Hello. Thank you all for being here – and a particular thanks to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center for bringing us together.
You’ve heard already about the overlapping crises in the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin region – violence raging, floods surging, children starving.
So today, I’m announcing that the United States will contribute more than $572 million dollars to humanitarian efforts in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria. This new funding brings total U.S. humanitarian assistance to more than $1.2 billion in the region this fiscal year. These resources will help our partners provide badly needed basics like food, water, shelter, and health care.
This aid, and all of the aid fellow donors are generously committing today, has the potential to save lives. But, it will not fulfill that potential if the assistance can’t safely reach the people who need it most.
You know all too well the barriers facing humanitarians in the region. Burdensome and costly requirements for transporting aid; bans on cash assistance; deliberate blockades by armed extremists and the armies combating them; atrocities against civilians.
So, all of us gathered today should contribute not only the resources needed for humanitarian response, but we must also use our collective influence to demand an environment that allows safe and unhindered delivery of that assistance across the region.
Thank you again to all of the donors who are stepping up. As we speak, lives are hanging in the balance, and we have to work together to do everything we can to protect them.
Thank you so much.
