On June 19-20 2019, Dr. Rahmawati Husein, Deputy Chairperson of the PP Muhammadiyah Disaster Management Agency or better known as the Muhammadiyah Disaster Management Center (MDMC) attended a session of the United Nations Agency Advisory Group for the Central Emergency Response Fund (UNCERF AG). .
Rahmawati Husein, who is also a Masters in Government Science from the Muhammadiyah University of Yogyakarta, is the only representative from Southeast Asia, and became one of 19 people chosen by the UN Secretary General for the position from October 2018 to October 2021. Since its establishment in 2010 CERF , for the first time the Indonesian representative was elected as a member of the CERF Steering Committee.
UNCERF AG was formed based on an agreement at the 60th UN General Assembly Session in 2005, through a UN resolution on “Strengthening UN Humanitarian Emergency Assistance Coordination”. The CERF Steering Board is an expert group whose role is to provide guidance, views, and recommendations to support efforts to utilize, manage and restore humanitarian emergency assistance funding which is increasing in annual needs.
The funds are given to various countries around the world whose citizens experience crises both due to conflict, war and natural disasters. CERF is a mechanism for providing humanitarian assistance that is tactical, fast and apolitical, where funds can be channeled in less than 48 hours, in response to emergency situations.
The CERF Steering Board conducts its sessions twice a year to review the utilization of funds that have been distributed, provide policy and strategy recommendations and support the effective implementation of CERF. In 2019, the first meeting was held in Dublin City, the capital city of Ireland which hosted.
At the Steering Committee meeting, we will discuss the importance of increasing humanitarian funding and the most effective use of funds that are inadequate for the needs of the worldwide humanitarian crisis. Besides that, an equally important discussion is the need for anticipatory financing that does not have to wait for the impact of the widespread crisis. Anticipatory approaches in humanitarian crises have proven to save more lives and save more funding because of previous readiness-preparedness especially for types of disasters due to climate change such as droughts, as well as for conflict victims who have been displaced for years. To provide this input, the Steering Committee listened to reports from both UNOCHA as CERF coordinator and from reports from independent institutions conducting studies and evaluating the use of recipient countries.
The Steering Committee meeting this time was attended by all 19 members representing 5 Continents and representing representatives of the donor countries and recipient countries of the emergency response fund.
Indonesia in 2018 became one of the countries that received emergency funding to respond to the earthquake and tsunami that occurred in Central Sulawesi some time ago. Indonesia’s experience in receiving, utilizing and managing CERF funds can be used as input and comparative material as well as learning for other countries.
In addition, the involvement of non-governmental organizations, such as Muhammadiyah which operates at the national and local levels, shows the importance of the role of non-state actors in implementing humanitarian crisis assistance. The presence of Rahmawati Husein as the Emergency Fund Steering Board gave a different perspective representing both national / local non-governmental organizations whose role was very significant in saving and protecting people who were experiencing crisis
At the meeting Rahmawati Husein emphasized that CERF funds managed by UN agencies such as WFP, Unicef, UNHCR, UNFPA, need to be jointly managed not only cooperated with the central government through clusters or sectors, but also need to be managed directly by local governments and organizations non-government.
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