EU Willing to Enhance Cooperation with Africa in Disaster Risk Management

Addis Ababa October 10/2020 (ENA) After an official visit to the Somali Regional State of Ethiopia and delivering 7.5 tons of Coronavirus test kits to the AU, EU Commissioner for Crisis Management told journalists that the Union is interested in strengthening cooperation with the African Union in areas of humanitarian assistance and disaster risk management.

“It is the interest of EU to strengthen the cooperation with the AU in areas of humanitarian assistance. As you know, there are large number of humanitarian crises in Africa… And we would like to strengthen our cooperation with the view to alleviating the suffering of the people,” the commissioner said.

Not only Africa in general, Janez Lenarcic said, adding that Ethiopia in particular is also affected frequently by all kinds of disasters like flood, drought; and in the case of Ethiopia most recently also by severe desert locust infestation.

“We would like to set up a more structured and comprehensive cooperation with the AU in order to enhance the resilience of African society so that they would be better prepared to face disasters in the future,” he pointed out.

According to him, the delgation with EU High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell had a fruitful discussion about various issues of mutual interest with Ethiopian officials.

“We explored the potential for our closer cooperation,” the commissioner stated.

EU High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell, said on his part “we want to be the best partner of Africa in general and Ethiopia in particular.”

What happens to Ethiopia is important not only to its people, but also to the whole region and the Europeans, he underscored.

Borrell stated that this is due to the reason that “Ethiopia is too big to fall. And the security and prosperity of Ethiopia has a lot of importance for us Europeans because it affects us directly.”

Besides, Ethiopia is in a way of promoting important reforms and change is always difficult as it brings uncertainty, tensions and sometimes violence.

Ethiopia can count on EU in supporting the reform, he stressed.