The Diplomat
The Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and eleven autonomous communities have joined forces to allocate 1.6 million euros to humanitarian crises in Venezuela, Palestine, Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf and Mozambique.
This was decided by representatives of the autonomous communities of Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, La Rioja, Murcia, Valencia, Canarias, Extremadura, Baleares, Madrid and Castilla y León during a meeting with the Humanitarian Action Office of the AECID, in which the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) also participated as an observer.
Under the decentralized cooperation agreement between AECID and the autonomous communities, the two parties will allocate 1.6 million euros for the year 2021 to the Venezuelan population in a situation of extreme vulnerability, the Sahrawi refugees in the Tindouf camps (Algeria) and the Palestinian population, with an allocation of 350,000 euros for each of these three crises.
In Venezuela, this contribution will help the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in its work to prevent and respond to gender-based violence in the country’s border states. In Tindouf, this cofinancing will enable the World Food Program (WFP) to meet the basic food and nutrition needs of 133,672 people through the distribution of more than 2,000 tons of basic foodstuffs.
In Palestine, a joint contribution to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Appeal 2021, which aims to promote the protection of the Palestinian civilian population in Israel and the occupied territories, in accordance with the rules of International Humanitarian Law, has been chosen. The parties have also decided to support a joint response in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, within the framework of the Contingency Fund provided for by the agreement, which enables rapid action to be taken in humanitarian emergencies. Details will be finalized in the coming days.
The humanitarian action agreement that unites these eleven autonomous communities, the FEMP and the AECID has been in force since October 2018 and aims to pool and coordinate financial, human and technical resources in order to improve the impact and quality of Spanish humanitarian aid abroad. In this agreement, AECID contributes one million euros annually in humanitarian action, while each autonomous community undertakes to contribute, also on an annual basis, a minimum of 50,000 euros. For the second consecutive year, La Rioja will contribute 100,000 euros to this initiative.
