Luxembourg Pledges €10m to UN Central Emergency Response Fund

Luxembourg's Development Cooperation programme has pledged €10 million to the United Nations (UN) Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) for the next two years.

During the High-level Pledging Conference for the Central Emergency Response Fund, which was organised by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Tuesday, Luxembourg's Minister for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs, Franz Fayot, announced a contribution of €10 million for the biannual period from 2021 to 2022.

Minister Franz Fayot stated: "We had to observe with dismay that the number of people affected by humanitarian crises will predictably reach a new sad record in 2021. This is why today we are united around a common goal: that of ensuring more efficient, responsive and predictable humanitarian aid. Aid that meets the needs of populations affected by different types of crises, of an increasingly changing nature”.

CERF is a humanitarian fund established in 2006 to ensure that reliable humanitarian assistance reaches people affected by natural disasters and armed conflict more quickly. CERF's contributions are allocated to respond quickly to sudden crises, such as the massive displacement of populations in Burkina Faso in 2020 or hurricanes in Central America. The fund also focusses on underfunded crises, which correlates with the willingness of humanitarian action to pay particular attention to so-called “forgotten” crises. Since 2019, CERF has allocated funds for anticipatory actions to be able to respond better in real time and at an early stage to phenomena such as the drought in Somalia. During the COVID-19 crisis, the fund played a central role in ensuring rapid and targeted humanitarian assistance.

CERF is funded annually by contributions from governments and the private sector. Luxembourg has supported the fund since its creation and as of 2017, biannual agreements have been concluded in order to enhance the predictability of funds. This support is in line with Luxembourg's commitments in terms of international solidarity.