The European Commission will channel €59 million in humanitarian aid to Africa's second-largest country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, in 2012. According to Commissioner Georgieva, the country is struggling with tremendous difficulties, therefore the EU is increasing the funding by 10% compared to last year.

Kristalina Georgieva, the European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response announced the increasing of the EU humanitarian aid to Democratic Republic of Congo. In particular, the EU will channel €59 million in humanitarian aid to Africa's second-largest country. Additionally, the Commission reminds that the EU is also supporting the Democratic Republic of Congo's prospects for development, because the 10th European Development Fund has allocated around €584 million to the country between 2008 and 2013.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is currently the worst-scoring country on the Human Development Index (HDI 2011) in terms of life expectancy, education and standards of living. There are 1.7 million internally displaced people and 426,000 Congolese refugees in neighboring countries. The stark impact of conflict may be better understood through numbers - every citizen has, on average, been forced to move from their home territory three times during his or her lifetime.

The Commission has provided €367 million in humanitarian aid inside the country since 2005, which makes it the largest relief aid donor there. It runs four offices in Kinshasa, Bunia, Bukavu and Goma, and it runs a humanitarian air service called ECHO Flight. Three of the four ECHO Flight airplanes are located in the DRC, where some areas can only be reached by foot or air.