About DIPECHO

The European Commission's Humanitarian aid and Civil Protection Directorate General (ECHO) provides rapid and effective support to the victims of disasters beyond the European Union's borders. ECHO is one of the world’s largest providers of financing for humanitarian aid operations. ECHO's humanitarian mandate prescribes a focus on saving lives, providing relief and thus assisting the most vulnerable groups, irrespective on the nature of the humanitarian crisis.

All ECHO-funded projects are carried out by European Union-based NGOs, Red Cross and Crescent Society, and UN agencies, in close cooperation with local NGOs and authorities.

The main component of ECHO's contribution to the global Disaster Risk Reduction efforts remains the DIPECHO programme, which targets highly vulnerable communities living in some of the most disaster-prone regions of the world, reducing the impact of natural disasters on their lives and livelihoods. The DIPECHO programme had been expanded over the years and now covers eight disaster prone regions: the Caribbean, Central America, South America, Central Asia (which now also includes the South Caucasus countries), South Asia, South East Asia, South East Africa and South West Indian Ocean and Pacific Region.

The projects funded by the programme include simple and inexpensive preparatory measures, often implemented by the communities themselves. They have proven extremely effective in limiting damage and saving lives when hazards suddenly strike. DIPECHO-projects will typically emphasize training, capacity-building, awareness-raising, establishment or improvement of local early-warning systems and contingency-planning. There are numerous examples that these simple and community-owned preparedness measures enable communities at risk to save their own lives and livelihoods when disaster strikes.