key trends and challenges facing the humanitarian system
TRANSCRIPT
Montreux XIKey Trends and Challenges facing the Humanitarian System
Presentation by John Mitchell, Director ALNAP
Typology of Response: 4 ModelsModel 1:
States with existing or emerging social contract
Limited role for international agencies:
China- Sichuan earthquake USA- Hurricane Katrina Chile- earthquake 2010 Australia- floods 2010
Typology of response
Model 2:
States with a growing capacity to respond
Request international agencies to supplement local capacities:
Pakistan earthquake 2005 India- Bihar floods Mozambique- floods 2008
Typology of responseModel 3:
States with limited capacity to respond and protect their citizens
request international agencies to supplement their efforts resulting in a fully fledged international response:
Bangladesh- Cyclone Sidr Haiti- earthquake
Typology of responseModel 4:
States without resilient social contract and providing very limited assistance (and protection) for their citizens in times of disasters
International system provides a combination of direct delivery of aid combined with diplomacy and advocacy:
Myanmar Cyclone Nargis Sudan Somalia Zimbabwe
(source: Ramalingam, B.)
Aid to fragile states
Source: Development Initiatives GHA
A snapshot of current system-wide performance
Growth Funding up in all sectors (still perceived as insufficient?) Increased delivery of materials and services More agencies and aid workers
Improvement? Timeliness Coordination Needs assessment Upward accountability
Progress is incremental and generally slow
5 Key Challenges Preparedness and Risk Reduction
Partnership and working together
Leadership
Accountability to recipients
Innovation
Key Challenge 1: Be better prepared and reduce risk
National governments increasingly effective on DRR
International System’s focus mainly on specific inputs, sector or community
Limited impact – vulnerability reduced but due to other interventions rather than directly from DRR projects
DRR requires working in a holistic way across a range of sectors
Key Challenge 2: Be better partners and coalition players
Coordination - lack of incentives to coordinate
‘Me first’ attitude amongst agencies
When things go wrong:
duplication of activities; competition for local staff and resources; inappropriate substitution for government services; undermining of local structures
Hypothesis: Aid works best through effective collective action
Key Challenge 3: Better leadership
Humanitarian operational leadership requires: networking and relational skills; working in complexity with limited information; values and sectoral experience
Model of ‘strong leader’ and ‘follower’ replaced by model of distributed leadership?
Requires sector to look at assumptions: about what leadership is about attitude to risk
Key Challenge 4: Be more accountable to recipients
Upward accountability
System-wide accountability
Accountability to affected populations
Key Challenge 5: Be more innovative System tends to operate within the same mental and
practical models: real improvements require changes in mindset and organisational culture
Recent innovations include
community-based feeding therapy cash-based programming use of mobile phones
Future trends - UrbanisationWorld tipping into being more urban than rural
Future trends – Natural Disasters Very likely increase in heat
waves, floods and droughts (with associated disease morbidity and mortality)
Likely increase in tropical cyclone intensity and frequency
Asian and African mega deltas particularly at risk
Future trends – Livelihood Security Changes in water availability –
“hundreds of millions of people toexposed water stress”
Changes in cereal productivity –
IPCC says Africa likely to be “adverselyaffect[ed]”
Future trends and models of response
What this means for the international humanitarian system
Three options:
1.‘Business as usual’
2.Improve ability to respond to model 4 ‘providers of last resort’
3.Improve ability to respond to models 2, 3, 4 ‘humanitarian partners’
The role of the State in emergency response
1990’s: rise of NGOs Tension between sovereign role of state and
fundamental humanitarian principles BUT - recognition that dialogue and some form of
cooperation need to begin in earnest
EU relief budget
Findings from 26th ALNAP Meeting
NDMAs and regional bodies playing increasingly prominent role in both DRR & emergency response
This activity not being picked up: danger of a dislocated system
Tensions revealed between different stakeholders: need to build trust
Meeting findings
Seeing a move away from traditional model of international humanitarian assistance towards a new model of humanitarian cooperation
NDMAs want to create guiding principles for collaboration between governments and international humanitarian actors
Summary Four current response models
Future trends running counter to current paradigms
5 key challenges: preparedness; partnerships and coalitions; leadership; accountability and innovation
Towards a new model of humanitarian cooperation
Key action points Move towards a comprehensive framework for DRR and
humanitarian response.
Rethink the concept of risk in relation to supporting leadership and innovation
Rethink the traditional model of humanitarian response so that the affected population and governments are ‘insiders’
Build collaborative structures and processes required for these structures