Multilateral Aid Review summary - Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF)

The CERF is a humanitarian fund established by the United Nations to enable more timely and reliable humanitarian assistance to those affected by natural disasters and protracted conflict. CERF has an annual budget of up to US $500m, including a grant facility of up to US $450m and a loan facility of US $50m.

	comment
Contribution to UK development objectives	Strong
	+	CERF strongly meets UK objectives and enables DFID to deliver on the overarching humanitarian objectives from DFID’s 2007 Humanitarian Policy.
	+	The CERF is the only system wide global fund which pre-positions donor funding for timely humanitarian response.
	+	There is widespread evidence that much of what CERF does has been critical in delivering humanitarian objectives in the past and this is expected to continue.
	_	CERF can only be directly accessed by UN agencies/IOM but not by NGOs so it is not a comprehensive solution to a pre-financing humanitarian response.
Organisational strengths	Weak
	+	CERF reinforces joined up working between UN agencies.
	_	It is less effective at ensuring timeliness in projects is implemented through NGOs.
	+	CERF has a clear mandate, leadership is strong and evaluation findings are taken seriously and acted upon.
	_	Support costs for CERF at HQ level capped at 7%. Difficult to justify whole of additional 3% charge at Secretariat level.
	+	The CERF is well administrated and its management has made a number of improvements to the transparency and timeliness of the aid allocation processes.
	+	The CERF provides a greater degree of transparency at the global level around funding decisions than the agencies it funds.
	_	CERF does not provide additional accountability safeguards to those provided by the individual recipient agencies.
	_	CERF is not able to report systematically on results at the beneficiary level. This is the responsibility of the implementing UN agencies.
Capacity for positive change	Uncertain
	+	CERF has made good progress over the past 5 years. Now under Valerie Amos’ leadership, we expect CERF management will continue to be receptive to ideas for making the CERF more effective.
	_	CERF is constrained in delivery in much the same way as OCHA in that it relies on the cooperation of UN agencies.