UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) allocated 214 million U.S. dollars to help people in two dozen countries in the first half of this year, including efforts to combat a drought in Afghanistan and to back climate resilience elsewhere, said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, on Friday.

Over the last 19 years, CERF has channeled over 9 billion dollars in life-saving aid to people in need in over 110 countries and territories, thanks to contributions from 143 out of 193 UN member states, as well as from observers and other donors, Dujarric said at a daily briefing.

The UN secretary-general has appointed 12 new experts to the group that advises him on where CERF money should go, the spokesman said.

CERF has a total of 23 members from all over the world who serve a single three-year term, and the new set of advisers hail from Azerbaijan, Canada, Cote d'Ivoire, Denmark, Gambia, Germany, the Netherlands, Niger, Norway, Qatar, South Africa and Sweden.

UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher thanked the outgoing members for their work and congratulated the new appointees, emphasizing that with humanitarian needs outpacing available resources, CERF is more critical now than ever, serving as a trusted, indispensable fund to enable rapid, effective responses to crises worldwide.

Established by the UN General Assembly in 2005, CERF is one of the fastest and most effective ways to ensure that urgently needed humanitarian assistance reaches people caught up in crises and enables the delivery of life-saving assistance whenever and wherever crises strike. ■