The annual Global Humanitarian Assistance (GHA) report comprehensively assesses international financing at work in humanitarian situations since 2000.
The GHA Report 2008 presents the latest data on financial flows to humanitarian crises. But the key messages in the report are not only about money. Financing decisions affect behaviour and humanitarian architecture. They help determine the power of different groups, they influence policy priorities and capacity development.
Total humanitarian assistance from the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reached US$9.2 billion in 2006 in current prices. While there was a small decrease in both total humanitarian assistance (-6%) and official development assistance (ODA, -5%) compared to 2005, both volumes are significantly higher than for any previous year – and the long-term trend is still upwards. And while total ODA has increased substantially in three of the last four years, humanitarian assistance has maintained a fairly constant 9% share.
Despite lacking a flash ‘headline crisis’, 2006 saw one of the best performances since 2000 in terms of CAP appeal coverage. In 2007, although the gap between best and worst funded crises increased, the share of needs met overall improved, reaching 72%. This hints at better alignment of bilateral humanitarian assistance priorities – and suggests that mechanisms such as the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) are starting to meet their objectives of strengthening core elements of humanitarian response in underfunded crises as well as mobilising support from relatively new donors that might otherwise lack the appropriate means to administer emergency funds bilaterally. Nonetheless, this still means that more than a quarter of the humanitarian needs identified by the UN as the higher priorities went unfunded and unmet in both 2006 and 2007.
