Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Preparedness

The EU assistance in Bangladesh switched from classic food aid operations to a more comprehensive rural development cooperation introducing the concept of food security as an objective to be achieved in the longer term. Concerning EC bilateral food aid/food security assistance, the Commission has provided annually around €30 million of food security support through the Government, WFP and NGOs.

Since 1994, humanitarian aid provided by the European Community Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) has played a crucial role in international emergency assistance responding to natural disasters (floods and cyclones) which struck Bangladesh. The supported emergency assistance projects, as well as DIPECHO (DIsaster Preparedness-ECHO) projects, have contributed positively to reducing the impact of disasters in Bangladesh, and have provided impetus to flood mitigation and prevention. More…

The European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO) was established in 1992 and is also represented in Bangladesh. The European Union’s mandate to ECHO is to provide emergency assistance and relief to the victims of natural disasters or armed conflict outside the European Union. The aid is intended to go directly to those in distress, irrespective of race, religion or political convictions.

Thanks to ECHO, humanitarian action occupies a key position in the EU’s external action.

ECHO is the world’s main player in this field.

Through ECHO funding, some 18 million people are helped each year in more than 60 countries through 200 partners (NGOs, ICRC, and UN agencies like the UNHCR and the WFP). The Humanitarian Aid Office spends more than €500 million a year on financing humanitarian projects.

This importance is due to the growth in the number of serious crises in the world and reflects the EU's willingness to take on a leading role in international humanitarian efforts. The EU aims to make its aid to third countries struck by natural disaster or conflict more effective and more humanitarian. ECHO reflects this desire.

In 1996 ECHO decided to adopt a new, more regional, pro-active approach in order to increase its involvement in disaster preparedness and to achieve greater coherence in its programmes. This new approach called DIPECHO (DIsaster Preparedness-ECHO) intends to increase the impact and improve the effectiveness of ECHO’S disaster preparedness interventions in the regions selected – the Caribbean, Central America and Southeast Asia with Bangladesh. The programme was presented to the Humanitarian Aid Committee in July 1996 and received favourable consideration. DIPECHO encompasses natural and man-made disasters (i.e. technological hazards, fires), excluding conflict. The objective of the new approach is to improve and support disaster preparedness in the considered regions, which ECHO plans to achieve through a pro-active and flexible approach. It has furthermore pledged to increase its efficiency of interventions in disaster preparedness through close coordination with other Commission services and Member States.

In the latest Action Plan for South East Asia and Bangladesh DIPECHO's overriding objective is to increase the awareness and the response capacities of local communities to potential, and frequent natural disasters and to reduce the effects of these disasters on the most vulnerable. This involves the fostering of appropriate and sustainable means of preparedness, and mitigation and prevention activities that can be easily replicated in other parts of the region and beyond.

The programme aims to do this primarily by:

· targeting the most vulnerable communities using relevant and bottom-up participatory methods

· using local resources that can be easily replicated

· promoting the sustainable strengthening of local physical and human resources that are required to respond to likely natural disasters.