The UN Central Emergency Response Fund one year on

The Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) has the potential to help millions of people whose lives are devastated every year by emergencies around the world. But that potential has not yet been fully realised.
Oxfam welcomes the progress made by the CERF in its first year of performance and the positive results achieved. However, a number of significant challenges remain. Urgent improvements must be made in order for the CERF to provide a truly rapid response to sudden-onset disasters, to bridge the funding gaps in under-funded emergencies and to become a transparent and accountable funding mechanism.

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Summary

Every year millions of people are affected by natural disasters and conflict. In 2006 alone, an estimated 46 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance. Yet, despite continuing reform of the global humanitarian system and increases in humanitarian funding, for many people the help they received was too little, too late, resulting in increased poverty, suffering and death.

In March 2006, the UN launched an expanded and improved Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). The CERF was meant to complement existing humanitarian funding by providing a rapid and more equitable response to crises. In 2006, the CERF committed $259.3m (of a total of $299m) for over 331 projects in 35 countries. This included $182.4m for rapid response and $76.9m for under-funded emergencies. At the December 2006 High Level Conference in New York, donors expressed their satisfaction with, and confirmed their commitment to, the CERF, pledging $342m for 2007 (among them were 16 new donors and a growing number of non-Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors).

Oxfam welcomes the CERF as a key contribution to the reform of the international humanitarian system. However, Oxfam is concerned that, in its first year of operation and despite progress achieved, the CERF is still a long way from reaching its full potential. This briefing paper assesses the Fund’s performance and impact to date and makes recommendations for improvement. The most pressing concerns are whether the CERF has the ability to provide a truly rapid response to emergencies and whether it provides truly additional funding for humanitarian response. An assessment of the limited data available shows some real successes in speeding up the humanitarian response and also some very damaging delays.

Underpinning Oxfam’s assessment are surveys undertaken in all countries that have received CERF contributions, and others that have experience with UN-led humanitarian responses; interviews with donors and other humanitarian non-governmental organisations (NGOs); and an analysis of official CERF project assessments. Because of the limited information available, this study is not a conclusive evaluation of the CERF’s effectiveness, but rather identifies initial trends and areas of concern from the first year’s experience.
Field data reveals that, in many locations, CERF funding has enabled accelerated implementation of life-saving programmes. Analysis also shows that several emergencies have received more aid in absolute terms than in previous years. In particular, under-funded or ‘forgotten’ emergencies have benefited from the availability of extra funding. However, in cases of extreme under-funding, CERF allocations have been too small to contribute significantly to a more equitable global response.

Despite clear evidence of positive results in some areas, and signs of learning and continuing progress in the administration of the Fund, Oxfam’s research also shows that in 2006 the CERF experienced serious administrative and disbursement delays both at HQ level in New York and in the field. Most often it is NGOs who respond first and best to rapid-onset disasters, providing about 80 per cent of service delivery.

However, NGOs are excluded from directly accessing CERF funding. Instead, UN agencies forward a large percentage of CERF allocations to operational agencies in the field – often with significant delays and after charging a significant administrative fee (officially limited to seven per cent). These shortcomings significantly reduced the CERF’s rapid response capacity and might well have negative medium-term consequences for the humanitarian response system as a whole. NGOs’ future humanitarian responses depend on improved access to CERF resources and the continued availability of other (bilateral) sources of funding.

The research also reveals a dearth of record-keeping and evaluation, making it difficult in many cases to judge the CERF’s impact. Lastly, it has proved extremely difficult to confirm whether donor contributions to the CERF have consisted of ‘new’ or additional funding. The fear remains that CERF contributions could be funds diverted from other, bilateral humanitarian contributions and thus undermine two of the CERF’s key objectives: increasing the availability of aid, and improving results for people at risk through speedier humanitarian response.

Oxfam makes the following recommendations:

1. The CERF Secretariat and UN agencies must urgently increase the speed with which they disburse funds. Crucially, this includes onward disbursement to NGOs and other partners implementing CERF-funded projects to allow truly rapid project implementation. Member States must also consider the long-term objective to expand the CERF mandate to give NGOs direct access to CERF funds.

2. The CERF Secretariat and UN agencies must increase transparency and efficiency by standardising the inclusion of NGOs in in-country CERF decision-making and prioritisation mechanisms, drafting clear guidance for Humanitarian Coordinators and Resident Coordinators. The UN and NGOs must agree upon more effective partnerships to simplify funding relationships. UN agencies must improve their financial management structures as regards NGO allocations and funding disbursement. Overhead costs taken from CERF allocations must be commensurate with adding value and positively impacting on people in need.

3. The UN agencies and implementing partners must ensure wider and deeper impact assessment of CERF-funded programmes through better data recording and analysis. This is vital to enable an analysis of the effectiveness of the CERF.

4. Donors must increase the sustainability and predictability of funding. As the positive impact of the CERF becomes clearer and the concerns outlined in this paper are addressed, they should increase the CERF to a size of $1bn. Donors must ensure that their contributions to the CERF are ‘new’ money, strictly in addition to existing humanitarian budgets.

Oxfam notes with satisfaction that many of the issues raised in this paper are already under consideration by the CERF Secretariat. Oxfam is cautiously optimistic about the ability of the CERF to improve the international response to humanitarian emergencies, provided the above urgent improvements are made.

However, the CERF alone cannot resolve all the current challenges of the humanitarian system. Moreover, it cannot be a substitute for the large amounts of long-term funding required in the poorest countries. The CERF is just one part of a much broader humanitarian reform process that is still in its early stages — a process that requires the urgent, consolidated, and sustainable support of donors and the wider humanitarian community.

Date of publication: March 2007