Contingent Emergency Response Component (CERC) of a World Bank project is a contingent financing tool that allows for quick disbursement of uncommitted balances from existing IPFs in the event of a crisis or emergency. The CERC is prepared as a project component during the original project’s preparation (pre-planning) and activated without needing to restructure the original project. Many Bank-financed projects already have a CERC, although these can be added to existing projects for an imminent or actual emergency (such as COVID-19). Most CERCs are set up as zero-component, that is, no funding is earmarked to this component in the project. CERCs allow funds to be redirected from other parts of the project to cover emergency response needs as long as those expenditures are eligible under the project.