HE the Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani met yesterday with Stephen O’Brien, the UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief.
The meeting discussed humanitarian issues in the region, particularly in Syria and Yemen, as well as Qatar’s support for multilateral humanitarian response to these crises, and how to raise recommendations and international calls to provide more emergency aid to Aleppo in Syria and ways to ensure humanitarian paths.
The foreign minister stressed Qatar’s keenness on continuing the existing co-operation with the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which developed noticeably over the past few years thanks to Doha’s belief in the significant role of the office in ensuring swift response by the international society to disasters and emergency situations on time.
He announced a $1.5mn donation from Qatar as part of the country’s support for the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) with a total pledged amount of $8.5mn.
He also said that Qatar had donated $5mn for the basic resources of CERF.
HE Sheikh Mohamed reiterated the extreme attention that Qatar pays to the humanitarian area in line with its foreign policy, in which the state follows the vision of HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, highlighting Qatar’s keenness to always be at the forefront of countries working to alleviate the humanitarian suffering, particularly among the weaker and more vulnerable sectors, with Qatar taking several initiatives and exerting strenuous efforts in this regard.
In turn, the UN official praised Qatar’s leading role in the field of humanitarian relief, hailing its efforts in providing humanitarian and development aid through its initiatives, the last of which being an initiative to educate and train Syrian refugees as part of the Syria Humanitarian Pooled Fund (HPF) for 2017.