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UPDATE: U.S. is Continuing to Lead the Humanitarian and Health Assistance Response to COVID-19
3 MINUTE READ
April 16, 2020

U.S. Department of StateFact Sheet
Office of the Spokesperson

The U.S. Government is leading the world’s humanitarian and health response to the COVID-19 pandemic even while we battle the virus at home.  As part of this comprehensive and generous  response from the American people, the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have now committed nearly $508 million in emergency health, humanitarian, and economic assistance on top of the funding we already provide to multilateral and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are helping communities around the world deal with the pandemic.  This funding will support critical activities to control the spread of this disease, such as rapid public-health information campaigns, water and sanitation, and preventing and controlling infections in health-care facilities.

Total U.S. government assistance in the global fight against COVID-19 provided to date includes nearly $200 million in emergency health assistance from USAID’s Global Health Emergency Reserve Fund for Contagious Infectious-Disease Outbreaks and Global Health Programs account, nearly $195 million in humanitarian assistance from USAID’s International Disaster Assistance (IDA) account, and $50 million from the Economic Support Funding (ESF), which will help governments and NGOs in more than 100 of the most affected and at-risk countries during this global pandemic.  In addition, through the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, which is responsible for the Migration and Refugee Assistance (MRA) account, we now have a country-by-country breakout of the previously announced $64 million in humanitarian assistance for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to address threats posed by the pandemic in existing humanitarian crisis situations for some of the world’s most vulnerable people as part of the UN’s Global Humanitarian Response Plan for COVID-19. [Full Text]