Global Arab Network | European Commissioner: EU working on increasing support to Yemen

Translate this article to your language:

GANPublications

e-Publications

Add Site to Favorites

Add Page to Favorites

Make Homepage

Share This Page

RSS Feed

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| |

European Commissioner: EU working on increasing support to Yemen

Global Arab Network - - Ayman Khalil

Tuesday, 01 February 2011 02:41

Yemen (Sana’a) - The European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid and Crises Kristalina Ivanova Georgieva said she was surprised to see the beautiful nature and civilization in Yemen.

Georgieva said she found Yemeni generosity in dealing with African refugees and this represent wonderful humanitarian story she commits herself to narrate to the whole world.

The following interview by 26 September Newspaper with the Georgieva reveals more about the visit of the European Commissioner's visit to Yemen.

Could you please talk to us about the purpose of your visit to Yemen?

My visit to Yemen has three aims, the first is to thank the Yemeni people for their generosity and hospitability of receiving refugees, secondly to express the European support to the peace process in Yemen and the third is to review how to increase humanitarian and development support to the country.

What is your vision on the nature of aid to Yemen, especially that concern helping the country in easing the burden of refugees?

What we want to provide is the humanitarian aid to refugees or the affected people and provide assistances to create projects that help them get work chances. The European people are generous as we currently provide Yemen $ 230 million annually as development assistances and around $ 40 million as humanitarian. In fact when we see needs, we find there are so many things could be done and provide support and helping in building schools and maintaining roads.
We have visited Sa'ada and met with all parities. We were happy to find that all see us as neutral party as our assistances targets all and also targets building confidence between different parties.

Yemen is living real challenge and compound one and at the same time we see thousands of refugees in camps in Sa'ada and it receives thousands of African refugees how do you see that and are there similar cases in the world?

Certainly, Yemen is living real problem as you mentioned it is compound one. As a result Yemen carry heavy burden and we understand this. We hope that the international community understands this matter and I think there are countries living the same situation Yemen does but I do not have more details in this field.

What was the most significant thing that attracted you in this visit?

I personally admired and was affected much by the extreme generosity of Yemeni people and I hope from all my heart peaceful and promising future to Yemen.

What is the message you want to direct to Yemen's donors and partners to help Yemen bear the burden of increasing numbers of refugees and for the country's development?

This is a critical time to Yemen and the international community must provide inclusive assistances to Yemen. It is also very important issue that the donors have to provide their assistance to humanitarian and development fields to help realize Yemen's stability and security.
Sometimes there is concentration on security field but the culture is rich as this country has been the foundation of Arab civilization and it is important to the region and the world.

What is the impression you got after you visited Yemen for the first time?

We found that the Yemeni people are nice and the many problems they face could be solved but they need assistance. I want to say also that I have been a university professor during 1970s and 1980s and met with many officials who studied in Bulgaria and spoke with them in Bulgarian. I ask you to carry my best wishes to my students who will read your newspaper.

You visited Somali refugees' camps in Kharaz and Basateen area, what was the impression you came out with?

What I have found represent to me a story about generosity in this country and I commit myself to narrate it to the whole world. The story is about the Yemeni generosity in receiving Somali refugees.

What about the European Union's role after this visit, shall we see greater role from it?

The European Union is of the most generous people and we provide more than 60 percent of humanitarian assistance around the world and after this visit I pledge to work on increasing the support to Yemen in the future. We also pledge to provide development support to Yemen and the regional countries. We see and acknowledge that it is time to create educational and infrastructure chances as well as realizing prosperity in Yemen because Yemen's prosperity will be reflected on the refugees' conditions.
(Saba)

Global Arab Network

< Prev		Next >

Add comment

The opinions of the authors in articles published are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Global Arab Network
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Published comments are the opinions of private individuals and do not reflect the views of Global Arab Network