Public give £72m for East Africa

Appeal one of the most generously supported in DEC history after 100 days.

The DEC has announced that the East Africa Crisis Appeal has raised £72m in the 100 days since it was launched on 8 July.

DEC appeal funds and money from other sources has allowed the DEC member agencies and their partners to provide aid to nine million people in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia.

The DEC East Africa Crisis Appeal will remain open until the end of the year but it is already one of the most generously supported in our history.  We usually try to avoid making direct comparisons between disasters - each one is different and for those affected their suffering is always incomparable.  We also usually prefer not to compare giving levels between appeals because we take the view that all giving is generous and should be welcomed unreservedly.

On this occassion, because the results for the East Africa Appeal are so extraordinary, we have made an exception and are making some comparisons between appeal fundraising totals.  In the 100 days since its launch the DEC East Africa Crisis Appeal has raised the third highest total of any appeal in the charity’s 45 year history.  This is also the highest total ever raised for a food crisis, the largest for any African appeal and the largest for any country or regional appeal where conflict was one of the principle causes of a disaster.  More money was raised only for the 2004 Tsunami Earthquake Appeal (£392m) and the 2010 Haiti Earthquake Appeal (£107m).

To aid those who may wish to make their own comparisons in future, we are publishing below a list of the DEC appeals that have raised the largest sums.

Update: Table revised with latest figures, September 2012