Addis Ababa, April 28, 2012 (Addis Ababa) - The European Union here on Friday granted 13.75 million Euros to four NGOs to support people affected by the Horn of Africa Drought.

The grant aimed at contributing to the recovery of essential productive capacity and the strengthening off crisis resilience in Southern and Eastern Africa.

The grant will benefit close to 500,000 people, focusing particularly on the ability of poor small-holder farmers, pastoralists and agro-pastoralists to resume their productive activities.

The objective of the grant is to enhance the social and economic stability in the drought affected areas of the South Ethiopia Peoples' State, Oromia and Somali states through supporting the recovery of livelihoods of the affected population and building their resilience.

The grant will also increase the productive, income generating capacity and reduce the vulnerability to various external shocks for poor smallholder farmers, pastoralists, agro-pastoralists and pastoral dropouts.

It will improve service delivery and capacity of local government and community based/traditional institutions to ensure peaceful co-existence and therefore contributes to reduce tensions and conflicts exacerbated by the drought situation.

EU Delegation to Ethiopia head, Ambassador Xavier Marchal signed the agreement with representatives of iDE UK, CARE Austria, TROCAIRE and Save the Children UK.

On the occasion, the head expressed his belief that the assistance will foster the social and economic stability in those areas.

It will also support the recovery of the livelihoods of those affected by increasing the resilience of the target poor vulnerable rural people and build the capacity of local government and community institutions.

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