DR Congo: DRC Humanitarian Fund - Annual Report 2023

ReliefWeb: Updates by Country 29.03.2024 15:40 Country: Democratic Republic of the Congo Source: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Please refer to the attached file. Donor contributions In 2023, the DRC HF was faced with financial chal-lenges, receiving a total contribution of $40.8 mil-lion, used in conjunction with the CERF allocations of $45.76 million. This marked the fifth consecu-tive year of declining funding , showing a 12 per cent decrease in contributions compared to 2022. Contributions received in 2023 were lower than the $43 million allocated by the DRC HF that year, which had to rely in part on funds carried over from 2022. Despite the difficulty of maintaining funding levels, the DRC HF has been able to rely on its top three donors, who have maintained their leading role since 2020, albeit in a different order: Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. The Netherlands emerged as the Fund’s top donor in 2023 with a 72 per cent increase, committing $13 million. Belgium strengthened its position as the second top donor, increasing its contribution to $10.2 million from $9.4 million in 2022, while Germany dropped to $5 million from $17.4 million in 2022. These donors have also reaffirmed their commitment to provid-ing predictable humanitarian funding by pledg-ing multi-year contributions up to 2026. The DRC HF could also count on Canada, which pledged a multi-year contribution for 2023-2024. In addition, Luxembourg more than doubled its support to $908,000 in 2023. The Fund also broadened its donor base, with France and Egypt making their first contributions to the DRC HF. Although the timeliness of contributions de-creased, with only 15 per cent ac-cessible in the first quarter of 2023 compared to 30 per cent in 2022, a substantial 89 per cent of funds were disbursed in the first half of the year. This facilitated the rapid response to the floods and landslides in Kalehe, in South Kivu province, and supported the scaling up of the emergency humanitarian response strategy in eastern Congo in June 2023. An additional $2.3 million contributions in the last quarter al-lowed for the launch of a third reserve allocation in December to address the displacement crisis in eastern Congo and provided greater visibility for funding in 2024. The scarce resources available and the limited visibility on the funding in the pipeline forced the fund to be extremely selective on the crises the DRC HF would respond to, only using reserve mo-dality, mostly in complementarity to concomitant CERF allocation, and prioritizing well-performing partners and mainly focusing on lifesaving activ-ities such as Shelter/NFI, Food Security, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene and Protection. Looking ahead, the DRC 2024 Humanitarian Re-sponse Plan anticipates that more than 25.4 mil-lion people in need with the most urgent humani-tarian needs concentrated in the eastern provinces, severely hit by violence and insecurity. To this, the DRC HF remains optimistic about reversing the funding decline through continued and intensified advocacy, donor engagement, and resource mobili-zation efforts. Nearly $30 million has already been pledged for 2024 from Belgium, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden.

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