EU provides drought support for Dominican Republic

Santo Domingo.- The European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO) is contributing 13.9 million euros to help the Caribbean cope with drought in 2016, facilitating access to food and water, and protecting the livelihoods of more than 429 000 people.

The European Commission has allocated 12.2 million euros of this contribution to Haiti, 1.1 million euros to the Dominican Republic and 600.000 euros to Cuba.

Over the past year, drought has affected more than 6.2 million people in the Caribbean, especially in these three countries, where irregular and insufficient rainfall has caused loss of crop and livestock.

For the third consecutive year, some people are facing periods of drought that threaten their livelihood, with the most vulnerable groups being small producers, day-labourers and people with no land of their own.