New Zealand Executive Government News Release Archive

Africa is the focus for a series of grants from New Zealands aid programme Foreign Minister Don McKinnon announced today.

Mr McKinnon announced the grants following a meeting today with Mike Aaronson Director General of Save the Children Fund, UK.

We discussed a range of the Save the Children Funds global activities, but focused particularly on the deteriorating and worrying situation in Burundi.

I was pleased to be able to tell Mr Aaronson New Zealand is providing $120 000 to support a Save the Children Fund programme to prepare for tracing lost and orphaned children. Mr Aaronson said he was delighted to receive this money and congratulated the Government for its foresight.

A CARITAS project to provide extensive emergency relief to 13 000 displaced people in the diocese of Ruyigi will also receive $160 000.

Save the Children Funds work elsewhere in Africa will also receive New Zealand aid with a grant of $150 000 for a project to rebuild and equip four schools catering for a thousand pupils in Mozambique.

Also in Mozambique, Christian World Service will receive $100 000 to purchase seeds for families who lost crops in serious floods earlier this year.

A further $200 000 is to be allocated to a United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) programme for children in especially difficult circumstances in Rwanda Mr McKinnon added.

The situation in Rwanda remains tense and international efforts to rebuild the country are crucial to prevent further unrest, he said.

The UNICEF programme focuses on unaccompanied and vulnerable children including those who have been psychologically traumatised, orphaned or physically disabled.

The overall package of assistance also includes $100 000 for the ongoing repatriation and support activities of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) who rates the situation in the Great Lakes region of central Africa as her number one priority for aid in 1996.

In Angola the UN High Commissioner and the Food and Agriculture Organisation are mounting a programme to supply essential inputs like seeds, tools and plastic sheeting for post-war rehabilitation and will receive $200 000 of New Zealand aid.

Agricultural rehabilitation is also the focus of attention in Sierra Leone and Ethopia where World Vision New Zealand and CORSO will receive grants of $150 000 and $146 000 respectively towards their activities in this sector.

Other New Zealand agencies who will receive support for their humanitarian activities in Africa are Oxfam, which will get a grant of $100 000 for primary health care in southern Sudan, and Tear Fund, which will receive $45 000 for assistance to Liberian refugees in Sierra Leone.

In Liberia itself the World Food Programme as one of the few agencies still able to deliver assistance to war affected people will benefit from a grant of $100 000.

Funding for all these grants is drawn from the Emergency and Disaster Relief allocation within the New Zealand overseas aid programme. This year with no significant cyclones in the South Pacific it has been possible to support humanitarian programmes further afield.