19 January 2010 - Afghanistan is receiving US$ 11 million from a US$ 100 million allocated by the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to boost the humanitarian response in “14 ongoing but underfunded emergencies”.

The amount Afghanistan will receive is the third highest after Ethiopia (US$ 17 million) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (US$ 16 million).

“The Humanitarian Country Team, which consists of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the UN under the leadership of the UN Humanitarian Coordinator, will decide how to spend the money,” said Wael Haj-Ibrahim, the Afghanistan head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) which manages the CERF.

Launched in March 2006, CERF is managed by OCHA and aims to speed up relief operations for humanitarian emergencies and make funds available quickly after a disaster, when people are most at risk.

Other countries receiving assistance from the US$ 100 million fund are Kenya, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Yemen, Chad, Niger, Colombia, Eritrea, the Philippines, Haiti and Guinea.

CERF is funded by voluntary contributions from Member States, NGOs, local governments and individual donors.

Since 2006, nearly a third of the US$ 1.5 billion allocated from CERF – over US$ 440 million – has gone to chronically neglected crises in almost 50 countries.

By Tilak Pokharel, UNAMA

Website: UN – OCHA