CERF helps WHO deliver on its pledge for one billion more people better protected from health emergencies

WHO recognizes the impact achieved in 2023 thanks to the support of donors through the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). Since its inception in 2006, CERF has been one of WHO’s top longstanding partners in responding to health emergencies. It is the sixth largest donor to WHO’s Outbreak Crisis and Response budget, with US$ 74 million received in 2023. As such, CERF’s role is essential in our pledge that one billion more people are better protected from health emergencies. It not only enabled our timely response to health emergencies caused by earthquakes, cyclones, drought and floods, cholera outbreaks, severe malnutrition, conflicts, and displacement in no less than 30 countries, it also helped crisis and outbreak prevention by increasing countries’ health emergency readiness.

From giving a chance to severely malnourished children and helping curb spread of diseases, to delivering health services to populations affected by natural disasters, we share some of WHO’s success stories from Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Colombia, and Sudan that were possible thanks to CERF support.

Yemen: Giving severely malnourished children a fighting chance

^{A mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) tape is used to measure cases of malnutrition at the therapeutic feeding center in Jumhuri Hospital in Hajjah, Yemen. Credit: WHO/Comra}

Since the start of armed conflict in Yemen, an estimated 10,200 children have been killed or injured as a direct result of hostilities. The majority of Yemeni children below age 5 are highly likely to suffer the consequences of armed conflict and lack of basic services from their first years of life. With the number of health workers already well below the global WHO standard – 12 health workers per 10,000 people compared with the standard’s 20 per 10,000 – and 37% of functioning hospitals in the country lacking specialist doctors, Yemen’s prolonged conflict is exacerbating existing vulnerabilities within a severely weakened health system. CERF’s support is helping thousands WHO give of malnourished children a chance at life by ensuring health facility functionality and operations through financial incentives and medical and non-medical supplies.

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Somalia: CERF support safeguards the lives of the vast majority of children at WHO-supported stabilization centers

^{WHO-CERF support helped Somalia’s Federal Ministry of Health set up outreach camps for flood-affected communities across Jubaland and Hirshabelle states. Credit: WHO Somalia/A. Mustaf}

After flash flooding caused by El Niño in November 2023, WHO helped the federal and state ministries of health avert major disease outbreaks following the displacement of 500 000 people and over 1.17 million people affected by the flood across Jubaland and Hirshabelle states. By the end of January 2024, the outreach teams had managed to reach 163,880 people, including 4,148 pregnant women, in the most affected districts across the two states. They held 93,416 outpatient consultations, administered 23,145 vaccinations and referred 5,418 people with severe medical care to more specialized care. Outreach teams identified almost 5000 children with severe acute malnutrition and referred them to therapeutic and stabilization centers.

“Of all the admissions in these centres, 95.9% were cured,” said WHO’s Incident Manager Dr Ifeanyi Okudo.

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Ethiopia: Delivering health services to Ethiopia’s drought-affected populations

^{A mother stands for a portrait with her two-year-old son Yoso, who she took for a check-up from the Eltomale site mobile health and nutrition team in Chifra, Afar. WHO/Martha Tadesse}

Around 24 million people are grappling with severe food insecurity, malnutrition, and extreme deprivation in South and south-eastern Ethiopia following five straight seasons of failed rains. Since early 2022, the number of people earmarked for humanitarian assistance has almost tripled.

Linked to these droughts, the country in 2023 was also seeing multiple, simultaneous disease outbreaks, including cholera, measles, suspected meningitis, and malaria. With financial support from CERF and other partners, WHO led mobile health units and nutrition teams to deliver critical health assistance and treat malnutrition to avert an extreme situation and curb potential loss of life, especially amongst children for whom the combination of malnutrition and disease can be fatal.

“While a lot is being done, there are still major challenges to mounting a robust response, due to a large funding gap,” said Dr Betty Lanyero, WHO’s Incident Manager for the drought response in Ethiopia.

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Madagascar: Mobile clinics bolster health surveillance during cyclones

^{Trained health professionals travel with their medical equipment from village to village by car, motorbike, dugout canoes or on foot to reach patients. Credit: WHO Madagascar/Flora Dominique}

After the Batsirai and Emnati cyclones hit Madagascar’s south-eastern regions in February 2022, access to health centers was an unattainable luxury for many. Thanks to its partners’ support, WHO was able to restore many of the destroyed health centers. Thanks to CERF, WHO was also able to support the deployment of mobile clinics to provide access to curative health services to approximately one million people in places where there were no longer functional health facilities. These clinics not only made it possible to strengthen epidemiological surveillance, detect and report cases of vaccine-preventable diseases such as polio and measles, as well as cases of maternal death and gender-based violence, but they also facilitated the vaccination of many children who had missed routine immunizations because of the inaccessibility of health care after the cyclones.

CERF’s support also allowed for targeted training to manage future emergencies and build more resilient health systems. As a result, despite the torrential rains and extensive flooding caused by Cyclone Freddy in 2023, no cases of diseases such as cholera were recorded in the country.

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Ethiopia: Health champions help curb the spread of Cholera

^{Children carry jerry cans of water they fetched from a river in cholera-prone Konso zone, SNNP Region of Ethiopia. Credit: WHO Ethiopia/Mulugeta Ayene}

A year after the first cholera cases in Ethiopia’s outbreak were detected in August 2022, the disease had spread to 10 of the country’s 13 regions. With WHO’s support, new cases decreased significantly in two of the three worst-affected regions, and the Somali region was able to successfully bring the outbreak under control. At the forefront of the response were “armies” of health champions who served as role models within their communities in the implementation of good household hygiene practices. With the support of CERF and other partners, WHO was able to equip these health champions with the information they needed to help raise awareness on health practices that prevent cholera and produce positive behavioral change in communities.

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Colombia: The fight for health

^{Credit: WHO PAHO/Karen González Abril}

Thanks to CERF, WHO and UN agencies work to address in a holistic manner the health needs of vulnerable populations in areas affected by conflict in Colombia. Thanks to the deployment of health teams, WHO is working hand in hand with hard-to-reach and remote displaced communities to identify local solutions and enable health access for all.

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Sudan: CERF supports 21 mobile clinics to help restore health and hope for displaced people

^{Mobile clinic in operation. Credit: WHO/Sudan}

The war that broke out in April 2023 in Sudan plunged the country into a complex humanitarian crisis. Millions fled for their lives, abandoning their homes and livelihoods and exposing themselves to disease outbreaks, shortages of food and safe drinking water, along with the heightened risk of gender-based violence, especially for women and girls. Alongside CERF, WHO supported the deployment of mobile clinics in eight states across the country to provide essential primary health care, as the conflict had left an estimated 4.4 million people at risk of gender-based violence.

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WHO thanks all governments, organizations and individuals that provide pooled and flexible contributions to OCHA’s CERF and the Country-Based Pooled Funds (CBPFs) who, through their contributions, support WHO’s work to protect the most vulnerable by strengthening and promoting health access in emergency settings .