UN HOLDS ANNUAL HIGH LEVEL CONFERENCE ON CENTRAL

UNCLAS USUN NEW YORK 001160 SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPT FOR IO/HR AND PRM USAID FOR DCHA/OFDA BRUSSELS FOR USAID PBROWN GENEVA FOR NKYLOH ROME FOR USUN HSPANOS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EAID PHUM PREF UN SUBJECT: UN HOLDS ANNUAL HIGH LEVEL CONFERENCE ON CENTRAL EMERGENCY RESPONSE FUND (CERF) -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. At the December 8-9, 2009 high-level United Nations (U.N.) conference convened in support of the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF),57 donors and private sector companies pledged contributions totaling $424 million for ¶2010. This amount marks an increase of more than 10 percent from the December 2008 conference, when $380 million was raised. The Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Sir John Holmes and the Deputy Director-General of Food and Agriculture Organization James Butler briefed donors on the management and performance of the CERF to date. Secretary General Ban-ki Moon and the President of the United Nations General Assembly Dr. Ali Abdussalam Treki opened the donor pledging session, underscoring CERF achievements and encouraging all Member States to contribute. The U.S. was represented by senior humanitarian representatives from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The USAID Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance Acting Director Carol Chan announced that the U.S. would contribute $10 million to the CERF in 2010. End summary. -------------- CERF Snapshot -------------- ¶2. Widely recognized as one of the key successes of U.N. humanitarian reform, the CERF is a humanitarian fund with a grant component of up to $450 million and loan component of $50 million annually. It was officially launched in New York on 9 March 2006 by the U.N. Secretary-General after the General Assembly upgraded the Central Emergency Revolving Fund (a loan facility of $50 million established by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1991 under resolution 46/182) by adding the grant element thereby establishing the current Central Emergency Response Fund in December 2005. The intent of the CERF is to complement, not replace, existing humanitarian funding mechanisms. The CERF provides seed funds to jump-start critical operations and life-saving programs not yet funded through other sources. Traditional donor sources are still expected to step in and fund the majority of needs. ¶3. Since inception, the CERF has allocated $1.5 billion from voluntary donations of 110 Member States, private sector and individuals to support emergencies in 74 countries and the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). The grant component of CERF comprises two elements: a) rapid response grants to promote early action and response to reduce loss of life and to enhance response to time-critical requirements; and b) under funded emergency grants to strengthen core elements of humanitarian response in under funded crises. -------------- CERF High-level Donor Conference -------------- ¶4. On December 8, Under-Secretary-General Sir John Holmes and Deputy Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization James Butler provided a detailed briefing on the achievements to date of the CERF with particular focus on the past year. In 2009, CERF allocations included over $213 million for rapid response to 38 countries and the occupied Palestinian territory. Two rounds of under funded emergency allocations were also provided during the year: $73 million was allocated to 14 countries during the first round and in the second, some $55 million was allocated to 11 countries. The concentration of rapid response grants focused on Africa and Asia this year with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Sudan, and Sri Lanka representing the top six recipient countries for CERF, collectively comprising over 44 percent of total CERF allocations in 2009. Twelve different U.N. agencies and the International Organization for Migration received funding from the CERF with the World Food Program (35 percent) and U.N. Children,s Fund (27 percent) continuing to receive the largest percentage of overall funding. The top sectors funded by the CERF in 2009 include food, health, water and sanitation, nutrition, agriculture, shelter and non-food items. ¶5. The CERF represents the top funding source for seven flash appeals and the fifth-largest source of funding for Consolidated Appeals in 2009. Strengthening partnerships was a key theme this year. The CERF Secretariat recently concluded their annual round of consultations with U.N. agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Rome, Geneva, and New York. Holmes stressed that these sessions, in addition to regular inter-agency meetings, allow for open communication between the CERF Secretariat and humanitarian agency partners. The CERF Secretariat has also worked with the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Working Group to establish an IASC Group on Humanitarian Financing ) this group should enable more effective, inclusive, and coordinated inter-agency consultation. UNICEF, WFP and U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees have also begun to work with NGO partners to catalogue and address longstanding issues related to financial partnership arrangements that exist between the U.N. agencies and NGOs. ¶6. Operational and policy areas of concern pertaining to the CERF were reviewed, including an update on the recent CERF Advisory Group meeting. While the U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator manages the CERF on behalf of the Secretary-General, overall strategic guidance is provided by an Advisory Group of 16 independent experts. Members include government officials from countries that have contributed to or received funding from CERF, representatives of humanitarian agencies, and academic experts but Advisory Group members serve in their individual capacity. (Note: the U.S. is represented by USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance Bureau Jon Brause. End note.) ¶7. The Advisory Group commended CERF,s work towards finalizing a Performance and Accountability Framework but urged the CERF to complement reporting arrangements with independent evaluations in a small number of selected countries. The Advisory Group continues to review funding procedures for the under funded emergencies window and CERF,s relationship with NGOs. The Advisory Group recognized that progress had been made on finalizing the revised Secretary-General,s Bulletin on the CERF and on the umbrella Letter of Understanding. The Advisory Group recommended that the CERF,s &Life-saving Criteria8 should continue to be defined as tightly as possible, but that some flexibility should be maintained to take some preventive, time-critical actions. ¶8. On December 9, the Ceremonial Session hosted a range of speakers and was opened by the President of the United Nations General Assembly Dr. Ali Abdussalam Treki. Dr. Treki noted that December marked the fifth year anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami and that the overwhelming international response stood in deep contrast to the response to other less-publicized crises. He underscored the value of CERF promoting early action to humanitarian crises and strongly encouraged all Member States to contribute generously. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also addressed donor representatives, stating &In the coming year, we do not know exactly how the combination of conflict, climate change, demographic shifts, and a global economic slowdown will conspire to create emergency needs, but we do know that we will face such challenges, and that CERF will be an important part of the response.8 Also present on the podium were the Minister of State for International Development, United Kingdom, Mr. Gareth Thomas, and Mr. Tabrani Bakri, Senior Advisor, National Agency for Disaster Management, Republic of Indonesia who both made remarks in support of CERF. -------------- -------------- 2010 Pledges and Overall CERF Funding Trends -------------- -------------- ¶9. The CERF Donor Conference concluded with short statements made by 67 speakers and new 2010 pledges made by 57 of the speakers. Overall, the 2010 pledging conference is characterized by the U.N. as the most successful to date, with $424 million already pledged. Five new donors stepped forward - Madagascar, Mauritania, the Russian Federation, Singapore, and the Sovereign Order of Malta. Several long-standing donors also announced increases in their contributions, including Norway, Belgium, Brazil, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Pakistan, Slovenia, South Africa, and the United States. ¶10. During 2009, the CERF received $399 million in pledges, compared to $450 million received in 2008 with the U.N. accounting for the difference due to the global financial crisis and exchange rate differences. The top ten contributors to the CERF are consistently the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Canada, Spain, Ireland, Germany, Denmark, and Australia. While the bulk of CERF funding comes from a relatively small group of donors, with the U.S. currently ranked as the fourteenth largest donor, the U.N. has sought a diversity of funding sources. There is specific interest in recipient countries also becoming contributors, however small. In 2009, of the 77 donors to CERF, 15 represented new donor contributors including a number of CERF recipient countries. ¶11. 2009 also marked an increase in private sector donations. In particular, the U.N. highlighted four new private donors who provided support: TAQA, a United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based energy company, HSBC-Middle East, the Baha,i International Community, and the Red Crescent of the UAE. Holmes highlighted continuing generosity from Western Union and the Alexander Bodini Foundation, both of which made donations to CERF in 2008. In an effort to diversify funding sources, the CERF recently launched a new public service announcement (PSA) to help raise awareness of CERF among the general public in the U.S. "Help us Help in Time" illustrates the importance of being able to provide aid immediately following an emergency, highlighting the cash is best theme. The PSA has been launched on YouTube and other social media sites and is being distributed to television networks in the U.S. -------------- USG Support to CERF -------------- ¶12. The past few years have seen rapid developments in humanitarian funding, innovation, institutional evolution, and coordinated donor initiatives calling for reform. The confluence of greater volumes of foreign aid and the humanitarian reform platform has generated momentum for significant changes in the way international humanitarian response is financed. Pooled funding also gained greater prominence due to criticisms that U.N. agencies lacked timely bilateral funding to respond more rapidly to new emergencies and because some donors lack the field capacity to make bilateral funding decisions a reality, thereby preferring pooled multilateral funding options. As supported within the Good Humanitarian Donorship initiative, the U.S. believes in a broad array of coordinated humanitarian responses and financing mechanisms to address the needs of vulnerable populations that also ensure appropriate prioritization, implementation and accountability of humanitarian funds. The U.S. continues to provide the majority of our funding in bi-lateral agreements to the U.N. and NGOs due to our field presence and rapid grant-making mechanisms, but we also believe that the CERF is an important mechanism for donors seeking centralized funding mechanisms. ¶13. Overall, international humanitarian response has been expedited by the CERF and other elements of the U.N. humanitarian reform efforts. The CERF has also attracted an unprecedented coalition of donor and non-traditional and/or smaller donors who would not have considered providing funding to global humanitarian crises but who are now doing so through the apolitical pooled funding mechanism of CERF. CERF funding works best when used in combination with U.N. agencies, own emergency funds by enabling the Emergency Response Coordinator to kick-start the international response to an emergency, to meet time-critical requirements and to intervene quickly in deteriorating situations, by funding essential activities and key sectors. ¶14. Since CERF inception in 2006, the U.S. Government has provided limited support to the CERF through USAID support of $15 million over the last three years. USG concerns in the past have centered on the decision making process for fund utilization and accountability of funds. Recently, greater international attention on humanitarian financing and pooled funding mechanisms within the donor community, stronger U.N. accountability measures, and renewed interest for USG leadership on global humanitarian issues has merited broader consideration of CERF support. The CERF reflects a different type of multi-lateral approach which is in the best interests of the USG if the CERF can be focused effectively. In consultation with other USG agencies, the U.S. contribution to CERF was increased in 2010 and during the CERF Donor Conference, USAID/OFDA Acting Director Carol Chan announced the U.S. contribution of $10 million to the CERF in 2010. RICE