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PayPal are supporting the most fragile places in the world with the DEC Coronavirus Appeal

Since it launched in July 2020, PayPal have been key partners of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Coronavirus Appeal. To date, the PayPal partnership has raised over £750,000 to help vulnerable communities around the world in their fight against Covid-19.

The DEC Coronavirus Appeal is supporting people in seven of the world’s most fragile places: Yemen, Syria, Somalia, South Sudan, DR Congo and Afghanistan, as well as the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh. The DEC member charities – which include Oxfam, Save The Children, the Red Cross and 11 other international aid organisations – have been providing people with the means to protect themselves from coronavirus with soap, water, handwashing stations and information. DEC member charities are also working to provide frontline medical staff with protective equipment, medical supplies and training. Communities are also being supported to prevent Covid-19 leading to food insecurity, and to prevent people from going hungry and children becoming malnourished.

It has been suggested that Covid-19 cases and deaths have been chronically underreported in these countries due to minimal testing as well as stigma and fear, but aid workers say that fragile health services have been overwhelmed and disrupted. To shine a light on the situation these vulnerable communities face, the DEC partnered with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) to produce a new report Breaking Point: How the coronavirus pandemic will push fragile states towards catastrophe in 2021.

In 2021, the world’s most fragile states are potentially on a knife-edge. People living in places made perilous by conflict, violence and climate disasters are now coping with the coronavirus pandemic as best they can. But, the odds are stacked against them.

There is a huge worry around the economic effects of the pandemic (on jobs, trade, prices and remittances) and many of the poorest families are struggling to earn enough money to buy food.

Hunger is therefore growing, with parts of South Sudan and Yemen on the brink of famine, while Afghanistan and DR Congo are at risk. Aid workers say thousands are likely to die from starvation in several countries.

While vaccines offer hope, it will be some time until they reach those most at risk in fragile states such as Syria and Yemen where conflict causes regular displacement and disruption. 

Donations to the DEC appeal have been providing a lifeline to the world’s most vulnerable people but DEC charities – experts in responding to conflict, displacement and hunger – need more funding to continue their life-saving work.

Those who have already suffered so much need your help now, more than ever.

Support the DEC now by donating to PayPal Giving Fund UK[1] which grants 100% of donations to charity. UK taxpayers can also add a Gift Aid declaration to your PayPal account to boost your donation by 25% at no extra cost.

If you need help at any point, please visit our PayPal Help Centre.

You can also find further information regarding DEC charities and the appeal on their dedicated coronavirus page here.

[1] Please find PayPal Giving Fund UK terms here