Humanitarian Funding Update March 2018 - United Nations Coordinated Appeals

Funding required: $25.31 B

Funding received: $2.97 B

Funding percentage: 11.8%

People in need: 131.1 M

People to receive aid: 95.1 M

Countries affected: 36

As at 31 March 2018, UN-coordinated Humanitarian Response Plans (HRP) and the Syria 3RP Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan require US$25.31 billion to meet the humanitarian needs of 131.1 million crisis-affected people in 26 countries.

At a High Level Meeting on Somalia co-hosted by DFID and OCHA on 6 March and attended by the Minister of Planning, Investment and Economic Development for Somalia, 31 Member States, UN Agencies, international organizations and non-governmental organizations affirmed collective Somali and international efforts to scale up humanitarian assistance to avoid famine in 2017 and advocated support for continuing those efforts in 2018. The meeting mobilized $354M from 12 donors.

The Rohingya Refugee Crisis Joint Response Plan for 2018, drawn up by the Inter-Sector Coordination Group in Cox’s Bazar and the Strategic Executive Group in Dhaka in close cooperation with the Government of Bangladesh, was launched in Geneva on 16 March. It plans for life-saving assistance for 1.3 million people including Rohingya refugees who have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh and the local host communities. Operations prioritizing food, water and sanitation, shelter and medical care through this plan will require $951 million to be put into action.

With 7.9 million people in humanitarian need in the country, the Ethiopia Humanitarian and Disaster Resilience Plan (HDRP) released in March requires $1.66 billion to provide emergency food and non-food assistance mainly in the southern and south eastern parts of the country. The HDRP is jointly managed with the Government of Ethiopia, which also funds a significant part of the plan and delivers assistance through national systems in place. The plan meets immediate needs and at the same time it is a first step away from short term response and the development of a multi-year planning framework.

HRPs were finalized last month for Iraq, occupied Palestinian territory and Libya.

Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are now returning to their homes and communities in Iraq. Partners will work closely with national authorities to protect and otherwise support 3.4 million people in the areas struggling most with hardship induced by four years of intensive, virtually non-stop conflict. The Iraq HRP for 2018 requires $568.7 million, which is 42% less than last year’s HRP for the country. As of mid-April it was only 10% funded.

The HRP for the occupied Palestinian territory addresses urgent humanitarian needs of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Urgent funding of $539.7 million is required to assist 1.9 million people in the oPt, especially in light of the worsening situation in Gaza and the acute funding shortfall. Gaza’s health sector is struggling to deal with the many casualties and the critical shortage of medicine, medical disposables, laboratory materials and other emergency care supplies. Years of blockade, internal divide and a chronic energy crisis have meant essential services in Gaza are barely functioning. UNRWA, the main provider of assistance in the oPt, accounting for 53 percent of the oPt HRP appeal, is facing its most severe funding shortfall to date. The UN Secretary-General has called on donors to step forward to support UNRWA.

The 2018 Libya Humanitarian Response Plan published on 1 March was developed in collaboration with Libyan authorities and with multi-stakeholders including development and stabilisation actors. Humanitarian partners require $312.7 million to assist 940,000 people suffering the impact of the protracted political crisis, outbreaks of violence, displacement and deteriorating living conditions.

Acute rainfall deficits in Senegal in 2017 have had a damaging effect on agriculture and placed 814,000 people in humanitarian need. Humanitarian organizations require $17 million to coordinate and carry out humanitarian response as outlined in the Plan de travail humanitaire produced in March.

Meanwhile Mauritania will require $116 million to help 618,000 people overcome the consequences of meagre rainfall and waning security. The Mauritanian needs and requirements were published in March as part of the OCHA Sahel 2018 Overview of Humanitarian Needs and Requirements.

Since the beginning of 2018, the ERC has allocated a total of $246 million through the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), including $146 million through the rapid response window. In March, the CERF secretariat completed the first round of the underfunded emergency allocations for a total of $100 million to nine protracted crises in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Haiti, Mali, Pakistan, Philippines, Tanzania and Uganda, as well as natural disaster-induced needs following the natural disaster in Cameroon. The grants allocated to these under-resourced emergencies will make it possible to assist over ten million people in need of food, shelter and water, amongst others. In parallel, the Emergency Relief Coordinator approved $43.7 million in rapid response grants to assist people affected by drought in Mauritania, an earthquake in Papua New Guinea, displacement in Ethiopia, as well as refugee inflows to Burundi and Chad. Due to unprecedented funding constraints, an exceptional grant of $15 million was allocated to UNRWA to avoid the immediate disruption of life-saving food and cash assistance to vulnerable people in the occupied Palestinian territory where over 2.5 million people are currently in need of humanitarian assistance.

By the end of March, country-based pooled funds (CBPFs) in 17 countries had received $189 million from 15 donors (including pledges). Largest amounts went to the whole of Syria response ($34.6 million), Sudan ($24.5 million), Yemen and the Democratic Republic of the Congo ($21.3 million respectively). Some $78 million have been allocated for 193 humanitarian projects implemented by 152 partners in 12 countries (34 per cent to international NGOs, 33 per cent to UN agencies, 32 percent to national NGOs and 1 percent to Red Cross/Red Crescent organizations) and another $89 million is under allocation. The DRC Humanitarian Fund is finalizing a $21 million allocation for urgent humanitarian needs in 12 of DRC’s 26 provinces, closely coordinated with CERF allocations of $50 million.