UN RELIEF WING ALLOCATES $84 MILLION FOR 15 NEGLECTED EMERGENCIES WORLDWIDE

13 January - United Nations humanitarian chief Valerie Amos today allocated some $84 million to assist people affected by hunger, malnutrition, disease, displacement and conflict in 15 neglected emergencies around the world.

Humanitarian actors in Somalia received the largest single allocation of some $15 million, followed by some $11 million for those working Ethiopia. Agencies working in Chad will receive $8 million, while humanitarian partners in Kenya will receive $6 million to start up programmes for 2011.

Programmes in the Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Sri Lanka, and Zimbabwe have each been allocated some $5 million, while programmes to assist people in Burundi, Madagascar, and the occupied Palestinian territory will receive $4 million apiece.

Humanitarian agencies in Colombia, Djibouti, Iran and Myanmar will each receive $3 million to bolster their emergency programmes, as part of this first round of allocations for 2011 from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF).

Launched in March 2006, CERF is managed by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which is headed by Ms. Amos, and aims to speed up relief operations for humanitarian emergencies and make funds available quickly after a disaster, when people are most at risk.

It is funded by voluntary contributions from Member States, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), local governments and individual donors.