Day: August 9, 2022

Today, the United States, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), announced that it is providing $15 million to the United Nations (UN) Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). This is the Agency’s largest contribution to date to the CERF, the UN’s global humanitarian fund that enables the rapid delivery of life-saving assistance whenever and wherever crises strike and ensures that underfunded or prolonged crises are not left behind.

With its critical role in responding to the needs of the most vulnerable, the CERF helped UN agencies and partners provide life-saving assistance to 51.5 million people across the world in 2021 alone. This year, the CERF is helping respond to severe food insecurity in the Horn of Africa, the Sahel region of West Africa, Yemen, and other countries facing worsening hunger crises.

Today, the world faces unprecedented needs, as countries continue to deal with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, increasingly protracted conflicts and the ripple effects of Russia’s war against Ukraine. As a result of the war, it is projected that up to 40 million more people could be pushed into poverty and food insecurity worldwide in 2022.

USAID is proud to support the CERF as part of the United States’ global efforts to respond to these historic humanitarian needs and encourages other donors to join us in contributing urgently to the humanitarian community’s collective efforts to save lives and ease suffering around the world.

Source: US Agency for International Development

The United States is seeking a “true partnership” with Africa and not trying to “outdo” other world powers in vying for influence on the continent, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

Blinken arrived in South Africa for an official visit on Sunday during a three-nation African trip which follows hot on the heels of an extensive tour of the continent by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Speaking in the South African capital Pretoria on Monday, Blinken said the United States did not see the region as the “latest playing field in a competition between great powers”.

“That is fundamentally not how we see it. It’s not how we will advance our engagement here,” Blinken told a press briefing, speaking alongside his local counterpart Naledi Pandor.

“Our commitment to a stronger partnership with Africa is not about trying to outdo anyone else.”

For his first stop, the US top diplomat chose South Africa, a leader in the developing world which has remained neutral in the Ukraine war.

Pretoria has refused to join Western calls to condemn Moscow, which had opposed apartheid before the end of white-minority rule in 1994.

His comments came ahead of a policy announcement on the US government’s new Africa strategy, which Blinken is expected to lay out in a speech at the University of Pretoria later on Monday.

“What we seek most of all is a true partnership between the United States and Africa. We don’t want an imbalanced or transactional relationship,” Blinken said.

Vulnerable countries in Africa and elsewhere in the world have been hard hit by the fallout from the Ukraine war that has sent prices of fuel and food soaring.

Powerhouse South Africa belongs to a group of emerging economies called BRICS.

In June, Russian President Vladimir Putin urged BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — to cooperate in the face of “selfish actions” from the West.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK