The Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) ensures rapid and effective response to emergencies and crises
Every year, small and medium-sized disasters often occur in silence, without the attention of the mainstream media. Without visibility or attention beyond the local region in which they occur, these silent disasters often do not receive the influx of financial support that can follow large-scale emergencies or disasters. To support these smaller emergencies or disasters, or to provide initial funding before emergency appeals are launched for large-scale disasters, the IFRC secretariat allocates grants from its Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) to National Societies to support their operations.
What is the DREF?
The Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) was established by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in 1985 to provide immediate financial support to National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, enabling them to carry out their unique role as first responders after a disaster.
The DREF is available to all 190 member National Societies of the IFRC, and has two main purposes:
- Start-up funding for the IFRC and National Societies to respond to large-scale disasters – the “loan facility”
- Funding for National Society responses to small- and medium-scale disasters and health emergencies for which no international appeal will be launched or when support from other actors is not foreseen – the “grant facility”.
All requests for DREF allocations are reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Money can be authorized and released within 24 hours.
How is the DREF funded?
Funds for DREF are sought through an annual appeal. This allows the IFRC to maintain the necessary balance of funds to meet the requests for support.
If you or your organization is interested in supporting the DREF mechanism of emergency response, please contact us.
News about ongoing DREF operations
On 5 November it will be 3 months since a destructive and shallow earthquake measuring 6.4 magnitude and multiple aftershocks struck the island of Lombok, Indonesia. The epicentre was located inland, near Loloan Village in North Lombok Regency.
Meat is a luxury for people who have fled violence in Rakhine state and who are now living in camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Many of them live on a diet of rice, lentils, seasonal vegetables, spices, wheat and dry fish, most of which are food they are not used to eating.
Three months since the collapse of Laos’ Xe-Pian XeNamnoy hydropower dam cut a path of destruction through 13 villages in the province of Attapeu, many communities, including that of Mai Village, are finally able to move into government-built temporary housing after spending weeks in emergency shelters.
Even before the outbreak of Ebola in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), communities in this province of over five million inhabitants had already been weakened and rendered vulnerable by an armed conflict that has lasted for 20 years. If t …
By Moustapha Diallo, IFRC Under heavy rain, Ica Lopes Da Silva, accompanied by her son Julio Cesar, tries to carry, towards a rented tricycle motorbike, the items she has just received from the Red Cross of Guinea Bissau. The 53-year-old woman lives wi …
More information
Case studies of DREF operations: