By Ali Imran
ISLAMABAD: Ambassador of France to Pakistan Nicolas Galey has announced that the French government had allocated €1 million to three Nongovernmental International Organizations for humanitarian relief operations for flood-hit communities in Pakistan.
These relief activities will provide critical assistance to vulnerable households, and contribute to reducing loss of lives and improving living conditions in flood-affected communities, said Ambassador talking to the media persons at his residence. He added that this contribution was part of France’s substantial support to the Pakistani people in the aftermath of the catastrophic floods. President Macron personally decided on this support at the end of August to express and demonstrate France’s solidarity with the victims of this unprecedented event, the ambassador told.
He said France’s financial assistance had been earmarked for the following relief operations: Action Against Hunger (ACF), an integrated project combining health, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), agriculture, food security, and livelihood for approximately 30 000 beneficiaries in the districts of Kambar Shadadkot and Khairpur in Sindh.
To question, French Ambassador said, “French international nongovernmental organizations, together with their Pakistani partners, play an essential role in providing humanitarian assistance to flood-affected communities.
The French government is pleased to support Action Against Hunger, Secours Islamique – France, and Médecins du Monde in their relief operations.
This financial support builds on other support provided by France, including the mission in September of a French medical team, the distribution of high-capacity water pumps, the provision of emergency equipment (tents, kitchen sets…), the current French civil security-led water purification operation in Dadu district, and the procurement of a portable bridge in the coming weeks”.
In addition to sending non-food items and equipment, including 200 tents and 83 very high-capacity water pumps, France has dispatched civil security teams to the field, including:
A team of experts trained more than 50 technicians in Karachi in using 83 high-capacity water pumps given to Pakistan and are now operated by Pakistani experts in various parts of the affected areas, he added.
He said that a team of 40 experts from the French Civil Security Units is now deployed on-site in the Sindh Province to install and operate a water purification system, which will provide the population with two hundred and fifty litres of drinking water per day.
The ambassador also added that the French Government had allocated an additional 1 million euros to the World Food Programme for an integrated Nutrition-Safety Net Project for pregnant and lactating women in Sindh.
