The Common Humanitarian Fund in Central African Republic (CHF-CAR) was established in July 2008 as an expansion of the Emergency Response Fund (ERF) in CAR. Similar to the Sudan CHF and the DRC Pooled Fund, it is a pooled funding mechanism under the overall authority of the Humanitarian Coordinator (HC), that is intended to give the HC greater ability to target funds to the most critical humanitarian needs in CAR, encourage early donor contributions and enable a rapid response to unforeseen circumstances.

Humanitarian projects included in the Coordinated Aid Programme (CAP) for CAR are eligible for CHF-CAR funding during two rounds of allocations each year. Both the CAP and the CHF-CAR help advance humanitarian aid reforms as proposed in the Secretary-General's report, In Larger Freedom (2005), such as strengthened response capacity, more predictable and timely funding to organizations, strengthened coordination, as well as donors' endorsement of Good Humanitarian Donorship (GHD) principles.

Priority programmes and projects of the CHF-CAR are implemented by a range of organizations such as UN Organizations, international and national Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). 64 percent of projects funded under the CHF-CAR are projects submitted and implemented by NGOs.