THE European Union (EU) is allocating €150,000 in humanitarian funding to help support those people affected by the recent wave of intense floods that hit communities across Guyana.
The country has been experiencing higher-than-normal levels of rainfall since May, and local authorities estimate that the subsequent extensive flooding has affected over 36,000 households across 300 communities.
With severe weather expected to continue, the main risk is that due to low-lying lands and minimal tidal differences, floodwaters will retrieve slowly, hence generating stagnant pools that would contribute to increasing the risk of water and mosquito-borne diseases.
According to a release to the effect, the current EU humanitarian funding will be channeled towards the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) and Red Crescent Societies in support of their Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF), and will be implemented by the Guyana Red Cross Society (GRCS), which is present in all affected districts.

The intervention will last for three months, and is aimed at providing immediate support to 500 vulnerable families currently living in temporary shelters in the most severely-affected communities of Regions Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo), and Ten (Upper Demerara-Berbice).
EU Ambassador to Guyana, Fernando Ponz Cantó, in brief comments, referred to the meeting between the EU Delegation and the Director-General of Guyana’s Civil Defence Commission (CDC) on June 11, to facilitate the activation of the EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism. Following the CDC’s request, the EU’s Copernicus Emergency Management Service was also activated on June 14 to provide satellite maps of the affected flood areas across Guyana.
Ambassador Ponz Cantó highlighted that, “this humanitarian grant of €150,000 is already complemented by the intervention of the French Red Cross, which was coordinated by the Embassy of France in Suriname and channeled via the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.”

The EU funding will contribute to enabling the Guyana Red Cross to swiftly provide families with kitchen sets, solar lamps, durable mosquito nets to prevent the spread of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue, chikungunya or zika. Families will also receive hygiene kits, jerrycans, household cleaning kits and water treatment tablets to prevent the spread of waterborne diseases which are likely to increase due to the persistence of stagnating water.
With EU funding, the Guyana Red Cross will identify the 200 most vulnerable families and deliver to them cash and vouchers so that they can purchase what they most urgently need to help them through the difficult period of dislocation.
In order to mitigate the risks connected to a potential spread of the coronavirus, shelters will be equipped with first aid kits and people will receive 5,000 N95 masks and 1,000 flacons of hand sanitizer.

The European Commission has signed a €3 million humanitarian contribution agreement with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to support the Federation’s Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF). Funds from the DREF are mainly allocated to ‘small-scale’ disasters; those that do not give rise to a formal international appeal.
The Disaster Relief Emergency Fund was established in 1985, and is supported by contributions from donors. Each time a National Red Cross or Red Crescent Society needs immediate financial support to respond to a disaster, it can request funds from the DREF. For small-scale disasters, the IFRC allocates grants from the Fund, which can then be replenished by the donors. The contribution agreement between the IFRC and the European Commission enables the latter to replenish the DREF for agreed operations (that fit in with its humanitarian mandate) up to a total of €3 million.