* Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Appeal
Greece, Hungary, Serbia
ACT Alliance Refugees/Migrants Humanitarian Response EUR151 (Revision 1)
Appeal Target: US$1,621,582/ 2,522,636
Balance Requested: US$1,546,032/ 812,824
Geneva, 13 November 2015
Until end of October, refugee and migrant arrivals to Europe in 2015 hit 608,970 after death-defying journeys across sea and land. Less wealthy nations and developing countries take the biggest share of the millions of refugees worldwide, including almost 4.3 million Syrian people who found refuge in their region. UNHCR highlighted that major humanitarian operations supporting refugees, such as those for Syrian refugees hosted in the Middle East, are grossly underfunded.
The majority of those taking the route to Europe are refugees coming from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Eritrea and Somalia and their numbers continue to rise rapidly. Most people arriving are fleeing war, conflict or persecution at home, as well as deteriorating conditions in many refugee-hosting countries and countries of transit which do not offer safety or the possibility to establish a new existence. The lack of a safe and legal path to Europe forces these people to take risks and many rely on smugglers. This puts them in danger of falling prey to traffickers and other criminals and of losing their life. UNHCR estimates that 3,350 women, children and men lost their lives in the Mediterranean from January to end of October 2015, surpassing the record of 3,279 in 2014.
ACT Alliance, through its members in Greece, Hungary and Serbia started to provide humanitarian assistance before the first appeal was issued in September 2015. Due to the fast-growing numbers of refugees and migrants and subsequently their needs, along with the rapidly changing situation along the Balkan route and the approaching winter in Europe, both implementing and donor members called for a revision of the ACT EUR151 Appeal. ACT Europe Emergency Response Group, a revision meeting was held on 27 October 2015 in Geneva. The revision meeting produced 3 major outcomes supporting the revised appeal. First, all donor members raised sufficient funding allowing an extension of the appeal.
Second, due to the closure of its borders to Serbia and Croatia, Hungary receives a significantly small number of refugees/ migrants. There are only 20-30 arrivals of refugees/ migrants per day in Hungary. As a result, the needs decreased significantly and Hungarian Interchuch Aid (HIA) reduced its project to the education and psycho-social component with a total budget of USD 112.532.
Third, due to the rapidly changing situation along the Balkan Route, implementing partners find it difficult to plan activities to meet the needs of the refugee/ migrants for the upcoming months. Therefore, it was jointly agreed to have a flexible approach. This approach entails the use of generic budget lines, to focus on outcomes rather than outputs, to name a wide margin of target group size and to provide lump sums. Furthermore, in a way to ensure transparency towards donors, implementing partners will provide lists of possible food and non-food items as well as ensuring timely reporting.
With this revised appeal ACT members will now continue and expand their coordinated response.
For the full revised appeal document, please click here.
