The Commission anticipates it will allocate £1,000,000 of its2009 grant to be available for disaster and emergency relief due to the ever-increasing demands for both natural disasters and the emergencies arising through human conflict.

Whilst the funding amount available has increased, in order to keep within its budget the Commission is limiting grants for individual projects up to £30,000 and a total spend of £90,000 on any one disaster.

The funding is made available to those aid agencies already established with the Commission who are working in the disaster aid field or through DEC (the UK Disaster Emergency Commission).

Applications to be funded must meet the criteria that they are for the immediate relief of human suffering, proportional and appropriate to need, non-partisan and independent of political considerations. The Commission recognises immediate relief to be the provision of temporary shelter, clothing, heating, cooking items (eg household kits), food and health provision (eg. water purifying tablets, medicines etc)  Longer term proposals for the "provision of new" or "refurbishment of old" will fall within the remit of grant aid.

Whereas grant aid applications must be for specific identifiable projects, disaster and emergency relief funding is available for general use in dealing with a specified disaster or emergency or an identified part of the agency’s needs. JOAC recognises the need for flexibility in this area where priorities and conditions in the field can change rapidly but whenever possible, the Agency should identify what the funding will purchase.

The Commission appreciates the urgency of immediate funding when such emergencies and disasters occur and the separate administrative procedures, details of which can be found in the administration section of this website, are designed for simplicity and a rapid response to such requests.

Whilst initially much publicity is often given to such occurrences the effect is often long lasting and further funding is required to re-establish communities or support them temporarily, for example in refugee camps. Such applications do not qualify under emergency and disaster relief but are eligible for grant aid.

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