Period covered: January to December 2012
Overview
The DREF allocated a total amount of CHF 22,836,393 in 2012. Seventy-five per cent of the allocations, CHF 17,076,253, were made as grants to small-scale operations implemented by National Societies for which no emergency appeal was launched, known as DREF operations. CHF 5,760,140 was allocated as loans of start-up funding to emergency appeals.
The amount allocated was 3 per cent higher than forecast and 21 per cent higher than in 2011. The amount allocated as grants to DREF operations was 31 per cent higher than in 2011 and approximately the same amount as in 2010. The amount allocated as loans to emergency appeals was almost the same as in 2011.
Financial situation and analysis
The budget for 2012 was CHF18,029,890. Income amounted to CHF 18,709,204 (104 per cent of target). Contributions amounted to CHF18,690,576 and CHF18,628 was paid in interest on the balance of the fund.
The opening balance on 1 January 2012 was CHF 7,398,529 and the balance on 31 December 2012, CHF 8,566,653 .
CHF 23,124,899 was disbursed as allocations for operations in 2012, of which CHF 9,262 was disbursed to cover small DREF operation closing deficits on 2 operations from 2011. CHF 6,156,322 was reimbursed to the fund as DREF loans and unspent balances of DREF grants made in 2012 and previous years.
The DREF coordination expenditure amounted to CHF 572,503, which is 8 per cent above the annual budget of CHF 529,891. The over-spend was primarily costs of external audits of DREF operations carried out by National Societies working under a cash transfer arrangement, which were not budgeted for.
Number of people reached
Operations supported by DREF during the twelve month period were aiming to bring assistance to approximately 12.3 million people. This number includes direct and indirect beneficiaries of assistance, such as people reached through social mobilization for vaccination and hygiene promotion campaigns.
Context
There were fewer major sudden onset disasters in 2012 compared to the average for the last five years and no mega disasters. During the first six months there were a number of tropical storms during the cyclone season in the Indian Ocean which led to limited scale emergency appeals for Mozambique, Madagascar and the Comoros islands. The rainy season in southern Africa generated only one request for response to floods from Malawi Red Cross. At the end of June, multiple countries in southern Africa were in fact reporting drought conditions which have led to poor harvests and which are exacerbating existing food insecurity.
Three of the biggest appeals launched by the International Federation in 2012 were linked to the population movement caused by continuing crisis in Syria and the Middle East. No DREF funding was requested at the launch of these appeals.
The majority of emergency appeals launched in 2012 were for African National Societies and 15 of the 23 appeals were for slowly evolving disasters such as food insecurity in the Sahel and southern Africa regions and for food insecurity and population movement in East Africa. In addition to these and to the appeals launched to support response to floods mentioned above, one appeal was launched to support the Sierra Leone Red Cross to respond to the serious outbreak of cholera. Only one appeal did not receive start-up funding from the DREF: the Kenya complex emergency appeal.
The La Niña phase experienced in 2011 weakened and became neutral over the first six months of 2012, while a weak El Niño developed after mid-August 2012. Globally hydro-meteorological events – floods, cyclones and storms - were less frequent in 2012 than the ten year average. The exceptions were the active typhoon season from in the north-western Pacific from May to December with 25 tropical storms, 15 typhoons of which 5 were extreme typhoons and the particularly destructive North Atlantic hurricane season with 19 tropical storms, 10 hurricanes and 2 major hurricanes. Hurricane Sandy affected the Caribbean and the United States, leading to emergency appeals for Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica. In Asia, the typhoons primarily affected the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan and North Korea. A major appeal was launched for the Philippines after Typhoon Bopha, followed by successive storms, caused extensive damage and loss of life in December. The DREF made start-up funding loans to all these appeals.