Pooled Funds

In addition to traditional humanitarian financing mechanisms, two pooled funds are accessible to the humanitarian community in Somalia, to finance life saving interventions at the sudden onset of emergencies and disasters.

1. Humanitarian Response Fund

The Humanitarian Response Fund (HRF) is a country level pooled fund at the disposal of the humanitarian community in Somalia. Since its establishment in 2004, the Fund has developed into a strategic humanitarian financing and coordination tool to support rapid life saving interventions occasioned by sudden onset emergencies and disasters, such as displacement, drought, floods and outbreaks. The fund also addresses geographical, sectoral and funding gaps.

The Fund is managed by the secretariat in OCHA together with the HRF Advisory Board and the Humanitarian Coordinator. The management of the Fund is guided by guidelines and priorities agreed to by the Advisory Board. Allocation prioritisation and decision-making go through extensive and inclusive consultation with field and Cluster coordination structures to ensure that proposed interventions give impetus to initial life saving response, address assessed and agreed priorities and gaps, and are in line with approaches and standards of Cluster response plans. The final authority on the use of the Fund rests with the Humanitarian Coordinator.

The Fund is accessible to local and international NGOs, Red Cross/Crescent and UN agencies. Since 2004, the HRF has funded 145 emergency projects by over 60 partners.

For further information, contact Ivana Unluova.

 

2. Central Emergency Response Fund

 The Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) is a stand-by fund established by the United Nations to enable more timely and reliable humanitarian assistance to those affected by natural disasters and armed conflicts. The current CERF was established through an upgrade of the Central Emergency Revolving Fund by including a grant element based on voluntary contributions.

The Fund is managed, on behalf of the United Nations Secretary-General, by the Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC), John Holmes, Head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The Fund allows the UN to react immediately when a disaster strikes by making funding available for life-saving activities to eligible agencies such as UN and its funds, programmes, and specialized agencies and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). At the country level, the Humanitarian Coordinator ensures that CERF application process is collaborative and transparent - Clusters are requested to review their response needs, capacities, available resources and gaps. Once formulated, CERF project proposals go through 24 hour review by the Somalia Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC)/Humanitarian Country Team. Upon the agreement by the Somalia IASC, the Humanitarian Coordinator requests the ERC for his/her consideration of CERF allocation to package.

To date (2006-2009), Somalia has received grants worth over $53 million from the CERF, $43 million of which was for rapid response, and $11 million for under-funded emergency. Somalia benefitted from CERF rapid response grants to initiate or upscale life saving interventions at the time of drought (2006), floods (2006-7) and IDP and nutrition crisis in South Central (2007), food security and nutrition crisis (2008). In 2009 CERF provided seed funds to enable emergency response in the underfunded WASH, Livelihoods, Nutrition and air-bridge services. The table below shows CERF grant allocations to Somalia between 2006 and 2009.

For more information on the CERF, please contact Ivana Unluova or visit the CERF website.