New York — As humanitarian crises around the world outpace the funding available to address them, senior United Nations officials today rallied the international community to urgently mobilize more support for the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), at an annual pledging event marking the Fund’s 20th anniversary.
“The humanitarian system’s tank is running on empty – with millions of lives hanging in the balance,” said Secretary-General António Guterres. “This is a moment when we are asked to do more and more, with less and less. This is simply unsustainable.”
Today, 40 donors announced contributions of just over US$300million for CERF in 2026, with several others expecting to make contributions in the coming months. Donor announcements at last year’s event totaled some $351 million. The drop in pledges for 2026 reflects the increasingly dire financial outlook facing the humanitarian community as it continues to grapple with the steepest funding cuts in its history.
“When we’re needed at full strength, the warning lights are flashing,” said Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher. “If the CERF falters, then the world’s emergency service will falter. And the people who rely on us will suffer.”
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Mr. Fletcher also announced a major allocation of $100 million to meet critical needs – including for women and girls – in several underfunded emergencies, including Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Mali, Mozambique, Myanmar and Syria. Overall this year, CERF has invested nearly $212 million to sustain relief efforts across underfunded crises.
Today’s event was co-hosted by Ireland and the Philippines and comes one day after the UN and partners launched their 2026 global humanitarian appeal, which sets out an immediate priority of saving 87 million lives with $23 billion in funding. In the two decades since CERF was established, global funding needs through humanitarian appeals have soared.
So far in 2025, CERF has allocated $435 million to support millions of people who need urgent assistance in over 30 countries and territories. This included resources for the humanitarian scale-up in Gaza after the ceasefire was announced, as well as help for those fleeing brutal violence in Sudan’s Darfur region.
The Fund also enabled the UN and its partners to take action ahead of predicted shocks and disasters, including in the Caribbean – giving families the chance to prepare before Hurricane Melissa made landfall.
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Throughout its 20-year history, CERF – which is managed by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and has an annual funding target of $1 billion – has helped hundreds of millions of people with nearly $10 billion in more than 100 countries and territories.
This legacy of life-saving action is thanks to the generosity of donors who support the Fund year after year, including the top 10 contributors over the past two decades: The United Kingdom, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Belgium and Spain.
