Research News

The United Nations has been leading a process of reforming the way that humanitarian aid is delivered, aimed at improving the efficiency and reach of humanitarian response for beneficiary populations. These global reform efforts can be traced to the poor performance of the international community's response to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Sudan in 2004. However, NGOs, particularly national and local ones, have been largely absent from many of the reform forums. With a growing awareness of the need to better involve NGOs - particularly national and local NGOs - in the various aspects of reform, DFID-funded research is helping to engage NGOs in the reform process.

The ultimate aim of improving NGO engagement in the reform process is to improve the effectiveness of humanitarian response so that populations in need can be better protected and assisted. A DFID-funded project, 'NGOs and humanitarian reform', started in 2008, placing a particular emphasis on catalyzing NGO engagement in humanitarian reform processes. The project also seek to present a more holistic picture of humanitarian action and how it needs to change by drawing on wider experiences, including lessons learnt from previous reform initiatives by bilateral donors and the NGO sector itself.

Initial studies carried out between November 2008 and February 2009 looked at humanitarian reform in five different countries: Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Sudan and Zimbabwe. These studies have now been synthesised in a report, which also brings in lessons from other contexts to strengthen the analysis and provide an overview of humanitarian reform.

Reform hopes to bring about improvements in financing, leadership, accountability and partnership. A striking feature of the mapping studies in this project is that they found no hard evidence that UN-centred humanitarian reforms have improved the provision of humanitarian response thus far.

The challenge for the NGOs and Humanitarian Reform Project over the next two years is to advocate for the full implementation of humanitarian reform to deliver better outcomes to crisis-affected populations. The ultimate test for the success of humanitarian reform will be the extent to which it improves the lot of crisis-affected people, rather than whether it streamlines the international humanitarian system.

The Synthesis report from the first year of the project can be accessed through this link. For further information, see also the project website, and the International Council of Voluntary Agencies resource page on UN Humanitarian Reform.