The Consolidated Appeals Process

The Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) is a tool developed by aid organisations in a country or region to raise funds for humanitarian action as well as to plan, implement and monitor their activities together.  Consequently, the CAP is much more than an appeal for money.

The CAP is presented to the international community and donors once every year through a launch in New York and Geneva as well as in-country for participating countries.  The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has the role of managing the CAP development process.  Since its establishment in 1992, the CAP has become the humanitarian community's principal tool for coordination, strategic planning and programming.  As a planning mechanism, the CAP has contributed significantly to developing a more strategic approach to the provision of humanitarian aid.  As a coordination mechanism, the CAP has fostered closer cooperation between governments, donors, aid agencies, the Red Cross Movement and non-governmental organisations.

The Humanitarian Appeal consists of a number of consolidated appeals for specific crises. The organisations that come together to make the yearly Appeal - non-governmental organisations, United Nations agencies, and other international and local organizations - call on the international community to support it quickly and equitably – so that people stricken by crisis receive the best available protection and assistance, on time.
 
Donors are also changing the way they work, recognizing that humanitarian funding has too often been slow and uneven.  The establishment of the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) has made possible a stand-by fund that can quickly disburse to any sudden new crisis or to chronic under-funded crises.  Since its launch in March 2006, the CERF has disbursed $595 million for emergencies in 59 countries affected by natural disasters and complex emergencies.  If donors support it up to its target of $450 million per year, it can ensure that no new crisis goes without immediate funding, and that life-saving needs in the most under-funded crises are met.

But donors, just like implementing organisations, need to continue to improve the quality of their funding and the way they work: coordinating among themselves to allocate across crises according to need; supporting consolidated appeals to become the comprehensive measurement of humanitarian funding that they were designed to be; funding sooner rather than later to protect and assist effectively and cost-effectively; and perhaps most important, working with the humanitarian agencies to convince their parliamentarians that the world’s humanitarian funding needs in this Appeal can be fully met with what amounts to a sliver of their wealth—for every $100 of their national income, a few cents of aid.

The 2008 Humanitarian Appeal, launched by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, seeks $3.8 billion to help 25 million people in 24 countries. This means 152 dollars per person in need - or, put another way, for every 100 dollars of national income in developed countries, a few cents of humanitarian aid.