VZCZCXYZ0020
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUCNDT #1160/01 3581811
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 241811Z DEC 09
FM USMISSION USUN NEW YORK
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7923
INFO RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 3998

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