Joanna Reid, Director of International Programmes, GOAL Irish charity Goal reached 14.6 million people with programmes in emergency response, health, nutrition and food security, livelihoods, and WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) across the agency’s 14 countries of operation in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Ukraine, according to their impact figures for 2022.
The aid agency reached 3.6 million people in Ethiopia, 2.7 million in Sudan, 2.4 million in Sierra Leone and 2.1 million people in Syria.
Goal also stated they supported 2.9 million people to survive crises, 8.2 million to have resilient health, 3.6 million to benefit from increased access to safe water and 1.9 million people to have improved food security.
Goal’s Director of International Programmes, Joanna Reid, said that in 2022, the situation deteriorated significantly for millions of people that the aid agency works with.
“The start of 2022 saw the world continue its journey of recovery from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, only for the invasion of Ukraine in late February to bring that to a halt and global inflation skyrocket. This put already vulnerable communities under extreme pressure. For example, an already critical drought caused by climate change in East Africa was and is exacerbated by rising food prices,” she said.
“We know that man-made crises as a result of conflict and climate change are increasing and the guardrails that once prevented such crises from spiralling out of control, including peace treaties and humanitarian aid access, have weakened. This is making our ability to respond ever more challenging.”