The Government today announced details of a €4.5 million funding package for humanitarian aid to Sudan, sub-Saharan Africa and Afghanistan.
Speaking at a UN conference on development in New York, Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Conor Lenihan, said Ireland was delivering on commitments made at previous conferences.
In April, Ireland pledged €15 million for the recovery and reconstruction efforts in Sudan over the period 2005-2007.
As part of that commitment, Minister of State Lenihan today allocated €1 million to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, to support its role in coordinating the international humanitarian response to the ongoing crisis in Darfur.
A further half-a-million euro will be shared between a Unicef education programme and a World Food Programme feeding scheme in the south of the country.
Mr Lenihan said: "When I visited Darfur in April, I saw for myself the scale of the humanitarian crisis and the immense challenge of co-ordination facing the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)."
Mr Lenihan said effective response to the crisis in the country was dependent on co-ordination and that Ireland supported the key role of OCHA and the UN.
The minister of state also said €1 million had been allocated to the World Food Programme in southern African, where the food security situation was a cause of "real concern". "According to a recent report the production of maize in Malawi, the country's most important staple crop, is the lowest in a decade. "Up to one-third of the population is undernourished.
"Zimbabwe is also facing major food shortages exacerbated by poor policies.
"This funding will help the World Food Programme respond to a growing emergency - the full extent of which has not yet hit the headlines," he said.
Money was also promised for Afghanistan, where €800,000 will go to supporting parliamentary and provincial elections in the country, which are scheduled to take place in September. More than €500,000 has also been pledged to reconstruction and civil society capacity building.
"Ireland is a strong supporter of the recovery process in Afghanistan," the minister said. As part of the 4.5 million euro package, Mr Lenihan said he was making €350,000 available to International Alert's peace-building efforts and the International Crisis Group's field-based conflict research.
"It is essential that we better understand the context in which these and other emergencies occur, so that we can respond better to them and can work to prevent them in the future," he said.
PA