South America
ECHO's current South America Disaster Preparedness program was launched in April 2011. €15 million will be devoted to help vulnerable communities in 9 countries –Argentina, Bolivia, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela – get ready for potential disasters. The aid will be implemented by ECHO's partners in the field: NGOs, United Nations agencies and the Red Cross Movement.
South America is one of the world's regions that is most vulnerable to natural hazards: earthquakes regularly hit Peru or Chile, floods wreak havoc in Colombia and Venezuela, lethal mudslides are common in the cities of Rio, La Paz and Caracas, and many of the continent's inhabitants join the more than 226 million people in the world affected by disasters every year.
These are the some examples of recent interventions in South America, both in disaster preparedness as well as disaster response:
- In 2011, in Bolivia and Chile communities were affected by floods and others by a severe winter with the worst snowfall in 30 years. Crops and cattle were lost in both disasters. ECHO is providing aid to help them cope and restore their livelihoods.
- In Peru, ECHO is addressing the needs of 25,000 people severely affected by the worst flooding in the last 18 years to hit Ucayali, in the Amazon basin. Waters rose by 20 metres due to continuous rain in 2011.
- In 2010 and 2011, in La Paz, Caracas and Rio de Janeiro landslides and floods caused a high number of fatalities and washed away houses. ECHO intervened in the three cities through small scale projects aimed at short-term emergency relief and with funds to improve the quality of humanitarian operations over the medium to long-term.
From 1994, ECHO has spent €100 million responding to emergencies caused by natural hazards in South America. In the same period, additional investment in Disaster Preparedness totaled €51 million across the continent, a figure that represents one third of all funds for South America, and a clear indication of the European Commission's strong commitment to preparedness policies.
Related information
- Factsheet Bolivia
- Factsheet Ecuador
- Factsheet Peru