Following calls to improve the mechanism used to finance international relief efforts following major humanitarian disasters, the United Nations has launched the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF).

The CERF has been designed to ensure a swift response to disasters anywhere in the world, overcoming the time lag problems associated with existing international relief efforts and, it is hoped, lowering the overall cost of relief effort in the process. The CERF will also help the UN respond to emergencies that may receive less media attention and therefore attract less international funding.

“We welcome the fund as an initiative that will speed up the responses of the international community when there is a disaster,” said a spokesperson for Save The Children. “At the moment when there’s an emergency we have to go out and try to get money – we can’t do anything until we have it. The CERF is creating a central pot of money to be disbursed to UN agencies within three days. 72 hours is a realistic timescale. Banks, governments and companies can all move money around that quickly, so it should be attainable.”

CERF will mean that funds are available within three to four days of a disaster. It will consist of a fund managed by the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator in consultation with humanitarian agencies and humanitarian coordinators. A 12-member Advisory Board will review the Fund’s management, while a website will allow public access to financial and expenditure tracking and reports on how funds are used.
More than 30 governments have already pledged over $200 million to CERF, which will be entirely dependent on government, private sector and individual donations.