Data story: The state of the system in 9 charts

05 December 2018

The 9 charts below show some important elements of humanitarian need and performance in the period 2015–2017.

Some things have not changed: in every edition of The State of the Humanitarian System (SOHS) to date, humanitarian need has outstripped the resources available to address it. And – despite increased funding (see below) – the gap between needs and resources remains.

A contributing factor to this gap is the growing number of people in need: 201.5 million in 2017, the highest estimate to date. The chart below – which breaks down the numbers by region and top three countries within each – shows how needs are becoming concentrated. Almost a quarter of all people in need are now in only three countries: Yemen, Syria and Turkey. It also underlines a geographical shift in humanitarian needs: for the past five years an increasing share of needs have occurred in the Middle East.

Most humanitarian action (judged by expenditure) takes place in countries experiencing multiple humanitarian needs. The largest single element of total expenditure goes to countries hosting refugees and simultaneously experiencing conflict. The importance of conflict as a driver of humanitarian need helps to explain why coverage – the ability of people to access humanitarian assistance – is getting worse. Combatants increasingly ignore humanitarian law and prevent humanitarian assistance entering conflict areas.

The amount of money coming into the system has continued to grow but at a slower pace. Despite reaching the highest level to date ($27.3 billion in 2017); when compared to 2016 and 2015 the increase was only about 3% year-on-year, a much smaller percentage than in years prior to 2015. Humanitarian funding may have plateaued.

Not much has changed in terms of where the money is coming from and where it is going to. The chart below shows that the long-standing trend of directing funding through UN agencies and INGOs in the first instance held throughout 2015–17.

In 2015–17, the number of refugees in the world went up by 33%. There was also increased political and media focus on the issue of refugees and displaced people. While these debates often concerned displaced people in high-income countries, it is worth remembering that it is generally middle- and low- income countries who host the largest numbers of displaced people: 7 out of 10 displaced people were hosted by a middle-income country in 2017, 2 out of 10 by low-income countries, and  0.7 out of 10 by high-income countries.

To find out more about the first 5 charts, please refer to the Needs and funding chapter of the report.

 

The SOHS 2018 shows that humanitarian assistance is getting better in some ways. ALNAP has been carrying out surveys of aid recipients since 2012, and this allows us to compare data over time. This year, ALNAP received 5,000 responses from aid recipients in five countries and – along with other sources – these suggest that the quality and relevance of aid is improving overall. Interviews and evaluations suggest that this is particularly the case for short-term, life-saving assistance.

Aid recipients also increasingly feel that they are treated with dignity and respect by (both national and international) aid providers.

Improved feelings of dignity might be – at least in part – a result of the increased use of consultation and feedback mechanisms. The SOHS 2018 shows that there is a clear relationship between consulting people and providing channels for feedback on the one hand, and positive feelings around dignity, relevance and quality on the other. However, interviews with both practitioners and affected people suggest that consultation and feedback would be more effective if it was used more often to inform important decisions.

To find out more about these last 3 charts, please refer to The perspectives of aid recipients section of the report.

 

 

Chart sources & notes
1. Requirements against funding in UN-coordinated appeals

Sources: Development Initiatives based on UN OCHA FTS and UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) data.

Notes: 2012 data includes the Syria Regional Response Plan (3RP) monitored by UNHCR. 2015 data does not include the Yemen Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan. To avoid double counting of the regional appeals with the country appeals in 2015, the Burundi Regional Refugee Response Plan does not include the DRC component, CAR’s Regional Refugee Response Plan only includes the Republic of Congo component, and the Nigeria Regional Refugee Response Plan does not include any country component. 2016 and 2017 data does not include regional appeals tracked via UNHCR (CAR and Yemen in 2016; South Sudan, Burundi and Nigeria in 2016 and 2017). Data is in current prices. Totals in this chart will differ from those calculated by crisis, rather than country country, in figures 11 and 14 in the report.

2. Number of people in need and top three countries by region, 2017

Sources: Development Initiatives based on ACAPS, FAO, GRFC Population in Crisis, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters and UN OCHA.

Notes: DRC: Democratic Republic of the Congo. Region naming conventions used throughout this report are primarily based on those used by the OECD DAC; the Middle East and North of Sahara regions have been combined.

3. International humanitarian assistance by crisis type, 2017

Source: Development Initiatives based on ACAPS, FAO, UNHCR, UNRWA, INFORM Index for Risk Management, CRED and FTS data. 

Notes: Complex crises in the chart comprise those countries that were marked as having scored the criteria for all three of the types of crisis above (conflict, refugee crisis and ‘natural’ hazards). ‘Other’ refers to those recipients that were not specified and therefore could not be coded using DI’s methodology. Data in constant prices 2016. Diagram not to scale. Calculations are based on shares of country-allocable humanitarian assistance. Totals in this chart will differ from those calculated by crisis, rather than country, in Figures 11 and 14, and from those based on UN appeals only in Figure 9 in the report.

4. International humanitarian assistance, 2013 – 2017

Source: Development Initiatives based on ACAPS, FAO, UNHCR, UNRWA, INFORM Index for Risk Management, CRED and FTS data.

Notes: Complex crises in the chart comprise those countries that were marked as having scored the criteria for all three of the types of crisis above (conflict, refugee crisis and ‘natural’ hazards). ‘Other’ refers to those recipients that were not specified and therefore could not be coded using DI’s methodology. Data in constant prices 2016. Diagram not to scale. Calculations are based on shares of country-allocable humanitarian assistance. Totals in this chart will differ from those calculated by crisis, rather than country, in figures 11 and 14, and from those based on UN appeals only in figure 9 in the report.

5. Funding channels of international humanitarian assistance – first-level recipients, 2016

Source: Development Initiatives based on Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC), UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Financial Tracking Service (FTS) and UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) data and Development Initiatives’ unique dataset for private contributions.

Notes: RCRC: International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. First-level recipient data from government donors and EU institutions uses OECD DAC Creditor Reporting System (CRS), UN CERF and UN OCHA FTS data. Calculations for total humanitarian assistance from OECD DAC donors use data from OECD DAC Tables 1, 2a and ‘Members’ total use of the multilateral system’, so totals may differ. ‘Public sector’ refers both to the OECD definition and reporting to the FTS. OECD DAC CRS codes ‘other’, ‘to be defined’ and ‘public–private partnerships’ are merged to ‘other’. Private funding figures use DI’s unique dataset on private contributions for humanitarian assistance. Data is in constant 2016 prices.

6. Displaced populations by host country income level

Sources: Development Initiatives based on UNHCR, UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) data.

Notes: World Bank classification has been used for income groups; the ‘Middle Income group’ aggregates Upper Middle Income and Lower Middle Income groups. Based on UNRWA data, Palestinian registered refugees are included as refugees for Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, and as IDPs for Palestine.

7. 'Were you satisfied with the quality of aid you received?' – SOHS 2012, 2015 and 2018 aid recipient survey aggregate responses

Notes: The countries covered by the SOHS aid recipient surveys are as follows: 2012: DRC, Pakistan, Haiti and Uganda; 2015: DRC, Pakistan and the Philippines; 2018: DRC, Kenya, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and Iraq. 

8. 'Where you treated with respect and dignity?' – SOHS 2012, 2015 and 2018 aid recipient survey aggregate responses

Notes: The countries covered by the SOHS aid recipient surveys are as follows: 2012: DRC, Pakistan, Haiti and Uganda; 2015: DRC, Pakistan and the Philippines; 2018: DRC, Kenya, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and Iraq. 

9. Comparison of feedback, consultation and respect responses – SOHS 2018 aid recipients survey

Notes: While consultation and feedback mechanisms strongly correlated with the degree to which people felt respected, many aid recipients who were not able to provide feedback also reported that that they had been treated with respect, and some aid recipients who provided feedback did not feel treated with respect.