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 […]
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 […]
Why does the humanitarian system need so much money?
In 2022, the UN and humanitarian agencies appealed for a record $47 billion to meet the needs of the 183 million people. This equates to a staggering increase of 223% in funding needed in just the last five years. At the same time humanitarian aid has stalled, increasing the funding gap. What accounts for this […]
Response Plan Projects: A Red Herring for Localisation
The thing that sets the rhythm of humanitarian crises (or to be more precise: humanitarian coordination) are response plans. There are different types to do with refugee crises, non-refugee related crises and sudden onset crises – you can learn more about the different types here. But the one thing that they have in common is […]
Do more severe humanitarian crises get more money?
Humanitarian funding is an exercise in prioritisation by donors. Donors have a pot of money in their budgets that they need to distribute to different places, and they have to ask the question: where will this money make the most impact? Of course there are other considerations (e.g. national interests of governments), but for today […]
4 Good News Funding Stories
Good news can sometimes be hard to find – especially on this website. The number of people in need is accelerating, as is the funding required to meet those needs. Funding isn’t keeping up, and the big picture seems to be relentlessly depressing. However, if we look in some of the corners of the funding […]
2022 Forecasts: Year Ahead for Humanitarian Sectors
Launching a website that forecasts humanitarian funding in 2021 was slightly tricky, to say the least. The coronavirus pandemic created disruption in the global economy, and donors were by no means immune from the effects of this. The model we created to forecast funding in 2021 was based on a system of humanitarian funding that […]
The Humanitarian Year Ahead: 2022 in 5 Charts
How many pages is too many for a report? 304 pages? That’s the length of the 2022 Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO) that outlines humanitarian needs going into the next year. It’s full of data and trends, and hints at what the year ahead will bring. What we’ve done is read the report, pulled out the […]
Shock Resilient Funding: A COVID Case Study
Don’t keep all your eggs in one basket is an English-language saying that conveys a simple piece of wisdom. One of the things that keeps a system strong and resilient is diversifying. Don’t make everything dependent on one thing. Whether that be not investing all your spare cash in Bitcoin, or an NGO having multiple […]
