Working together ensures the Pooled Funds help people in need more effectively
Sudan and Yemen| 2023 | CERF and CBPF
Sudan and Yemen. OCHA’s pooled funds and our partners provide the most effective assistance for people during humanitarian crises – by strategically working together and complementing crucial efforts.
When CERF and CBPF funding is allocated to the same emergency, the Humanitarian Coordinator ensures these funds are used coherently.
In Yemen and Sudan, for example, OCHA’s Pooled Funds worked together in 2023 to help people affected by escalating conflict. Funding helped people access healthcare, battle malnutrition, and rebuild their livelihoods, among other assistance.
In Yemen, the Funds worked together to battle malnutrition and provide healthcare
“There is nothing that makes me prouder than to see a young child strongly recover from malnutrition,” says Sana, a health worker with a mobile clinic in the Khanfar district, run by Care International.
Funding from the Yemen Humanitarian Fund supported health response in remote areas of Khanfar District, reaching women and children with malnutrition screening and other essential care.
Yemen continues to face a complex protection crisis driving humanitarian needs in the country. Civilian casualties and protracted large-scale displacement profoundly affect people across the country. Even in areas with improved stability and security, the effects of the crisis persist.
In July 2023, the Yemen Humanitarian Fund allocated $7 million to improve people’s living conditions and help address health and protection risks for returnees and people living in protracted displacement – as well as the communities hosting them.
Funding supported the Care health clinic as well as improvements to schools destroyed and damaged by conflict; access to specialized services for children living with disability; and cash assistance and clean water for vulnerable families living in protracted displacement.
Complimenting this funding, CERF allocated $20 million from its Underfunded Emergencies round in September 2023, to provide humanitarian assistance for returnees, displaced people, and host communities, focusing on nutrition, food security and famine prevention.
With CERF funding, the World Health Organization supported therapeutic feeding centres in Al Jumhuri Hospital in Hajjah.
This meant Zuhoor could bring her four-month-old baby in for treatment. She was worried, as her baby barely weighed two kilograms.
At the centre, she was able to access emergency help – and that means her child will survive. “My child is feeling better now, and we are being taken care of. The services are free of charge,” she says.
Redhwan lives in Taiz governorate with his family. He breeds goats, collects and sells wood, and does other day labour jobs to earn a living.
CERF funding allowed the Food and Agriculture Organization to provide families with cash and livestock in Taiz, to help strengthen their livelihoods in the longer term.
For Redhwan, a father of five, the CERF funding meant cash to buy the basics. “I was able to buy some sugar, fish, flour and other food for the family. I used the second cash transfer to build a cage for my animals.”
In Sudan, the Funds worked together to maximize geographic reach
When the conflict escalated in Sudan in April 2023, the already dire situation became catastrophic. The number of people needing humanitarian aid surged by sixty per cent, and millions were displaced, including pregnant and nursing mothers who needed essential health services.
“Lubna was one of the first patients we registered with the reproductive health mobile clinic,” said Dr. Ruaa, who works at a clinic in Kosti supported by UNFPA with SHF funds. “We hope that all pregnant women in the gathering site can now give birth safely.”
A $37 million allocation was launched by the Sudan Humanitarian Fund (SHF) early in the conflict. SHF supported a consortium of humanitarian partners and grassroots organizations to deliver in Khartoum and Darfur states where access was more difficult.
For example, the United Peace Organization, with funding from the SHF, has built huts to provide safe shelter for over 800 displaced families in El Fasher.
Meanwhile, in Kassala, SHF funding allowed Care International to provide basic health services to Nahid and her children, who had fled fighting in Aj Jazirah state.
“Three of my five kids became very sick after the long and hard journey fleeing the fighting in Aj Jazirah. When we arrived here in this school in Kassala, they were coughing badly and had a high fever. I had no money to take them to the doctor and I did not know what to do,” said Nahid.
The SHF allocations were complimented by CERF funding. An initial $22 million in June 2023 through its Rapid Response window complemented an $18 million Underfunded Emergencies allocation, which was reprioritized to address the most time-critical and life-threatening needs arising from the new conflict. In August 2023 CERF allocated a further $20 million to respond to increasing needs.
The CERF Rapid Response allocations strengthened humanitarian response by increasing life-saving services across all clusters in locations with fewer access constraints – where over two-thirds of the displaced people, at the time, were located.
This included emergency livelihoods response to help plant seeds and avert a famine; emergency medical care for expectant mothers and their children; safe spaces for displaced children to play and access psychological aid, and clean water and sanitation for people on the move inside and outside Sudan.
Furthermore, the CERF RR allocation supported the overall humanitarian response with crucial common services like telecommunications, safety and security, and the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS).
The timing of these CERF and HF allocations allowed partners to sustain ongoing response efforts and adjust to a rapidly changing operational environment.
As needs continue to rise in Yemen and Sudan this year, OCHA’s pooled funds will continue to complement one another – and other funding sources – to support the humanitarian response that helps people through such difficult times.
More information on 2023 CERF allocations in Sudan and in Yemen.
More information on the new CERF Climate Action Account
Up to date funding information OCHA POOLED FUNDS Data Hub (unocha.org).