Following his recent visit to Colombia, Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič is visiting Panama on the second leg of his  stay in Latin America and the Caribbean. On the occasion, the Commissioner announced €153 million in humanitarian aid for the region as a whole for 2022.

Furthermore, in line with the recently announced European Humanitarian Response Capacity initiative, the first EU funded regional humanitarian stockpile to be based in Panama City was launched. Building on the success of rescEU in Europe, this overseas EU aid stockpile will be used to pre-position equipment such as shelter items, first aid kits, food and sanitation items to deliver them directly from the region when crises such as natural disasters occur. This is expected to greatly speed up aid delivery in one of the most disaster affected regions of the world and be supported by the new regional Copernicus data centre, a flagship initiative of the Global Gateway strategy.

EU funding will addresses urgent humanitarian needs across the region, among which those resulting from the Venezuelan crisis, food insecurity, exposure to natural hazards, transcontinental migration as well as the consequences of pervasive violence, conflict and forced displacement.

In this view, Commissioner also participated in the high level meeting of the Inter-Agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela, the so-called R4V, where the refugees and migrants needs assessments report has been issues; where the EU committed €77 million for this crisis.