OCHA Welcomes Germany’s €12 million contribution to emergency response fund for Syria as winter approaches

(Geneva, 27 November 2012): The Government of Germany has pledged €12 million in support of the Emergency Response Fund for Syria in one of the largest single contributions ever received by an OCHA-managed Emergency Response Fund (ERF). The pledge is also Germany's first ever contribution to an ERF.

The money will be used to help refugees as winter sets in and provide food, essential medicines and warm clothing to the Syrian people.

“OCHA is grateful for this substantial contribution to the Syria Emergency Response Fund at a time when scaled-up action is needed as winter approaches in Syria. The ERF mechanism enables fast and flexible funding of critical humanitarian response activities," said Rashid Khalikov, Director of OCHA Geneva, at the signing of the contribution agreement with Ambassador Hanns H. Schumacher, German Ambassador to the United Nations Office in Geneva, on 21 November.

Some four million people inside Syria are likely to require humanitarian aid by early 2013 if current trends continue. The figure includes almost two million children and adolescents, many of whom are suffering psychological trauma as a result of witnessing violence and being forced from their homes. The number of refugees sheltering outside Syria’s borders is also expected to increase to more than 700,000 by early next year. Many of those who have been forced from their homes are living in extremely poor conditions, in tents on farmland or in public buildings that are not fit for residential use.

As winter approaches, they urgently need better shelter, warm clothes, heaters and blankets. But funding for the crisis is falling short: 51 per cent of the US$348 million requested for the response to needs inside Syria has been covered, while only 35 per cent of $488 million required for the refugee response in neighbouring countries has been received.