EU gives Afghanistan EUR 185m for health, farming
(BRUSSELS) - The EU executive is signing 185 million euros over to Afghanistan on Monday in a bid to boost health services for almost half the country's people and improve farming, including water supply.
Two agreements will be signed between the European Commission and Afghan Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal, a statement said.
One is to provide basic health care and essential hospital services for 14 million people in 21 provinces, some of them extremely remote.
The agriculture programme, including water management, will focus on rural areas where about 80 percent of the population depends on farming to make a living.
One of its aims is to help provide the rural population with alternative means of income to poppy cultivation.
"With EU development aid we want and we must help these people to give them hope for a better tomorrow," said European Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs.
"This new funding will support Afghanistan in its quest to move from 'transition to transformation' and then to a self-sustainable country," he added.