The UN agency for Humanitarian Affairs says it has allocated $84 million to under funded emergencies in 15 countries where people are suffering the effects of natural disasters and conflicts.

The funds were made available to the countries on Tuesday, a UN statement quoted UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Valerie Amos, as saying.

The statement said humanitarian actors in Somalia received the largest single allocation of $15 million while UN agencies in Ethiopia would receive the second largest amount of $11 million.

Agencies working in Chad will receive $8 million while humanitarian partners in Kenya will receive $6 million to assist refugees, the statement added.

Humanitarian programmes in the Central African Republic, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe had each been allocated $5 million.

Programmes to assist people in Burundi, Madagascar and the occupied Palestinian territory would receive $4 million apiece.

According to the UN agency, humanitarian actors in Colombia, Djibouti and Myanmar would each receive $3 million to bolster their emergency programmes while Iran would receive $3 million for Iraqi and Afghan refugees.

The UN estimated that in 2010, a total of $139 million was allocated to 17 under-funded emergencies.

Since 2006, nearly a third of the $1.9 billion allocated from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) had gone to chronically neglected crises in more than 50 countries.

CERF is funded by voluntary contributions from member states, NGOs, local governments, the private sector and individual donors.

The UN said donors had so far pledged nearly $358 million in support of CERF this year.