Data story: What's the shape and size of the humanitarian system?

05 November 2018

The State of the Humanitarian System (SOHS) 2018 examines the composition of the humanitarian system in terms of staff and funding. In short, between 2015-2017 the sector became more capital-intensive in programming and more national in personnel.

In 2017, the total combined field personnel of the humanitarian sector numbered approximately 570,000. This represents an increase of 27% from the last SOHS report (450,000 in 2013). Growing numbers of national humanitarian workers appeared to drive this increase, while the number of international (expatriate) staff remained stable.

The chart below shows the breakdown between national and international staff within these agencies (hovering over the key will highlight the corresponding share for each category).

The majority of funding continued to be directed to UN agencies in the first instance, with WFP, UNHCR and UNICEF the three largest in terms of expenditure. Much of this funding was then passed on as grants to NGOs. As in 2015, UN agencies and NGOs spent similar amounts overall ($16 billion for the UN and $16.8 billion for NGOs in 2017). Expenditure by the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement fell in proportion to both UN organisations and NGOs as a result of decreased expenditure by National Societies.

Little has changed in the donor government front: the 20 largest donors provided 96% of government contributions in 2017, virtually the same as in 2015. The three largest donors – the US, the UK and Germany – accounted for 59% of the total.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) remains the largest humanitarian NGO in terms of operational expenditure and is now the largest humanitarian entity of any kind in terms of staff size, outstripping even the largest UN agencies in the number of staff dedicated to humanitarian response. The other giants among INGOs when measured by humanitarian expenditure are, in descending order, World Vision, the International Rescue Committee, the Norwegian Refugee Council (which for the first time featured among the top tier of humanitarian NGOs  spending in excess of $400 million per year on humanitarian operations), Save the Children International and Catholic Relief Services. Together, these six organisations accounted for nearly a quarter of the combined humanitarian spend reported by NGOs.

Chart sources & notes
1. National and international humanitarian field personnel

Source: Humanitarian Outcomes (2018). Notes: The figures shown are for the calendar years 2013 (SOHS 2015) and 2017 (SOHS 2018). 

2. Breakdown of national and international staff by agency, 2017

All figures are for the 2017 calendar year, apart from National Red Cross/Crescent Societies, where the most recent data is from 2016. 

* Includes UN agency members of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), plus the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). 

** Includes the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and National Red Cross/Red Crescent Societies in non-high-income countries. 

3. Humanitarian assistance from donor governments, 2017

Source: Development Initiatives based on OECD DAC, FTS and CERF. Notes: 2017 data for OECD DAC is preliminary. Contributions of EU member states include an imputed amount of their expenditure (see chapter on components, methods and approach). EU institutions are also included separately for comparison and are shaded differently to distinguish them from government donors. Although Turkey is the largest donor on the basis of the humanitarian assistance it voluntarily reports to the DAC (providing $8,070 million in 2017), this largely comprises expenditure on hosting Syrian refugees within the country. As such, it is not strictly comparable with the international humanitarian assistance from other donors in this figure (which does not include expenditure on refugees in the donor country) and has not been included. 

4. INGO shares of humanitarian spend (in $ million)

Source: Humanitarian Outcomes, Global Database of Humanitarian Organisations. Notes: These figures were sourced from annual reports and financial statements, supplemented with website information and direct queries to the organisations. 

How is data calculated?

​​​​​​The analysis of the composition of the humanitarian system in this edition of SOHS is based on a desk review of available sources, direct queries to agencies and organisations and the use of an algorithm for systematic imputation to produce rigorous estimates of the size and configuration of the system’s key components – the UN, the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement and non-governmental organisations operating in humanitarian relief. The analysis aims to identify significant changes or trends since the last SOHS report.

To find out more, please refer to Chapter 6: Composition of the system.

What counts as the ‘humanitarian system’?

The system as defined here comprises all organisational entities funded specifically to undertake humanitarian action, which constitutes their primary mandate or mission. They are operationally or financially related to each other and share common overarching goals, norms and principles.

They include:

  • local, national and international NGOs conducting humanitarian activities
  • UN humanitarian agencies
  • the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
  • host government agencies and authorities and regional/ intergovernmental agencies
  • donor agencies: primarily government agencies, but also trusts and other donors.
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As the humanitarian system is open to other influences, these organisations will often interact with and be influenced by entities involved in crisis contexts, which are not related to the same funding mechanisms as the humanitarian system and/or whose main objectives are not the provision of humanitarian aid and protection.

These entities include:

  • national militaries and civil defence groups
  • development actors
  • the private sector
  • diaspora groups
  • civil society groups (such as faith groups) that do not have an explicitly humanitarian function
  • the media
  • academia.

These organisations also play critical roles related to humanitarian responses, and may work in parallel to, and at times in coordination with, actors from the system. This report focuses on the ‘formal system’ as it is a construct which is more amenable to quantification and analysis than ‘all individuals and organisations involved in crises’. However, it does not seek to obscure the importance of these actors, and wherever possible their contribution and relationship to the response is captured in the report.

For more detail about exactly what was included, please refer to Chapter 2, Introduction.