Global Funding for Emergencies

According to the OECD DAC 2005 statistics the amount of official donor flows allocated to emergency and distress has increased substantially from an average of $766 million between 1988 and 1989 to $3.3 billion between 1993-1994 to $7.3 billion in 2004. In terms of individual donor flows, Ireland contributed 38 million in 2004, Germany $207 million, UK $523 million, France $563 million, Spain $97 million and the larges amount from the US with $2.9 billion.(Source: Table 14 OECD DAC 2005 Statistics). 

Ireland has increased substantially its contributions to emergency relief from $7 million in 1993-94 to $38 million in 2003-04 which amounts to 9 percent of its bilateral aid(this does not include its contributions to multilateral organizations such as ECHO humanitarian rlief operations.).  By comparison emergency relief is 3 percent of bilateral aid in Germany, 9 percent of bilateral aid in the UK and 8 percent of bilateral aid in France (source: Table 19 2005 OECD DAC Statistics).

Key figures on ECHO Humanitarian Assistance 1996-2005.

Predictable funding for humanitarian emergencies: a challenge to donors, Oxfam, 24 October 2005.

Changes in Humanitarian Financing: Implications for the United Nations UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, October 2003.

The Quality of Money: Donor Behaviour in Humanitarian Financing  Ian Smillie and Larry Minear, Tufts University, April 2003.

GHD and funding according to need By Andre Griekspoor, WHO (Humanitarian Practice Network).   The Good Humanitarian Donorship (GHD) initiative can be seen as the donors’ equivalent of agency initiatives such as the Red Cross/NGO Code of Conduct, which aims to improve the quality and accountability of humanitarian responses. In the GHD, donors have committed themselves to a set of principles and good practice for humanitarian action, including the provision of flexible and timely funding in proportion to need.

Promoting Good Humanitarian Donorship: a task for the OECD-DAC? Henrik Hammargren, OECD, Humanitarian Practice Network.

Uncertain Power: The Changing Role of Official Donors in Humanitarian Action Joanna Macrae, Sarah Collinson, Margie Buchanan-Smith, Nicola Reindorp, Anna Schmidt, Tasneem Mowjee and Adele Harmer, ODI - Humanitarian Policy Group, December 2002.

Africa: Discrimination in Humanitarian Response – Africa Focus Bulletin, May 15, 2005.