GENEVA (AN) — For the second time this year, the U.N. humanitarian chief released US$100 million from an emergency fund to help desperate people trying to survive conflicts, diseases and climate disasters around the world.
What's new: Joyce Msuya, the United Nations' acting undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, announced on Friday that her agency is providing "an emergency cash injection of last resort to avert the worst and save lives when other humanitarian funding is inadequate." The money goes to emergencies across 10 countries in Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Middle East.
What's next: More than a third of the funds will support aid efforts for people suffering from the "combined impact of hunger, displacement, diseases and climate disasters" in Yemen (US$20 million) and Ethiopia (US$15 million), according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, which manages the Central Emergency Response Fund, or CERF, on behalf of the U.N. secretary-general.
Other funds will support humanitarian operations in countries "beset by years of conflict and displacement, exacerbated by climate shocks and stresses" such as Myanmar (US$12 million), Mali (US$11 million), Burkina Faso (US$10 million), Haiti (US$9 million), Cameroon (US$7 million) and Mozambique (US$7 million). Two countries dealing with "El Niño-induced drought and flooding," Burundi (US$5 million) and Malawi (US$4 million), also are included.
What's important: CERF, which regularly gives money for underfunded emergencies twice a year, released US$100 million in February for humanitarian operations in Chad, Congo, Honduras, Lebanon, Niger, Sudan and Syria. This year's combined US$200 million is the lowest amount provided in the last three years, illustrating what U.N. officials see as a growing gap between needs and donors.
Who's involved: The U.N.'s Central Emergency Response Fund, which was created by the U.N. General Assembly in 2005, has received US$9.3 billion in donations over the past 19 years, most of it from the United Kingdom, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany and Norway. That money has helped more than 110 countries and territories.
What's happening now: This year, the humanitarian community is US$35 billion short of its US$49 billion fundraising goal – only 29% of its request is funded – to help 187 million of the most vulnerable people globally. “In far too many humanitarian emergencies, a lack of funding prevents aid agencies from reaching people who need life-saving assistance, and that is heart-wrenching,” Msuya says. "We urgently need increased and sustained donor attention to these underfunded crises.”
