CERF provides more than US$2.5 million in response to yellow fever outbreak in Darfur
26 November 2012: In October, yellow fever outbreaks were reported in seven localities in Central and South Darfur. An estimated 3.8 million people are at risk of infection.
Yellow fever is a virus transmitted by mosquito bites. There is no curative treatment for the virus, but it is vaccine-preventable. Therefore, an emergency vaccination campaign is vital in order to control the outbreak.
In response, the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) has allocated US$2,576,108 to the UN World Health Organization (WHO).
The contribution will support WHO’s efforts to stop transmission of the virus through a vaccination campaign intended to reach 1.7 million people in Darfur.
CERF gives $882,075 to provide life-saving transport assistance to stranded South Sudanese
7 June 2012 : Following the independence of South Sudan on 9 July 2011, South Sudanese were given a transition period until 8 April 2012 to either regularise their status in Sudan or to return to South Sudan. An estimated 12,000 South Sudanese remain stranded in Kosti way-station in Sudan, a transit centre on the Nile that was originally established to accommodate 1,200 people. However, the majority of South Sudanese in Sudan do not possess legal documentation that would allow them to regularise their stay. All transit by barge from Kosti has been halted and those stranded there have no means to return to South Sudan.
Of those in Kosti, 46 per cent of new arrivals are female-headed households and 16 per cent are under age 5, according to United Nations estimates. As returnees have been stranded at the way-station for a long period of time, any savings they once had has been depleted and they depend on humanitarian agencies to provide needed food, water, sanitation facilities and healthcare.
In response to the urgent need to provide safe transportation for South Sudanese from Kosti way station to South Sudan, the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) gave US$882,075 in rapid response grants to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to facilitate the screening and safe transport of returnees. IOM will provide fit-to-travel medical screening for all passengers to ensure those persons requiring special assistance, including those who are sick, elderly or pregnant, are provided with medical care.
CERF allocates $2.6 million for food assistance to returnees in the Republic of Sudan
29 February 2012: With support of the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), the World Food Programme (WFP) will provide food assistance to 32,600 returnees to South Sudan at the Kosti way station in White Nile State. The US$2.6 million allocation will ensure that returnees to South Sudan are provided food assistance beyond the expected transit period.
CERF funding will cover food requirements for returnees staying longer than two weeks at the Kosti way station before their onward journey to South Sudan. The food aid will meet households' immediate food requirements and will be distributed on a monthly basis.
Women and children are among the most vulnerable returnees, particularly female headed households. In order to meet their family's food requirements, women may resort to negative coping strategies which increases their vulnerability and exposure to gender-based violence. Through targeting women for general food distribution, WFP expects to assist 17,278 women and 4,890 children under the age of five among the beneficiary population.
CERF in Action - Rapid Response
CERF in Action - Underfunded Emergencies
With humanitarian needs increasing, CERF allocated some US$55 million for the second underfunded emergencies window in August 2012 to bolster operations in eight neglected humanitarian emergencies.
Allocations for Afghanistan, Cameroon, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Madagascar, Sri Lanka and Sudan bring the total amount provided by CERF for underfunded emergencies this year to more than $158 million.
Thirteen countries were given nearly $104 million in the first 2012 underfunded round in January 2012.