El Niño - EU plans to step up funding in new approach to address global food crisis - Q&A

Met dank overgenomen van Europese Commissie (EC), gepubliceerd op maandag 25 april 2016.

What is ‘El Niño’?

This extreme phenomenon is characterised by rising temperatures of surface sea water, which interact with the atmosphere and cause different extreme events, from floods to droughts. While El Niño has global effects, it is particularly affecting large regions of Africa with both floods and droughts. This strongly impacts food security, health, and access to water and hygiene conditions of millions of people living in already vulnerable regions.

41 million people - out of the 80 million suffering from food crisis this year - are living in El Niño-affected regions (Latin America and Caribbean, Southern, Central and Eastern Africa, as well as few Asian and Pacific countries). The impact and vulnerabilities of droughts have been felt especially hard in Ethiopia, where the number of food insecure people has increased sharply from 2.9 to more than 10 million over the last year.

What is the EU doing to help?

The EU's support will combine humanitarian and development assistance, to address immediate needs of nutrition, water and sanitation, health and shelter. It will provide support to health structures, provision of food and safe drinking water, supplementary food for pregnant women and children. It will also help build resilience in the most exposed countries by enhancing disaster preparedness, early response mechanisms, and supporting long-term development solutions.

The funding is coming in two stages: (1) on 2 December 2015, the European Commission announced a contribution of €125 million to finance emergency actions and (2) a planned contribution of €414million announced on 25 April supporting both humanitarian and development assistance.

What is the High Level Event on "Innovative Ways for Sustainable Nutrition, Food Security and Inclusive Agricultural Growth"?

A High Level Event on "Innovative Ways for Sustainable Nutrition, Food Security and Inclusive Agricultural Growth," is being organised on 25 April 2016. The main aim is to explore new synergies and partnerships for the European Commission to gain efficiency in achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets on food security and zero hunger.

In this context, the European Commission has decided to undertake a milestone initiative - to conduct a Global Assessment of food and nutrition insecurity in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP). The Commission used the evidence of this global assessment to develop and propose a global holistic response, making use both of its humanitarian and development instruments.

Progress on Nutrition Action Plan

At the same time as the High Level Event on "Innovative Ways for Sustainable Nutrition, Food Security and Inclusive Agricultural Growth", the first "Nutrition Action Plan Progress" report will be published.

This shows encouraging findings that close to 1 million less children will be stunted in 2025 compared with the 2012 projections.

The report also shows that the EU average rate of investment in nutrition is progressing towards the attainment of the €3.5 billion commitment for the period 2014-2020. The report includes an analysis of country specific contexts through its Nutrition Country Action Fiches, providing a country specific vision for action that can be instrumental in strengthening the nutrition governance at country level through a closer and more efficient coordination between the EU and its Member States.

More information

Press release: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-1513_en.htm

MEMO/16/1514

Press contacts:

General public inquiries: Europe Direct by phone 00 800 67 89 10 11 or by email

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