DERF - Danish Emergency Relief Fund

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The Danish Emergency Relief Fund (DERF) is a humanitarian funding mechanism, managed by CISU – Civil Society in Development, in a consortium with Save the Children Denmark.

Aim and objective of the DERF

The DERF provides flexible and rapid funding to save lives and prevent further escalation of suffering in humanitarian crisis situations.

The objective is fulfilled through supporting the humanitarian interventions of Danish Civil Society Organisations (CSO's) (those without strategic humanitarian partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Denmark) who have relevant access, capacities and expertise. This can either be through local or national partner CSO's and/or within their own organisation enabling them to respond to the humanitarian needs of people affected by crisis.

The fund supports lifesaving interventions through localised humanitarian response and assists particularly vulnerable groups of people, hereunder refugees, IDPs (Internally Displaced People) and host communities.

The DERF can only provide funds to address humanitarian crisis situations in countries included in OECD/DAC-list of countries eligible to receive support.

The DERF supports lifesaving interventions through two modalities:

Anticipatory Action in relation to natural hazards and climate change
Rapid Response to an acute humanitarian crisis

Useful information about the DERF

All Danish CSOs who do not have a strategic partnership with the MFA are eligible for DERF funding. Danish CSOs must demonstrate that they have relevant access, capacity, and expertise to assist people affected by crisis through partnerships with local or national implementers or in exceptional cases through their own organisation (self-implementing).

Requirements for the Danish CSO:

The organisation needs to be private and must have a legal and organisational domicile, as well as activities in Denmark.
The chairperson or most members of its governing body must be Danish citizens or foreigners with residence permit and home address in Denmark.
The organisation must have existed for at least one year.
The organisation must have a minimum of 50 paying members or contributors in Denmark.
The organisation must have a set of statutes and accounts subjected to an audit

Requirements for the partnership:

The humanitarian intervention must be carried out in collaboration between one or several CSOs from Denmark and one or several implementing partners from the crisis affected area, except in cases where self-implementation by Danish CSOs has been approved.
The intervention must be based on existing partnerships.
The Danish CSO must ensure that partners and others that receive part of the granted funds are not included on the UN’s or EU’s sanctions lists.

The DERF can support lifesaving interventions through two modalities:

a) Anticipatory Action in relation to natural hazards and climate change (AA). This modality supports interventions addressing anticipated crises, mitigating against the effects such crises are predicted to have on particularly vulnerable populations. The anticipated crisis must be related to natural hazards and climate change, documented by recognised forecasting sources.

b) Rapid Response to an acute humanitarian crisis (RR). This modality addresses the humanitarian needs amongst particularly vulnerable populations during or immediately following a humanitarian crisis. The RR modality can only be activated through the DERF call system, enabling the DERF to open a call for applications within a short timeframe. A call is triggered in response to one of the following:

An international or national appeal from UN, governments or similar. The DERF assesses appeals to open a call.

An alert raised by a Danish CSO and their partner(s). This must be done by sending the DERF an alert through the Vores CISU platform. A guide on how to raise an alert can be found here and the online alert system also includes guidance notes throughout the steps.

The organisational capacity of applicants is assessed when applying for an intervention. To give all a fair chance of funding support, the DERF operates with three funding ceilings, where the smallest ceiling requires only little previous experience and the highest ceiling more experience and thus more demanding standards. The ceilings are:

Below 200.000 DKK per intervention and maximum 1 million DKK per year.

Above 200.000 DKK per intervention and maximum 3 million DKK per year.

Above 1 million DKK per intervention and max 4 million DKK per year.

You can read more about the requirements of the three ceilings in the DERF funding guidelines .

If you wish to alert the DERF about a particular crisis, this can be done through CISUs online platform, Vores CISU. After the log-in, you can find the raise an alert box at the bottom of the front page.

When raising an alert, you will be asked to provide some basic information about the crisis and who is sending the alert. This is done directly in the online platform.

You will also be asked to upload a filled alert note document with more information about the crisis. The DERF format for alert notes must be used.

You can find the alert note format here .

Please read the DERF Funding Guidelines for more information about timeliness of sending alerts, types of crises the DERF may be activated for, and how an alert is assessed.

For information on existing call for applications see the DERF News site here and subscribe to news from the DERF MyNewsDesk.

Note: You do not need to raise an alert if you wish to respond in anticipation to a crisis. In that case you need to apply under the DERF funding modality: Anticipatory Action in relation to natural hazards and climate change

Applications for interventions are submitted through the Vores CISU platform during the call period, being the time from the DERF opens a call until its closing date. The following information is needed when applying:

General information about the applicant (must be checked for potentially needed updates since last time of applying for CISU/ DERF grants). Also, general information and contact information about the local implementing organisation must be entered.

Information about the planned intervention:

Basic information about the intervention must be entered in the online system.

An application form with detailed information must be submitted through the system.

Annexes to the application include a) a signed cover page, b) the context description written and signed by the implementing partner, and c) the budget.

All applications must be submitted via Vores CISU, where you upload your application and budget.

Find all relevant guides and formats for the application here.

Alerts must be submitted timely through the Vores CISU platform to respond in a way that implementation of potential interventions can begin within 3 months of the start of a humanitarian crisis. This usually means that an alert must be raised within the first 4-6 weeks of a crisis / a spike in a protracted crisis.

The DERF assesses incoming alerts within 3 working days. From the day an alert is received, if an alert is assessed to be eligible for opening a call, a call will be opened within a week. Calls are in average open for applications for 2-3 weeks, depending on the 3 months’ timeframe. Applications are assessed in the order they are received. With the argument of being a rapid funding mechanism, the DERF does not wait with approving applications until the closing date of a call window.

Calls for applications are announced on the DERF website. Organisations can also subscribe to a mailing-list for receiving direct information when the DERF opens a new call – this is to be found on the DERF MyNewsDesk.

The CISU Code of Conduct is a compilation of CISU's ethical and legal principles, sexual abuse protection policy, exploitation and abuse of power and anti-corruption policy.

The Code of Conduct can be accessed here in English.

If you wish to submit a complaint, report of suspicion of abuse, please use the specific formular . All complaints etc. are processed as described in CISU's code of conduct.

Furthermore, you can read mere about reporting of irregularities in connection with DERF grants here, and for CISU funded grants in Danish here.

Complaints over decisions

Complaints over the assessment of an application will initially be discussed by CISUs head of secretariat, the chairperson of the board and the chairperson of the grant committee. They will discuss the character of the complaint and decide the following process.

Complaints do generally not lead to changes in the decision made in the grant system. It can however lead to a new assessment of the case if there are substantial and evidential errors in the assessment.

All complaints will be addressed and applied constructively in the ongoing assessment of the technical praxis carried out in CISU, together with the board, assessment consultants, grant committee and secretariat/advisors.

CISUs procedures for feedback and complaints appear in CISUs Code of Conduct.

Click here if you wish to file a complaint

As a member organisation in CISU, you can always book an advisory session throughout the application process.

Book an advisory meeting here

Applicants that are not members of CISU can receive advice on the application procedures. Contact CISU at +45 86 12 03 42 or derf@cisu.dk.