Launch of the Consolidated Funding Appeal by UN humanitarian agencies

UNHCR today, Tuesday, joined other UN agencies in asking donor governments to fund complex emergency programmes in the year 2000. UNHCR is seeking US $ 361,287,128 which amounts to more than one third of the agency's US $ 965 million budget planned for next year.

The funds sought under the inter-agency Consolidated Appeal Process (CAP) go to operations of high complexity where there is a particularly strong need for inter-agency co-ordination both in the fund-raising effort and the actual work on the ground. The appeal for these funds is launched jointly because of the complementary character of the individual agencies' work where under-funding of one agency has an adverse effect on the others.

The UNHCR share covers the cost of refugee protection and relief in UNHCR's operations from Kosovo to the Great Lakes of Africa and Sierra Leone.

This amount represents a portion of funds sought under UNHCR's Global Appeal that will come out later this year spelling out the agency's needs for 2000 in detail.

The UNHCR share of the CAP figure does not include US$45 million sought last September to pay for UNHCR's activities in East and West Timor between September of 1999 and June of 2000.