CERF Funds emergency humanitarian assistance in Eritrea
After the Horn of Africa experienced a critical drought in the first quarter of 2006, an Appeal was launched in April. To fill the time gap between the launch and donors’ response, WHO and UNICEF decided to apply for CERF funding for Eritrea. The immediate availability of CERF grants enabled agencies to take action in two sectors: health and nutrition as well as water and sanitation.
![Measles vaccination [Photo: UNICEF]](/Portals/11/Images_country/ERI_CEF_Measles_crop.jpg) |
| Measles vaccination [Photo: UNICEF] |
The CERF allowed to rapidly set up programmes to strengthen health information systems. It also offered the necessary means to conduct an urgent measles immunization campaign and to provide children with Vitamin A in the drought affected areas. UNICEF reports that women and children gathered at over 440 facilities that provided measles vaccination and Vitamin A capsules during a 5-day-campaign which was launched on 28 June.
The campaign reached 387,200 children under the age of five (representing 95 per cent) all over the country. Almost 3,000 health workers and over 800 volunteers were necessary to carry out this campaign. Many of them traveled for two or three days before they could reach their location, carrying equipment such as cold boxes with vaccine on camels and donkeys.
Overall, UNICEF procured more than 610,000 doses of measles injections and over 550,000 syringes, plus some 400,000 Vitamin A capsules.
Malnourished children were the first to benefit from measles vaccination coupled with Vitamin A distribution to boost the immune system and to avoid night blindness, especially in a country like Eritrea which has been affected by severe drought for the past few years. “I came with my children because I wanted to prevent that they get very sick. I know what measles can do to children as I experienced one of the outbreaks,” Amina, a 24 year old mother of five, said at the vaccination site in Shieb in the Northern Red Sea region.
In the Water and Sanitation sector, CERF funded activities included procurement of emergency health kits, provision of high protein biscuits targeting 8,500 children, drilling and installation of 19 hand pumps to guarantee clean water for 5,700 people, water trucking providing 46 schools and 5,000 people with clean water, and construction of 150 VIP latrines.
Surveys show that access to safe water and adequate sanitation is a major problem in Eritrea. Only 54 per cent of the population have access to a protected water source and only 3.6 per cent have access to improved sanitation facilities. Poor access to safe water is contributing to under-five morbidity as diarrhea is one of the leading causes of under-five illness, WHO reports.
Both UNICEF and WHO, the agencies which benefited from the CERF to respond to the crisis in Eritrea, acknowledge that this new funding mechanism enabled them to address most urgent needs in a timely manner. Furthermore, the data collected on the humanitarian situation in Eritrea offers the agencies the opportunity to revise their projects in the Regional Appeal for the Horn of Africa, to raise necessary funds through regular channels in order to optimize the use of the CERF and to tackle the unaddressed needs of the vulnerable Eritrean people.
[Last updated: September 2006]
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