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European Commission allocates new grant for South Caucasus and Central Asia

25 August 2012 08:56 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Victoria Dementyeva â€“ APA. The Caucasus region (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia) and Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) have been allocated â‚¬8 million from the European Commission’s Disaster-Preparedness Programme (DIPECHO) to help people at risk from natural disasters.

"Building up the resilience of people who face the forces of nature is a central plank of our humanitarian aid policy," said Kristalina Georgieva, European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response.

"Experience shows that simple measures for disaster-preparedness like early warning alerts, elevated homes or providing boats can make all the difference between saving and losing lives, homes and livelihoods. We see disaster risk reduction as an investment, not as a cost: in fact a euro spent on preparing for disasters saves â‚¬7 responding to them."

The DIPECHO programme seeks to reduce the impact of natural disasters including floods, hurricanes, droughts, earthquakes, tidal waves/tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, forest fires and storms by strengthening the response capacity of local communities and national authorities. The projects include reinforcing infrastructure, training, awareness-raising, establishing or improving local early warning systems and contingency planning.

In all, â‚¬35 million has been earmarked to help the most vulnerable and poorest communities in Central America, Central Asia and the Caucasus region, South-East Asia and Southern Africa.