SUMMARY
Tens of millions of people receive vita l humanitarian aid every year. Oxfam alone helped more than 8 million people in 2014, including 3.6 million with better access to clean water; and in June 2015 the UN was appealing for funds to reach 78.9 million people across 37 countries. However, millions suffer without adequate help or protection, and the number of people exposed to crises seems to relentlessly increase.
This is not primarily because the so-called ‘humanitarian system’ is failing, but because of the injustice at the heart of humanitarian crises:
• The poorest and least powerful are always the most vulnerable;
• Those who cause conflicts and climate change are the last to pay for their consequences;
• Too many states – and other armed groups – ride roughshod over their citizens’ rights to assistance and protection; and
• Too many other governments, including those sitting on the UN Security Council, squabble over political rivalries instead of uniting to uphold the international law that already exists.
What is wrong is not that humanitarian action has stood still. It has not. The World Humanitarian Summit’s host, Turkey, exemplifies the contribution of nations that have been traditionally excluded from the Western ‘club’ of humanitarian leaders. If the $1.6bn it spent on hosting Syrian refugees in 2013 is included, Turkey gives more humanitarian aid than any other country except the US and UK. 4
Despite the UN’s ‘Transformative Agenda’, international humanitarian aid has not been transformed. The series of reforms that have resulted from the painful lessons of past crises since the Cold War must be successfully completed. The promise of swifter, more appropriate and more accountable aid must be kept – not only for disaster response, but also to invest more humanitarian and development aid in reducing the risk of future disasters, and in the long-term recovery from the world’s tragically long list of protracted crises.
This requires a real transformation in both humanitarian and development aid. The world’s donors must get more funds onto the ground, where aid actually happens, and minimize the money lost in the UN and international NGOs that serve as the ‘middle men’ of the international humanitarian world. Local governments, national and local NGOs and civil society must be empowered to lead wherever they can.
This would not render UN agencies and international NGOs obsolete – far from it. The rising tide of disasters makes them more vital than ever before. But there must be a clearer distinction of how they add value; for example, by rapidly scaling up in massive disasters; by strengthening the capacity of local organizations and their networks; and by bearing witness to the horrors of conflicts that the world too often ignores.
However, the fundamental way to reduce the terrible toll of suffering in humanitarian crises is not any change to international aid. It is to uphold the international humanitarian and refugee law to which governments have already agreed. It is to act on humanitarian principles, such as impartiality, every day. It is to tackle the inequalities and injustices that drive humanitarian crises.