Underfunded Crises: A Look at the Last 5 Years
If you were to ask me, “Are humanitarian crises underfunded?”, I’d probably say “Sure, that’s like asking me, do you check Twitter as soon as you open your eyes in the morning? Or will there be another Fast and Furious movie? The answer is obviously yes, and it’s unhealthy”. But if you asked me which […]
Are humanitarian agencies ‘value for money’?
The funding gap between rising humanitarian needs and shrinking donor budgets is widening, with recent efforts to present a more targeted approach to global appeals. It is debated whether the scare resources are targeted impartially to where humanitarian assistance is needed most or whether political interests make some crisis the priority and others neglected. Despite […]
Prioritisation is driving a lower funding requirement
Just before the start of each calendar year, the global scale of humanitarian needs and response is summarised in the Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO). And each year this comes with a price tag. But for the first time in the past decade, the cost of meeting humanitarian needs has fallen in this yearly snapshot. The […]
Humanitarian Recession Index: 2023 Update
Humanitarian Funding Forecast is updating its Underfunded Crisis Index. The Humanitarian Recession Index is a way to understand which humanitarian sectors are moving backwards in terms of funding. A ‘real recession’ is defined as two consecutive years of a growing funding gap for a sector. The Index helps us understand which sectors are failing to […]
Underfunded Crisis Index: 2023 Update
Humanitarian Funding Forecast is updating its Underfunded Crisis Index. The Underfunded Crisis Index is a way to measure and compare the underfunding of humanitarian crises. It can help us to understand which crises are underfunded compared to how much funding they require to meet needs, and therefore help to advocate for more funding to the […]
No, we are not ‘halfway through the year’ in July
It is often said around July and August that we’re more than halfway through the year, and a humanitarian sector or response plan is only funded by a small amount. Here’s a link to the Protection Cluster saying that, ‘as of mid-2022, only 28% of activities have been funded’. Or how about the oPt HRP […]
NEW REPORT – Unprotected: Severe Lack of Funding for Child Protection
Humanitarian Funding Forecast has teamed up with The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, the Global Child Protection Area of Responsibility, and Save the Children to deliver a new report showing the worrying trends in Child Protection funding in conflict-affected areas. Specifically, we’ve worked on looking at forecasts for Child Protection in conflict-affected areas, […]
The Year Ahead 2023: 5 things not in the ‘GHO’
Another year and another Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO) is published. The 2023 abridged version (only 19 pages this year!) sets out the funding required, and the number of people in need for the year ahead. But sometimes the most fascinating things to look at are those that are out of sight. We’ve picked out 5 […]
Launch: Cost of Doing Business Index
Humanitarian Funding Forecast is launching its third yearly index: the Cost of Doing Business Index. The index provides a way to understand which humanitarian contexts are more expensive to work in. The 2022 index shows that refugee responses are expensive, whilst flash appeals are cheap; Europe and MENA are expensive places to be, whilst Sub-Saharan […]
Launch: Humanitarian Recession Index
Humanitarian Funding Forecast is launching its secondly yearly index: the Humanitarian Recession Index. The index, based on this story from 2021, provides a way to see whether humanitarian sectors are receiving less funding relative to need. The 2022 index shows that 10 out of 16 humanitarian sectors are in a recession – that is, they […]
How do the big agencies spend their money?
In the past decade, the expenditure of five of the largest humanitarian agencies has ballooned. In 2012, the combined expenditure of WFP, UNICEF, UNHCR, IOM, and ICRC was $12.7bn – a huge amount. Nine years later and the combined expenditure of these agencies was over $25bn. These are vast amounts of money. In the 2012-2021 […]
