हामी सबैकाे संसारन्यूज

9 Dec, (Xinhua) : Over 50 donors announced on Tuesday pledges totaling more than 370 million U.S. dollars for the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) for 2021, said the fund.

The pledges at Tuesday’s high-level pledging conference are higher than those made at the pledging event a year ago for 2020. With top-ups for 2020 also announced on Tuesday, overall funding for this year has reached 620 million dollars, said CERF in a press release. CERF has an annual funding target of 1 billion dollars.

At the pledging conference, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said CERF is unique. “It is quick. It is non-bureaucratic, and it is sometimes the only source of funds for a true emergency response, because other funding may be too late to be effective.” CERF is the instrument that enables action in forgotten crises that do not attract donor funding.

It is an important tool to bring the entire UN system together, enabling UN humanitarian agencies and their partners to act together, quickly and at scale. In the chaos of a humanitarian emergency, that makes an enormous difference. “An investment in the CERF is an investment in humanity,” Guterres said. Since its establishment in 2005, CERF has provided close to 7 billion dollars for life-saving humanitarian action that has helped hundreds of millions of people across more than 100 countries and territories, said the fund.