel (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger countries.

The EU humanitarian aid response pledged to continue to focus on the countries and areas directly affected by ongoing insecurity and conflict, including West Africa’s coastal countries already impacted by the spillover from Central Sahel.

The statement by the European Union stated that the overall funding will support humanitarian projects in:
Burkina Faso with €26.9 million, Cameroon with the sum of €21 million,
Chad, €57.9 million, including the newly allocated €8.7 million in response to the consequences of the conflict in Sudan to the neighboring countries and another €3.1 million to support an EU Humanitarian Air Bridge operation in the East, adding that the initial €45.3 million announced by Commissioner Lenarčič during his visit to the country at the end of January 2024, Mali got €24 million,
Mauritania received €5.7 million, including the reinforcement of €3 million allocated in January 2024 in response to the increasing number of Malian refugees in Mauritania,
Niger €24.6 million and Nigeria got €31.5 million.

EU Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčič, said: “Insecurity, violence, and over a decade of armed conflict is driving communities in the Sahel and Lake Chad regions to new depths of suffering. Today, over 35 million people across these regions need aid, while the humanitarian crisis is now spilling over into West Africa’s coastal countries. At the same time, we are facing an increasingly shrinking response capacity and humanitarian access. It is therefore crucial that the international community scales up its efforts to bridge the growing gap between human need and available resources. The EU is doing its part by increasing its pledge for 2024 to over 200 million euros across the two regions. I urge the rest of the international community to play its part.”

The funding also supports the response to epidemics and population movement, through the allocation of €2.4 million through the Emergency Toolbox, an instrument to assist in sudden-onset crises specifically dedicated to emergency response for vulnerable people outside the EU.

It was noted that insecurity is the main cause of humanitarian crises and the food and nutrition crisis is one of the major negative consequences of the ongoing armed conflicts.

” In the two regions, more than 46 million people are projected to be in food crisis between June and August 2024. The worrying trend is both on the scale of the food crisis and its severity, with a 105% increase of the number of the population falling in food crisis, compared to the average over the last 5 years.” the statement disclosed.