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The Migration Emergency Response Fund (MERF), funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), was established in January 2017. The MERF’s aim is to address the unpredictable nature of the mixed migration context across the Mediterranean and rapidly respond to new or emerging needs. It built on the Start Network’s experience of collaboratively responding to the needs of migrants and refugees through its two European Refugee Responses (ERR) in 2015-2016.

As part of Start Network’s commitment to supporting local actors, eight national and local members have so far been selected to participate in a fund for COVID-19 response. This fund will allow these organisations to access funding of up to £30,000 to respond to COVID-19 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India and Pakistan.

Increasingly restrictive border policies have created the most dangerous route in the world. The coronavirus pandemic has made it even worse. The Central Mediterranean Route runs from sub-saharan Africa through the deserts of Niger, to conflict-ridden Libya and across the Mediterranean Sea to Italy. It’s been named the most perilous migration route in the world by the Institute of Migration as people are forced into destitution by smugglers and risk dying while crossing the desert or drowning in the sea.

Start Network is pleased to announce that 12 new local and national aid agencies, based in India, Pakistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, have joined the network. The new members have joined as part of Start Network’s plans to build a more balanced network made up of more local and national actors.

More than 30 Start Network members have supported a letter to the UK Prime Minister, raising our concern over the decision to merge the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office because of its potentially devastating consequences for humanitarian aid.

Today Start Network's five hubs have launched a bold paper aimed at catalysing a more local response to the immediate needs of COVID-19 needs and to accelerate a lasting step-change in humanitarian response.

Start Network has decided to move it's annual Assembly meeting and 10-year anniversary celebrations to a virtual format.

The COVID-19 pandemic is an opportunity to prioritise locally led responses and reverse existing inequities within the humanitarian sector. The Alliance for Empowering Partnership (A4EP) shares 10 recommendations from frontline responders to ensure that we live up to the Grand Bargain.

Humanitarian agencies in Senegal are this week distributing aid as part of an early response to food shortage, which has been caused by the late onset of rainfall last year. This early action will help alleviate the suffering of those affected and reduce the need for them to resort to negative coping actions such as taking children out of schools, eating their seeds, and migrating or selling their farming implements.