Estonia Supports Myanmar with Half a Million Kroons
31.12.2007
The Estonian Foreign Ministry is supporting the needy in Myanmar with 500,000 kroons, donated through the World Food Program (WFP).
According to Foreign Minister Urmas Paet, the humanitarian crisis and the blatant violation of human rights in Myranmar are very alarming. “According to UN data, one third of the nation’s residents live below the poverty line,” said Paet. “We hope that our small contribution, made through the WFP, can help to alleviate the situation for those in need,” he added. Estonia and the other European Union member states have supported the continuation and expansion of humanitarian aid in Myanmar.
The World Food Program does cooperative work in Myanmar with 22 subordinate establishments of the UN and with non-profit organisations. The organisation’s aid is aimed toward alleviating the situation of vulnerable families, women and children. In addition to food aid, the WFP also helps to provide treatments for HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis patients.
According to the UN Development Programme, the human development indicators in Myanmar are alarmingly poor. The situation is especially dire on the nation’s eastern border, where Myanmar’s ethnic minorities live, and in the central Dry Zone, where the land cannot be cultivated. At the command of the junta, in the last decades the villages of thousands of ethnic minorities have been pillaged, and their crops and livestock have been destroyed. The outcome of the devastation is that people are forced to live in difficult-to-reach areas, which lack basic hygienic conditions.
Detailed descriptions of the projects and an overview of development cooperation projects of past years can be viewed on the Foreign Ministry’s website: http://www.vm.ee/est/kat_425/5084.html .
