Austria helps poor regions with € 12 million

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Twelve million euros will be released in the Council of Ministers on Wednesday to support Austrian aid organizations that are active in Africa, the Western Balkans and the South Caucasus. With this uniquely high amount from the foreign disaster fund.

This largest payment in the history of the Austrian Foreign Disaster Fund aims to improve local living conditions even in times of pandemic. The Covid-19 crisis is not just a medical emergency, as the Foreign Ministry emphasizes. The social and economic consequences would often be many times worse, especially in developing countries. There is the worst plague of locusts in Africa in the past 60 years, devastating cyclones and terror.

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz explains a Austria is making a substantial contribution. The corona pandemic has exacerbated the humanitarian crises in many regions of the world. The money was intended to help the people in the affected areas get through the crisis better.

Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler explains said, Austrian aid organizations could use the money to implement measures to secure a living. And Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg, himself in Covid-19 quarantine. As long as we don't get the pandemic under control all over the world, we will not be able to return to complete normalcy.