Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern yesterday signed a standby agreement in Rome with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) for the provision by Irish Aid of personnel and technical expertise in serious emergencies.
The Irish delegation, which also included the Minister of State for Overseas Development, Mícheál Kitt, was received by WFP senior deputy executive director Jean-Jacques Graisse.
The visit to the WFP headquarters in Rome by both Ministers followed a visit on Thursday to the WFP-run Humanitarian Response Depot (UNHRD) in Brindisi, Puglia, southern Italy. In effect, the UNHRD stores and transports relief supplies of the WFP and other UN agencies as well as NGOs, including Irish NGO Goal.
The Brindisi site is one of a network of logistical facilities offered by the UNHRD, with other bases situated in Ghana, Dubai, Panama and Malaysia. These bases are intended as rapid response centres, capable of transporting supplies and personnel to emergency situations at very short notice. For example, the first flight carrying supplies funded by Ireland will fly out of Brindisi tomorrow destined for the relief of flood victims in Pakistan.
By next month, a similar rapid response station sufficient for a community of 10,000 will be in place at the Curragh. Rather than food, these stations provide items such as tents, sheeting, kitchen sets, mosquito nets, jerry cans, axes, shovels, soap etc.
Mr Ahern said it was great that emergency materials provided by the Irish taxpayer were now located at the WFP in Brindisi. In the past such material had to be sourced after a crisis, which often took several weeks, time that usually cost lives.
"The Irish people have always been extremely generous during a humanitarian crisis and now we have gone one step further by providing emergency supplies at the Brindisi depot, available for dispersal at very short notice", said Mr Ahern.