What is the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF)?
Significant humanitarian crises in recent years have generated momentum to further improve international crisis management, in particular through United Nations humanitarian action. The crisis in Darfur and the Indian Ocean tsunami underlined the need to increase humanitarian capacity to meet the demands of concurrent crises and to improve the timeliness of UN response capacities. Both crises also highlighted the risk that high profile emergencies can draw funds away from more protracted situations. In this context, the Humanitarian Response Review was conducted in 2005 to identify recommendations to improve capacity at the global level. In response to the review, the UN General Assembly upgraded the former Central Emergency Revolving Fund to the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) in December 2005. The CERF aims to, inter alia, increase the ability of the international humanitarian system to respond quickly to rapid-onset crises by making funds immediately available to UN actors in
