December 21, 2022, Washington, D.C.:
CARE USA welcomes the historic announcement from the U.S. Department of Treasury to establish broad humanitarian carveouts from U.S. sanctions laws. The new carveouts will standardize and streamline the U.S. approach while minimizing the consequences of sanctions on humanitarian work, ultimately saving tens of thousands of lives.
The carveout could not come at a more crucial time as the 2023 Global Humanitarian Overview projects that nearly 339 million people will require humanitarian assistance next year – a nearly 25 percent increase from 2022. With this decision, CARE can continue to provide life-saving food, water, health, and other basic services in some of the most severe humanitarian crises–like Yemen and Afghanistan–without the expensive legal, administrative, and practical impediments sanctions impose.
This decision and the recent UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution to provide a humanitarian carveout from UN sanctions builds on decades of work from CARE and other humanitarian organizations who have experienced devastating delays to the delivery of assistance due to sanctions-related hurdles.
“This announcement demonstrates the United States’ strong leadership and commitment to meeting humanitarian needs no matter where they are, particularly for high-risk groups, such as women, children, elderly people, and those living with disabilities. Our hard work will continue straight through this holiday season, but we’re taking a moment today to give a big round of applause for this historic announcement.” said CARE CEO Michelle Nunn.
CARE commends the U.S. as the first international donor to operationalize the UNSC resolution. We continue to call on other governments and major humanitarian donors around the world to take swift action to fully implement the UNSC resolution to ensure we can deliver fast and effective aid to those who need it most. There is no time to wait.
For more information please contact:
Anisa Husain
CARE Press Officer
Anisa.Husain@care.org