London SOHS 2018 launch: How is the humanitarian system performing?

Photo credit: Tim Harcourt-Powell/ALNAP

On 5 December 2018, ALNAP launched its 4th edition of The State of the Humanitarian System (SOHS) report in London.

Joined by donors, practitioners and academics from across the sector, the event brought about a rich discussion on how the system is performing, the obstacles it’s currently facing and those that have yet to come.

4 key themes that emerged from the discussion:

A slowly shrinking system within a fast-changing world?

In her opening words to the panel, Helen Alderson, Head of ICRC’s Regional Delegation for the UK & Ireland, emphasised that the ‘humanitarian system’, as far as it can currently be measured, is ‘a shrinking part’ of the full response. This system in her eyes, is fairly Western, multi-lateral and as pointed out by SOHS 2018 relies on a small number of donors, a proposition which Alderson deems hugely risky.

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 from SOHS 2018). 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.

She called for a better understanding of new actors currently operating in the wider response, stating that traditional humanitarian actors will need to reach out to others with the influence, capacity and clout to provide the things that aid recipients need, but that this humanitarian system may not be equipped to provide. As the world changes at a rate faster than the system has been able to adapt, Alderson suggested humanitarians must look more closely at the needs expressed by crisis affected people, and work with emerging actors to better respond to them.

The foreign policy of aid

In a question to the panel, former BBC Correspondent and Chair, Mike Wooldridge pointed out that from 2014-17, crises in Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Syria alone accounted for 55% of the funding requested and received by the UN. With the concentration of humanitarian funding sent to only a few countries, he asked whether the panel thought that the system was failing other largely forgotten crises.

Source: Development Initiatives based on UN OCHA FTS data.

Notes: Bars scaled by volume of international humanitarian assistance reported. Totals are shown by crisis rather than country and, in the cases of Syria, Yemen and South Sudan, funding is for the regional crises. Data is in constant 2016 prices. Totals in this chart will differ from those calculated by country, rather than crisis, in figures 2 and 5, and from those sourced based on appeals only in figure 9 of SOHS 2018.

Alderson replied that this is not new, but that the politicisation of aid, and a tendency to ‘fund in the national interest’, has exacerbated this trend. She added that the Sahel, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Colombia and Afghanistan have also fallen off the radar, with funds concentrating in certain areas of Middle East instead - a place close to home and with a security aspect for many donors.

Alderson also pointed to a decline in unearmarked funding as further evidence of this politicisation. Unearmarked funding allows neutral organisations to reach these forgotten crises, inaccessible to other actors and not directly funded by donors. This was noted by interviewees in relation to donor restrictions on operations and coverage in SOHS 2018.

The balance of risk taking and risk aversion

Sara Almer, Humanitarian Programme Coordinator with Oxfam, stated that the highest risks to humanitarian workers are being experienced by national workers and national organisations operating locally in crises. A point which resonates with SOHS 2018 findings, which state that national actors constituted the majority of field staff across all responses in the period 2015–2017.

Source: Humanitarian Outcomes (2018). 

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

Almer acknowledged that there has always been an accepted level of risk around humanitarian assistance. But while casualties among aid workers may not have significantly increased, this period has seen much more violent crises, in which actors are frequently being asked to respond in areas they haven’t before.

Although there may never have been a ‘golden age’ for humanitarian response, Almer and Alderson both insisted that respect for international humanitarian law and the ability to negotiate with actors has seen a clear decline. This was noted, along with a decline in refugee law, by most SOHS 2018 key informants who discussed the topic in interviews. Given this changing environment, Almer noted the positive response she’s witnessed from some donors, where they have taken on an acceptable level of risk to assist people through a collaborative approach. Almer gave the example of South Sudan last year, where in response to the famine declaration she witnessed international organisations working together with donors and local actors achieve clear results in alleviating the effects of famine.

In her final comment, Almer stated that if we’re serious about the localisation agenda, and supporting local actors, ‘we’re going to have to deal with a higher level of risk’.  

Are humanitarians getting better at saving lives or not?

Mike Wooldridge asked lead author of the SOHS 2018 report Paul Knox Clarke, whether humanitarians were really getting better at saving lives.

‘Put simply’, Knox Clarke’s answer was yes. He stated that a lot of the ‘very limited’ literature available on mortality and excess mortality in crises, suggests that the system has been quite good at saving lives in camps for a while now. Knox Clarke explained that camps provide a controlled environment, where actors can regulate many of the variables.

In writing the SOHS 2018 report however, Knox Clarke found a number of occasions where humanitarian action seemed to be able to maintain its ability to save lives in camp situations as well as getting better at doing the same in a wide variety of non-camp situations. He noted examples such as Somalia 2017 compared to 2011, the humanitarian contribution to the Ebola response and the response to the cholera outbreak in Yemen.

This event summary was written by Cara Casey-Boyce, Communications Officer at ALNAP. 

Event details

The first official launch of the SOHS 2018 took place at the offices of the ODI in London on 5 December 2018. 80 people attended in person, with over 100 online.

Key findings from the report were presented by ALNAP Director, John Mitchell. The following panel discussion was chaired by Mike Wooldridge, former International Affairs Correspondent for the BBC.

The panel included Helen Alderson, Head of Regional Delegation for the UK & Ireland at the ICRC; Sara Almer, Humanitarian Programme Coordinator at Oxfam; and Paul Knox-Clarke, lead author of the SOHS 2018 report and Head of Research at ALNAP.