UN CERF Annual Report 2012 January 2012 - December 2012 | Page 14

COORDINATED HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE

RAPID RESPONSE IN PARAGUAY

THE PARAGUAY PROCESS

In late June 2012, heavy rainfall near the Argentina and

communities. Residents, the Government and UN agencies
were taken aback by this emergency, as Paraguay rarely
suffers from natural disasters of this magnitude. This meant
that UN’s activities in the country generally focused on
development. As a consequence, immediately after the
emergency, the RC requested a deployment of a United
Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC)
team and a team from the Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs Regional Office for Latin America
and the Caribbean (ROLAC). A joint UNDAC/ROLAC
team arrived in Paraguay just three days later. In the
following weeks, the team coordinated the response
process and facilitated the preparation of a CERF request
in consultation with the CERF secretariat. CERF quickly
responded with an allocation of $2.6 million to the World

Following an emergency, humanitarian agencies often
struggle to