Central Emergency Response Fund
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The Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) is a United Nations emergency relief fund officially launched on March 9, 2006 by Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The objective of the CERF is to provide urgent and effective humanitarian aid to regions threatened by, or experiencing, a humanitarian crisis. It is anticipated that people living in least developed countries will be the most frequent recipients of CERF assistance.
The CERF was adopted by resolution of the General Assembly on December 15th 2005, and upgrades the loan mechanism under the 1992 Central Emergency Revolving Fund from US $50 million to a total of around $450 million. The CERF is administered by the Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, currently John Holmes, in consultation with humanitarian agencies and coordinators. The Consolidated Appeals Process is the funding mechanism used by the UN and other stakeholders for long term international development.
According to the United Nations, agencies and their partners will be able to access the CERF within the crucial first 72 hours of a crisis. It is therefore hoped that the CERF will meet the three objectives of:
- Promoting early action and response in order to save lives
- Enhancing response to time-crucial requirements based on demonstrable needs
- Strengthening core elements of humanitarian responses to under-funded crises.
As of March 2006, few nations have pledged to contribute to the CERF and fewer still have made contributions, with only a third of the amount requested being raised: about 30 countries have donated around $250 million. OXFAM has criticized wealthy countries for either not donating (e.g. Germany and Japan), or making small contributions (e.g. United States and France).
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[edit] Contributors
The following governments and organizations have contributed to the CERF. The fourth column indicates the amount donated per capita, while the fifth column is proportional to the fraction of a person's income that was donated. For example, the percentage of income donated by an individual in the UK is over 50 times larger than that by one in the U.S., but four times smaller than that by one in Norway.
| Nation | Pledged (US$) |
Contributed (US$) |
Per capita (US$) |
ppm of GDP (PPP) per capita |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Africa | ||||
 Egypt |
15,000 | <$0.01 | <2 | |
 Nigeria |
100,000 | <$0.01 | <9 | |
 South Africa |
300,000 | <$0.01 | <1 | |
| Americas | ||||
 Canada |
17,000,000 | $0.52 | 16 | |
 Grenada |
10,000 | $0.11 | 14 | |
 Mexico |
50,000 | <$0.01 | 1 | |
 United States |
10,000,000 | $0.03 | <0.8 | |
| Australasia | ||||
 Australia |
7,328,894 | $0.35 | 12 | |
 China |
1,000,000 | <$0.01 | <2 | |
 Kuwait |
200,000 | $0.07 | 4 | |
 India |
2,000,000 | >$0.01 | >3 | |
 Pakistan |
20,000 | <$0.01 | <5 | |
 Qatar |
5,000 | <$0.01 | <0.4 | |
 Republic of Korea |
5,000,000 | $0.10 | 5 | |
 Sri Lanka |
10,000 | <$0.01 | <3 | |
| Europe | ||||
 Armenia |
5,000 | <$0.01 | <3 | |
 Belgium |
1,190,336 | $0.11 | 4 | |
 Croatia |
5,000 | <$0.01 | ||
 Denmark |
8,100,000 | $1.49 | 45 | |
 Estonia |
24,000 | $0.01 | <0.7 | |
 Finland |
4,900,000 | $0.93 | 32 | |
 France |
1,190,336 | $0.01 | 0.4 | |
 Greece |
100,000 | <$0.01 | <0.5 | |
 Iceland |
150,000 | $0.50 | 15 | |
 Ireland |
11,903,360 | $2.05 | 54 | |
 Liechtenstein |
100,000 | $3.07 | 120 | |
 Luxembourg |
4,000,000 | $8.53 | 130 | |
 Netherlands |
11,903,360 | $0.72 | 25 | |
 Norway |
30,000,000 | $6.46 | 160 | |
 Spain |
10,000,000 | $0.22 | 9 | |
 Sweden |
41,093,249 | $4.53 | 161 | |
 Switzerland |
2,475,158 | 1,542,842 | $0.33 | 10 |
 United Kingdom |
70,000,000 | $1.16 | 40 | |
| Other Donors | ||||
| Disaster Resource Network | 10,000 | |||
 Hyogo Prefecture |
850,211 | |||
| Totals | 165,801,655 | 76,780,091 | 242,581,746 | |
| Source: CERF | ||||
