UN fund 'creates hurdles' for aid agencies


Mark Turner
February 7, 2007
Financial Times
Original source: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3ee06d40-b587-11db-a5a5-0000779e2340.html 

A flagship UN emergency response fund established last year to speed assistance to people during humanitarian crises has failed to meet its goal and, in some cases, even slowed down the flow of life-saving goods, according to aid agencies.
A study by Save the Children UK said the fledgling fund was inefficient and actually reduces the amount of money going directly to work on the ground, creating an extra hurdle for aid agencies.
The Central Emergency Response Fund, which was championed by the UK government, was heralded at its launch in March last year as a revolutionary new way to ensure money would be immediately available when crises stru
ck, and to steer funds to otherwise forgotten emergencies. This year countries have given $40m (£20.3m, ¬ 30.8m) to the fund, and pledged a further $304m.
But Save the Children said the fund's rules - which stipulate that the money has to be funnelled throu
gh the UN bureaucracy, rather than directly to aid agencies - had created dangerous layers of inefficiency and delay.
Oxfam is preparing a review to coincide with the fund's first anniversary. We certainly share [Save the Children's] concern it hasn't always resulted in the immediate speeding up of response, said Greg Puley, a policy adviser in New York. We've encountered the same kinds of problems, although as the year has gone on, things have improved. Oxfam believes, on balance, the fund had leveraged more resources and directed more money to underfunded regions.
A European diplomat also acknowledged CERF's early problems, noting funds had taken up to seven weeks to reach the field. He said the UN claimed to have reduced the gap to 1½ weeks.
Stephanie Bunker, of the UN's Humanitarian Affairs arm OCHA, insisted CERF money came on top of other sources of finance. It's not like its draining funding out of anything else, she said.
But Save the Children said: In many emergencies, staff have been told by donors that they must seek CERF funding instead of traditional bilateral funding.
During East Africa's floods last November, for example, it sought out discussion with the [UK's] Department for International Development for preparedness work in northern Kenya . . . There was no money available. All DFID spending had gone to the CERF.
Campaigning groups are now calling for direct access to CERF money. Ms Bunker said the UN would tend to agree we would like to see the pool [of recipients] made broader 
- but that it was stuck with rules set by its members states.
The European diplomat said developing countries had been firmly against giving campaigning groups direct access during the fund's creation, and that it could overload the system.