Ireland will provide €6m to two struggling African countries that have been ravaged by war and chronic poverty.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR) are among the poorest countries in the world, with food insecurity and malnutrition affecting 6.4 million people.
Each country will receive €3m from Ireland through UN pooled funding, which will go towards food, shelter, health and protection for the most vulnerable.
The benefit of providing support through pooled funding is that it allows the most urgent needs of people to be met first.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Charlie Flanagan, has said Ireland is “deeply concerned” about the vulnerable people forced to live through decades of war.
He added that the conditions in both the DRC and the CAR “continue to cause great human suffering”.