In Ethiopia, acute food insecurity is recurrent requiring recurrently humanitarian assistance. It affects an average of 2,5 million people per year, without counting the approx. 0,5 million of internally displaced people and approx. 0,5 million of asylum seekers and refugees in need of life-saving response. An additional 1,3 million people per year require emergency WASH assistance an d1,2 million individuals' health is at stake with over 230'000 children under five affected by severe acute malnutrition. To this adds the currents South Sudanese crisis which is generating additional case loads of refugees in the Gambella region of Ethiopia. According to the latest regional appeal issued by UNHCR mid-March 2014, the most likely scenario humanitarian aid will have to confront is an influx of 300'000 South Sudanese refugees by December 2014. A new regional appeal taking into account the rapid increase of the influx is in preparation at the time of writing this CP.

The HRF is a key tool in meeting non-food needs and recognized as the best performing of all Emergency Response Funds (ERF) for flexible  and rapid response in emergencies, including nurtition, in Ethiopia. However, several years of fruitful experience show that yearly donors' contributions tend to not match the cyclical nature of disasters affecting Ethipia, thereby leaving significant shortcomings at critical times (typically early-year rainy season) only possibly covered by multi-year contributions. 

The aim of the HRF is to make humanitarian funding for Ethiopia rapidly available in case of emergency onsets. This will enable humanitarian partners to respond to a crisis without delay and in turn to improve the living cricumstances of beneficiaries targeted by the recipient agencies. 

People most in need of life saving interventions and assistance to stop erosion of their livelihoods. Data in project proposals are disaggregated according to gender (women, girls/boys). 

Compared to previous years, the balance in HRF's hand in the first half of 2014 is significantly low, forcing the fund to docus on basic life-saving interventions (nutrition and WASH programme as priorities). Other livelihood and recovery initiatives will be treated on case by case basis depending on the funding.

Some additional initiatives for 2014 include:

• Risk Management Paper: this tool considers events and anticipated risks that might have an adverse impact on HRF's capacity to effectively deliver humanitarian response. The document includes six thematic areas: strategic and programmatic, governance and management, financial, internal, coordination and partnerships and hazards.
• Log frame - the HRF developed a log frame that helps to standardize reporting to different donors.
• Expanding the donor base - In order to expand its donor base and solicit additional contributions to the Fund, the HRF is approaching different donors including Japan, South Korea, Germany and Belgium.
• Monitoring and Reporting: Monitoring remains to be the key focus area of the HRF. The HRF plans to expand the use of peer to peer monitoring and joint cluster monitoring approaches during the year.
• Call Center: the HRF plans to expand its monitoring through the use of advanced technology in order to get improved understanding of response as perceived by beneficiaries. The idea of the call center is to develop a database with phone numbers of beneficiaries so as to get situational updates and also to get their view of the progress of supported projects implementation. 

Expected results:  

Key outputs are formulated by each agency and organization submitting a proposal to the HRF. It will continue to address gaps in critical life-saving emergency response, while remaining a concrete actor in Disaster Risk Management and early recovery. 

Results from previous phases:  

The HRF has allocated over US$ 27 million in 2013 to 53 projects, addressing sector needs in major emergencies stemming from hazards such as disease outbreaks and complex emergercies such as displacement. In order to address the most pressing corss-sector needs, the HRF has focused particularly on nutrition, agriculture, protection and water and sanitation interventions for about 1,8 million beneficiaries. 

Recipient international and local NGos, OCHA and UN agencies. 

The contribution to HRF is part of the overall response of SDC targeting the most affected areas and complementing contributions to UN agencies, international and Swiss NGOs. Additionally, pooled-funding mechanisms unable us to support local NGOs which we would not have the capacity to support otherwise. 

Phase 8 01.07.2014 - 30.06.2015   (Completed)