As at 29 February, the funding requirements for humanitarian response plans and appeals for 2016 are US$20.1 billion to meet the needs of 89.3 million people across 37 countries. The increase since January is due to the release of the Yemen response plan which seeks $1.8 billion to respond to humanitarian needs of 13.6 million people. The global figures are likely to increase further in the course of 2016.
Of the total amount requested, $407 million in funding has been received so far towards the UN coordinated inter-agency appeals with outstanding pledges amounting to over $135.4 million as reported to the Financial Tracking Service (FTS). At the London Conference to support Syria and the region on 4 February, donors pledged $11.3 billion of which $5.9 billion are for 2016 and $5.4 billion for 2017-2020. Rapid disbursement and decisions of allocation will be important to allow agencies to step up operations in Syria in light of the cessation of hostilities. We are following up on donor plans to understand where funding gaps exist.
Twenty-three humanitarian response plans (HRPs) and six refugee response plans (RRPs) for 2016 have been published. The funding status so far is as follows: Guatemala and Niger (9 per cent funded), Iraq (8 per cent), Burkina Faso and South Sudan (5 per cent), Afghanistan and Nigeria (4 per cent), Cameroon and Libya (3 per cent). Protracted emergencies such as Chad, Somalia and Yemen are 2 per cent funded.
In South Sudan, urgent funding of $220 million is required to enable aid organizations to rapidly scale-up humanitarian action before the end of the dry season in May 2016. Aid workers are in a race against time to respond in areas previously cut off by fighting and rains, and to pre-position vital supplies ahead of the next rainy season.
As reported to FTS, since January, around $2.4 billion of humanitarian funding with over $2 billion has been allocated outside of the appeals framework, including bilateral funding, funding to the Red Cross movement, and other mechanisms for NGOs.
Meanwhile, donors have pledged almost $250 million for 2016 for the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) thus far, of which almost $129 million has been received. To-date, CERF has allocated almost $20 million and set aside additional $21 million in rapid response grants. Another $100 million, of which $3 million has already been allocated, is intended to sustain life-saving relief for 5.3 million people in nine severely underfunded crises, including Burundi, DPR of Korea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda where levels of vulnerability are alarmingly high and available resources for humanitarian response are critically low.
By the end of February, 18 Country-Based Pool Funds (CBPFs) have received contributions and pledges of some $100 million.
- The global figures in this document (89.3 million people and over $20 billion requirements) do not include RRP country chapters already covered in corresponding HRPs.