Longread about the humanitarian sector
Humanitarian assistance in natural disasters or armed conflicts is a relatively modern invention. The current structure of the international humanitarian sector emerged only in the mid-20th century. Although examples of mutual aid can be found among all peoples and religions, it was only after the First World War that it became apparent that organized professional assistance was needed when a large number of people suffer or perish due to a catastrophe.
The early humanitarian sector began to take shape after the Battle of Solferino in 1859, when Austrian and French troops clashed. Jean-Henri Dunant, a sympathetic Swiss businessman, organized medical assistance for soldiers from both sides, which later led to the founding of the Red Cross (ICRC), a humanitarian organization that Ukrainians sometimes dislike (and for good reason).
The humanitarian sector gradually evolved. Later, the Geneva Conventions were signed. The principles of international humanitarian law (IHL) were established, which regulate the conduct of armed conflict (remember how the “rules of war” surprised many?). In particular, the third rule of the Geneva Conventions is the protection of prisoners of war, but like all others, it is ignored by one country. This rule also grants the Red Cross exclusive permission to visit prisoners of war in places of detention, but even this rule is not upheld, and we do not know where and under what conditions our military personnel are held.
Everything finally took shape into a clear structure with roles distributed among various organizations, proudly called the “humanitarian sector” – after 1945 – with the creation of the UN.
Every year, the UN publishes the largest report on the global humanitarian situation. And every year, the number of crises exceeds the capacity of humanitarian organizations to respond to them.
The number of those suffering tripled only in the period from 2018 to 2020.
According to Humanitarian Action by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the number of people in the world in need of humanitarian assistance in 2023 reached 339 million.
The latest appeal from Mr. António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General for 2023, can be viewed here. From it, you will learn that last year only 128 million people received assistance, and of the required $57 billion, only a third was collected. And this is the largest funding shortfall in the humanitarian sector in decades…
What do these humanitarian organizations do?
There are several types of humanitarian aid, and certain organizations may provide several types or focus on one. These include shelter, water and food, sanitation and medical assistance, and education.
Humanitarian organizations start acting when they see that governments are unable to cope with the challenge independently and request intervention. For example, if there is an earthquake in Turkey, affecting 50,000 people, and Turkey itself cannot provide all the evacuees with drinking water, a team of humanitarian workers is dispatched to help. For instance, humanitarian workers from UN-Water.
Remember: humanitarian aid has the characteristic of being provided urgently. Otherwise, it would simply be called “international assistance”.
All international humanitarian organizations must complement the work of government and local civil society organizations, not replace them. In our case, UN-Water will supply water to those regions where the Turkish Ministry of Social Policy cannot.
Here’s what an ideal picture of ideal cooperation among all parties during a crisis looks like:
To ensure this perfect coordination of everyone with everyone and to understand who will lead what, there is a cluster approach. This is the basis of the architecture of the humanitarian sphere. Coordinates all the UN, but it is not only for the UN, because the structure also includes local and state humanitarian organizations.
There are 11 clusters in total, they cover all participants and all organizations involved in the response to the crisis:
The largest providers of humanitarian aid in the world include: UN agencies (there are many, such as UNICEF – in the field of education, FAO – in the field of food, UNHCR – for refugee assistance, etc.); Red Cross, Action Against Hunger, CARE, Doctors Without Borders, International Rescue Committee (IRC), and others.
When it comes specifically to the education sector, the largest providers of humanitarian aid are currently: UNICEF and Save the Children.
All of them are international humanitarian organizations, or INGOs. Typically, they provide funding and implement projects through smaller local organizations, known as NGOs, and they also monitor and demand reports from them.
The Unbreakable Ukraine Foundation is a local organization, i.e., an NGO, and receives/received funding from INGOs, i.e., from international humanitarian organizations such as UNICEF, Save the Children International, CARE International in Poland. We provide detailed transparent descriptive and financial reports to each donor every two weeks or once a month. We are obligated to account for every person and every penny – reporting requirements are very strict.
4 humanitarian principles
Humanitarian workers have their own commandments – principles. There are a couple of classifications, but basically, there are only 4. These are: humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.
In particular, neutrality means that humanitarian organizations should not take sides in a conflict. For example, if there are many refugees due to Russian aggression in Ukraine, the familiar Red Cross should equally care for both Ukrainians and Russians. Just like that, it might surprise you 🙂
These principles were established in 1965, stamped, and since then – they have remained unchanged. All humanitarian organizations (such as UNICEF) are required to adhere to them.
Is the humanitarian sector ready to change?
The humanitarian sector has faced and continues to face many questions. Due to its bureaucratized vertical structure and a too long chain of participants subordinate to each other, money is often used inefficiently. By the time it descends from the top, overcoming all obstacles, only a few pennies reach the final recipient.
The genocide in Rwanda (1994) was a turning point for the aid sector. There were flagrant violations of the rights of a huge number of people. To put it mildly. If you remember, then overnight, one tribe almost wiped out nearly a million members of another tribe. And there was no assistance… Since then, experts have developed numerous professional standards and guidelines that form the basis of the work of humanitarian organizations. They outline how to act, how quickly aid should be provided (urgently! we already know this, right?), who should provide it, and so on.
The goal of this whole set of rules is to improve the accountability, effectiveness, and efficiency of humanitarian response. Everything is spelled out to the smallest detail – down to the amount of water in milligrams that should be provided to a person for a dignified life. It is also coordinated among different branches and sectors. For example, when many local organizations in Ukraine are simultaneously helping women with children, there is a clear division of roles to avoid situations where the same women receive assistance twice, while others do not receive any. Additionally, different humanitarian organizations must communicate with each other to jointly coordinate actions.
The Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) is a collection of such standards and rules developed in 2014. It describes the basic elements of quality humanitarian assistance.
The Sphere is a movement for change and improvement in the humanitarian sector. They have developed their own collection – the Humanitarian Charter, and their practical booklet – The Sphere Handbook – is an effective tool, just take it and implement it.
There are others. All of them are currently voluntary to comply with. The obligation of humanitarian organizations is to adhere to the principles mentioned above. Reporting is mandatory only if someone has given you money.
Discussions about changes are ongoing, there is no decision
Not all representatives of the aid sector agree that the four principles are still relevant. “These four principles are no longer suitable for guiding and shaping the humanitarian actions of the international community,” say scientists Clarke and Parris (2010) in a scientific article.
Why? Because these general principles too often “served as a justification for both actions and inaction by those responding to humanitarian crises. The structure of the humanitarian sector over 150 years of existence has become more complicated, and therefore these principles do not cover the entire range of challenges of modernity.”
Another scholar, academic Hugo Slim, also insists that “neutrality” should already be removed from the agenda. And it is also necessary to review the rule according to which humanitarian organizations are prohibited from providing weapons.
Additionally, many complaints have been made (and are still being made) about the inflexibility of large organizations. “INGOs demand too much unnecessary paperwork, coordination, and things that require human energy. Large and small international humanitarian organizations or those that have access to funds spend a significant portion of financial, human, and communication resources on organizing their own work, which is too huge a resource that can be used more innovatively and effectively.”
After numerous publications in the humanitarian sector, long discussions and debates began. They argued about different things. But in the end, they agreed that it could not go on like this.
At the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016, representatives of the most influential humanitarian organizations agreed that a plan for change was needed. Otherwise, aid would not solve the main task – helping those in need.
They agreed on “localization of humanitarian aid.” This means that large humanitarian giants will provide more authority, funding, and resources to local small NGOs operating in crisis-affected countries. After all, local organizations know the context, needs, people, their national characteristics, culture, and other nuances better.
Earlier it was like this: local residents were mostly excluded from the decision-making process because they seemed less professional. So, a UN office manager would come and say, “We need to do this and that.”
To which the locals would respond: “But that’s not true because we have 1..2..3.”
However, nobody cared. “The elders know best!” 🙂
After 2016, the situation began to change somewhat. The #ShiftThePower movement began. A change in the Charter 4 was developed. And then the loud Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement happened. The participants who were usually left out spoke up. Then COVID-19 happened, and all representatives of international organizations, for whom it became harder to travel around the world, said: well, indeed, local NGOs should work at the local level, not us, residents of Switzerland. Locals specialize better in their own problems, and they are the first to respond to a crisis and bear the greatest burden in unstable conditions.
This is all very nice. Thank you very much. But what about in practice?
It's time to act! For sure already
The wars in Ukraine, Syria, and Gaza have further fueled discussions about the humanitarian sector, its neutrality, non-interference, and the prohibition on providing weapons.
Every Ukrainian, upon noticing such a situation, pondered the question: “If providing Ukraine with weapons can stop the killing of civilians, then why can’t it be considered humanitarian aid?”. However, such statements are deemed unacceptable by actors in international humanitarian organizations, as violating the principle of neutrality is considered equivalent to violating a divine commandment.
Many international humanitarian organizations began providing assistance to Ukrainians in Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees after the conflict erupted. Many worthy projects were implemented, and Ukrainians received substantial assistance, with services provided free of charge.
However, in the midst of the war, in mid-2022, the international humanitarian giant CARE published an analytical report stating that the localization of humanitarian aid provision to Ukrainians during the war had failed. Local organizations did not receive enough resources to assist the affected population.
At that time, the UN Financial Tracking Service (FTS) showed that UN agencies received about two-thirds of the humanitarian aid funding for Ukraine, while international organizations received only 6% of the funding, and Ukrainian national organizations received only 0.003%.
This indicates that most international organizations are stuck on the principle of neutrality and are wasting time. Funding is not provided adequately, the affected population does not receive assistance, but reports are submitted on time.
Even Angelina Jolie, with her actions, confirms that priority in providing assistance should be given to small local humanitarian organizations rather than large international ones. She was a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN, but has now left that position to work more on the ground.
Where is the money?
Where do humanitarian organizations get their money from? After all, it’s not cheap to send staff on missions to Africa or the Middle East, deliver food to the starving on another continent, or provide essentials to Ukrainians evacuated to Poland.
There is indeed a considerable amount of money in the humanitarian sector, sourced from various places:
- Private individuals can donate directly to a major fund (for example, UNICEF often collects funds on its Instagram).
- International and national governments can allocate funds to humanitarian organizations.
- The UN itself allocates substantial sums for humanitarian assistance.
- Corporations or businesses contribute a portion of their profits.
The sector is estimated to be over $50 billion.
Do you know how much of this money reaches local and national NGOs? Only 1.5%, according to the 2022 State of the Humanitarian System Report.
So $50 billion is not enough. Funds are not distributed efficiently. The 2022 Global Humanitarian Assistance Report emphasizes that there is a shortage of funds, while crises are escalating. Most countries receive less than half of the funding they need. That means half of the affected population will never see humanitarian aid.
As funds become scarce, the existing volume in the humanitarian sector is simply being redistributed. If in 2022 Ukraine was the number one recipient of aid in the world, by 2023 African organizations started complaining that they received nothing.
In the second half of 2023, which country became the main recipient of aid? That’s right, Palestine. In December, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution to increase humanitarian aid to Gaza. This means that aid will be reduced somewhere else. Can you guess where?
How does the educational cluster of the humanitarian sphere fare? Compared to 2022, donor funding for education was halved in 2023. Out of the $74 million allocated by UNICEF for Ukrainians, 75% of the funds went directly to Ukraine, and 25% to host countries, including Poland. The amount projected for 2024 is even lower.
As of today, Ukraine remains the focus of attention for most organizations, but additional efforts are needed to obtain assistance. Securing international funding, like obtaining weapons for defense, is becoming increasingly difficult.
By the way, during the full-scale war (which has lasted almost 2 years), Russia has only allowed the UN humanitarian mission to cross the front line once. At that time, the humanitarian mission was able to evacuate civilians from the Azovstal metallurgical plant in Mariupol.
Sources:
- Crisis Leadership Program: Seed from the Centre for Humanitarian Leadership and Deakin University
- Introduction to Humanitarian Aid course from Deakin University on Future Learn
- Also see in the text
Author: Maryna Yusyn
Please note: This text is authored content. The foundation’s position may not necessarily coincide with the author’s position.