Global Humanitarian Assistance: Common Humanitarian Funds (CHFs)

In 2005 the humanitarian reform initiative called for a new type of fund to be piloted, a common humanitarian fund (CHF), with the aim of making funding more flexible and predictable in accordance with the Good Humanitarian Donorship (GHD) principles; the CHF was piloted in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2006. These countries were selected due to the fact that they were and still are subject to complex humanitarian emergencies caused by ongoing conflict and the occurrence of natural hazards that often become disasters. There are now five CHFs in operation.

CHFs support cluster coordination and stronger humanitarian leadership as promoted by the humanitarian reform process that began in 2005. They allow humanitarian coordinators (HC) to fund planned humanitarian response based on strategic planning and identification of needs in country. Disbursements from the CHFs are made available to United Nations (UN) agencies and non- governmental organisations (NGOs) that participate in the country’s consolidated appeals process (CAP). A small proportion of a fund’s budget, usually around 10%, is reserved for emergency response.