Burundi: The interagency common humanitarian hotline receives CERF funding support

The Burundi humanitarian hotline is a recipient of a US$90,000 grant from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). The grant will support the project for a nine-month period from April to December 2016.
The hotline is an inter-sector initiative aimed at informing the humanitarian response in Burundi and a tool for promoting interaction (two-way communication) with crisis-affected people. The project was launched in October 2015 as a pilot phase and continues to attract enormous support from partners to date.

Achievement:

• At least 15-25 phone calls are being received on a daily basis mainly from the rural areas

• 25 per cent of people who call were female and 74 per cent male.

• Some 67.5 per cent of needs cases raised were treated and closed

• 16.9 per cent of needs cases were referred to sector groups

• 15.6 per cent are still under treatment by call centre operators

• Various Humanitarian needs reported were related to shelter, Protection, Child Protection, Food Security and Health issues.

• All protection cases and needs were referred to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)

• Weekly reports are shared with sectoral co-leads

• The project has boosted the coordination of humanitarian actors in the response after the damage caused by landslides in Muhuta commune in Bujumbura Rural towards the end of 2015 - http://bit.ly/1J4NERa

• The joint partnership, commitment of all partners, rapid mobilization of project funds has helped in the timely installation of the hotline equipment which boosted the project start-up activities. Support from OCHA regional Office, IOM Geneva staff, WVI regional and global Centre team was particularly instrumental in the success of the project.

• The pilot phase demonstrated how multi stakeholder partnership can be also very successful even with little resources.

• The hotline has been another tool available for Humanitarian actors to collect humanitarian needs & coordinate emergency responses.

• Timely engagement with government institutions to amend and approve the initiative was key for success