Foreword by the Humanitarian Coordinator
Dear Colleagues and Humanitarian Partners,
I am pleased to share with you the 2012 Annual Report of the Common Humanitarian Fund (CHF) in Somalia. This report provides an overview of donor contributions and funding allocations made during 2012 and presents a comprehensive set of achievements through the projects implemented by CHF Somalia partners.
During the course of the year, ten different donors contributed US$71 million to the CHF. These donors were: Australia, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and a new contributor to the CHF Somalia, Germany. These contributions combined with a carryover of $4.1 million from 2011 as well as $17.7 million received in December 2011, brought the total available funds in 2012 to a record $92.8 million. This represented 14 per cent of the total $640 million received for the 2012 Somalia CAP.
Of the $92.8 million, the CHF allocated and disbursed $90 million to various projects implemented by its partners. Forty-one per cent ($37 million) went towards supporting 76 international NGO projects, 25 per cent ($22 million) to 65 local NGOs projects, and 34 per cent ($31 million) to UN projects.
Since 2010, the CHF has been supporting urgent humanitarian needs across Somalia. During the 2011 famine, the CHF was able to play a crucial role in facilitating an immediate response to the emergency, at a time when other funding was slow to materialize. As this report shows, the fund continued to provide invaluable flexibility to respond to recurrent and unforeseen crisis over the year.
In 2012, the CHF Standard Allocation was able to target and meet urgent life-saving needs of extremely vulnerable people in southern and central Somalia, especially acutely malnourished children and pregnant and breastfeeding women. In addition to the life-saving activities, the Fund also addressed the needs of newly displaced people in Mogadishu with the tri-cluster (Shelter, WASH and Health) integrated strategy approach in providing basic services and semi-permanent shelters to almost 9,000 households. Similarly, the Fund supported projects that promoted coherent sustainable activities for returnees in Bay region with livelihood investment packages and access to basic services.
To respond to the potential effects of the projected El Niño and curb the spread of cholera, the CHF supported preparedness activities such as information systems for flood risk management and outbreak prevention in highly populated cholera-prone areas countrywide.
The CHF Emergency Reserve funded crucial interventions in response to Acute Watery Diarrhoea outbreaks and bolstered food and livelihood security among flood-affected communities through distribution of essential food and cash-for-work activities to inject cash while aiding in the clean-up of affected farm lands and irrigation canals. Additionally, the reserve addressed malnutrition in coastal communities in Mudug, Puntland.
While efforts were made towards improving the efficiency of the allocation processes, the CHF also focused on improving the overall accountability of the Fund. In December 2012, the CHF developed an accountability framework and initiated a capacity assessment of all 112 CHF-funded partners. A monitoring strategy was also finalized in the same month, with implementation planned for the first half of 2013. I am hopeful that these initiatives, among others, will greatly enhance mitigation of the risk of funding projects in Somalia. It will also help to identify underperforming projects in order to take corrective actions and to highlight good practices.
I am grateful to the efforts of the donors, the Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office, OCHA as the CHF Secretariat and Managing Agent, the CHF Advisory Board, and to all stakeholders for their continued support to the CHF. I would like to thank all our partners for their continued efforts in making the CHF more strategic and accountable to the needs of the Somali people.
Philippe Lazzarini
UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia