We've just uploaded the Summary GHA Report 2009. If you want to know what we believe were the main trends of humanitarian financial flows for 2008 then this may be for you, especially if you don’t have time to read the full, in-depth version.
Inside we examine the humanitarian funds that come from what we sometimes call ‘traditional donor countries’ as well as those that are new or newly influential. There are also sections examining the increasing use of pooled funding mechanisms and the increasing role of NGOs in spending humanitarian funds. Through this we show where money comes from and where it goes to and by whom it is spent.
Despite this work there is still much to do. The lack of a single simple database of humanitarian needs and expenditure means much of the work to gather data is time-consuming and frighteningly complex. There are also areas that we know too little about at this stage. Firstly, how does the money spent relate to the scale of requirements – crudely put is US$18 billion being spent on US$18 billion of need? Secondly, the scale of domestic response to humanitarian situations, the role of the diaspora, households and communities, national governments, civil society and the private sector. We hope in 2010 and beyond to have a much better grasp on both areas and reveal the connections to humanitarian expenditure we are already able to track.
The final part of the summary shows the connection between humanitarian aid and chronic poverty and highlights how we have long been funding the same countries in crisis and the same people living in chronic poverty, year on year, all with humanitarian money that is largely reactive and with very short planning cycles. What is the connection to development aid, if any at all, given that still in many cases the institutions and people that manage different assistance work separately, use different financing mechanisms, work with different international and national partners? And what, significantly, is the impact on people desperate to get out of poverty?
Please read the summary and tells us what you think.
We ran this summary through a wordle and this is what we came up with: www.wordle.net
