key trends and challenges facing the humanitarian system

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