Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their current commitment, bilaterally and multilaterally, to the United Nations Level 3 Emergency Situation in Central African Republic.

In December 2013 the UN declared a Level 3 crisis in CAR which is in effect until December 2014. The UK welcomed the UN declaration which more accurately reflected the severity of the situation on the ground and brought much needed attention and resources from across the UN system to respond to the crisis.

The UK has been closely monitoring the situation and has committed a total of £18 million in humanitarian funding to CAR in 2014 to help hundreds of thousands of people, along with £7 million in Cameroon and Chad to assist CAR refugees. The funds are going towards the protection of civilians, urgent medical assistance, and to food security and livelihoods assistance through UN agencies, the Red Cross and NGOs. In 2014, the UK is the third largest bilateral humanitarian donor to CAR after the USA (£87 million) and the EU (£39 million). The UK’s combined bilateral and multilateral contributions (through the EU and the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund) to the CAR crisis total £27 million in 2014.