We provide funding in two ways:

• A loan facility: start-up funding for the IFRC and National Societies to respond to large-scale disasters, which will later be reimbursed by donor contributions to an Emergency Appeal
• A grant facility: funding for National Society responses to small- and medium-sized disasters. This is used when no Emergency Appeal will be launched or when support from other actors is not foreseen.

The fund is demand-driven and locally-owned. It is open to all 192 National Societies that submit funding applications and plans of action reflecting locally identified priorities and needs.

On average, the DREF supports over 100 responses to small and medium-sized disasters every year.

To see the latest DREF allocations and updates: 

• Visit our appeals page 
• Follow @IFRC_DREF on Twitter
• Visit our emergency operations data platform, IFRC GO

Our ambition is to provide CHF 100 million to National Societies through the DREF every year by 2025. Doing so will ensure that smaller, “silent” disasters are always met with loud and clear responses from our network.

Anyone can support our annual DREF appeal by donating here. You can see the response to our DREF appeal so far this year on our donor response page.

In October 2021 we held our first DREF pledging conference, convening donors who pledged new or renewed funding to the DREF. We will be holding our second pledging conference in November 2022—more information on which available further down this page.

In 2022, we set up the DREF Council—an independent body comprised of high-level representatives from major donor governments, their corresponding National Society, and chosen experts, who advise on the Fund's development and make sure it remains relevant to donors and to the people it supports.