Launch of One World, One Future

Our new policy One World, One Future: Ireland’s Policy for International Development was launched last week by Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore and Minister for Trade and Development Joe Costello.

The Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Eamon Gilmore T.D., and the Minister for Trade and Development, Joe Costello T.D, have announced new Irish support for the global effort to end polio.

Speaking at the Global Vaccine Summit in Abu Dhabi today, Minister Costello pledged that, through Irish Aid, the Government will provide €5 million over the next five years to eradicate the disease.

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Simon Coveney T.D, and the Minister for Trade and Development, Joe Costello T.D., today signed a three-year Strategic Partnership Agreement with the Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), Ertharin Cousin, in Dublin. The WFP is the largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide.

The agreement sets out shared objectives in the area of humanitarian assistance, as well as committing Ireland to providing a minimum of €7 million a year to WFP for the next three years.

Minister for Trade and Development, Joe Costello T.D., today announced €3.8 million in funding for UN agencies and NGOs to respond to the humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The funding will provide emergency food, water, healthcare and protection to millions of vulnerable people who are caught up in the long-running conflict, which has claimed millions of lives.

Announcing the funding today, Minister Costello said:

The Government of Malawi has donated to the UN World Food Programme an extra 47,466 metric tons of maize from the country’s Strategic Grain Reserve. This allocation, valued at $11.6 million (MK 4.18 billion), will bolster relief operations for nearly 2 million people identified by the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee as food insecure. This brings the total Government of Malawi relief contributions since August to 72,466 tones, worth $ 17.1 million (MK 6.2 billion).

The Government has approved €1 million in emergency funding for the Red Cross relief operation in Japan.

Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Eamon Gilmore, T.D., said the decision followed an appeal yesterday by the Japanese Government for European Union assistance in responding to earthquake and tsunami.

“Japan is effectively dealing with three crises in one, with the earthquake, tsunami and the ongoing nuclear emergency,” the Tánaiste said.

The European Union (EU) is making today a contribution of approximately €7.4 million to the payment of the November salaries and pensions of more than 84,000 Palestinian civil servants and pensioners in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This contribution is being channelled through the PEGASE[1] Direct Financial Support mechanism.

(Extract)

III. EFFECTS:

A. AFFECTED POPULATION (TAB A)

• As of 20 December 2012, a total of 711,682 families / 6,243,998 persons in 3,064 Barangays / 312 municipalities / 40 cities / 34 provinces of Regions IV-B, VI, VII, VIII, IX,
X, XI, XII, CARAGA and ARMM were affected.

• The total number of population currently served inside and outside the evacuation centers is 227,992 families / 979,508 persons.

INSIDE 68 ECs: 4,522 families/19,972 persons

OUTSIDE ECs: 223,516 families/959,536 persons

KAMPALA, 17 December 2012 (IRIN) - Hundreds of millions of dollars in donor aid have been withheld from Uganda in recent months, threatening post-war rehabilitation in the northern region and key public investments across the country.

Keith Muhakanizi, deputy secretary to the Treasury, told IRIN that donors, under a Joint Budget Support Framework (JBSF) - including the World Bank, European Union, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Sweden and the United Kingdom - have suspended "about US$260 million", or 6 percent of the annual budget for at least six months.