Rapport beskriver det paradoksale i, at færre humanitære katastrofer udløser et endnu større fald i penge til klodens humanitære ofre - til gengæld har den langsigtede udviklingsbistand alt i alt holdt sig oppe på niveauet fra 2010.

DAKAR, 23 July 2012 (IRIN): Global humanitarian needs declined in 2011 but funding shortfalls continued to widen, according to a report by the UK-based NGO, Development Initiatives.

And resilience (modstandsdygtighed) is the new buzzword in aid response as people across the sector give more thought – but not yet enough action - to helping vulnerable people better withstand shocks, rather than waiting until disaster strikes.

The number of people estimated by UN agencies to be in need of aid fell from 74 million in 2010 to 62 million in 2011 (the figure for 2012 as of June was 61 million), while financial commitments by governments slid nine percent from their 13 billion US dollar historic peak in 2010 for the Haiti and Pakistan disasters.

Although UN Consolidated Appeals (CAPs) shrank by 21 percent in 2011, they were on average 38 percent underfunded - the largest percentage of unmet need for a decade.

This is “concer-ning”, said Lydia Poole, head of Global Humanitarian Assistance at Development Initiatives (DI), and author of the 2012 report.

It is difficult to explain this paradox, said Poole - it could be that these needs are being met outside of the CAP system, given CAPs represented just 5,5 billion of a 17 billion dollar aid total in 2011.

Large amounts of private funding to NGOs for instance, fall outside of CAPs and several prominent emergency aid recipients such as Ethiopia, Colombia, Iraq and Nepal do not always participate in CAP appeals.

But analysing non-CAP emergency aid is still hard to do, given the poor quality of financial reporting. “What we can see, is that there is more strain in the system,” Poole concluded.

The contraction (formindskelsen) could be worse, said Poole.

Over the past decade aid spend has spiked (toppet) after big sudden-onset disasters such as the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami or the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and then continued at the higher level. This is still more or less the trend - aid grew by 23 percent in 2010 and has not significantly dropped in 2011.

“Overall, the collective response has proved resilient to the financial crisis, which is quite surprising…We can take heart from this,” Poole told IRIN. But the future is uncertain as more donors announce cuts in official development assistance (ODA).

“There has been a lag between the financial crisis hitting and then manifesting itself in austerity measures that affect aid budgets. We are just starting to see some of the effects of that filtering through,” Poole warned.

Redistribution

Aid given by the top 10 donors - the United States, Canada, Japan, Sweden, Germany, Turkey, the UK, Norway, Australia and France - increased by 1,2 billion dollar from 2008 to 2010.

But donors making the biggest cuts - Saudi Arabia, the EU institutions, the Netherlands, Italy, Kuwait, Spain, Ireland, Austria, Thailand and Greece - collectively reduced their funding by 1 billion dollar.

Widening funding gaps can also be seen in UN non-CAP appeals and emergency funding requests by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Aid is down across the board, partly linked to financial woes in donor states.

Official development assistance (ODA) from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) fell by 3 percent in 2011, while humanitarian aid from these donors fell by 2 percent.

Fair distribution?

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http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95926/AID-POLICY-Needs-gaps-and-resilience

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