Humanitarian assistance, which is often predicated on emergency relief, is in practice overwhelmingly long-term in response to protracted and recurrent crises. In 2014, more than 90% of countries with annual humanitarian appeals had had such appeals for three or more years, and 60% for more than eight years. While humanitarian assistance is designed to be stop-gap and short term, humanitarian activities have, by default, expanded into recovery and basic service provision in protracted crises, where extreme, widespread and unpredictable needs exist alongside longterm structural vulnerabilities, and where there are major barriers to scaling up development funding and activities.
This expanding humanitarian remit has affected donors as protracted crises consume more and more of their limited capacities and funds. The need for humanitarian aid is outpacing donor funding to such a degree that donors are only able to contribute 50–60% of requirements each year.