From triage to transformation: Five humanitarian policy takeaways for 2023

Between the climate emergency, new and ongoing conflicts, rising poverty, economic downturn, mass displacement, growing food insecurity, epidemics and geopolitical tensions, “multiple shocks are combining and compounding… leaving people more vulnerable than ever,” said a participant at the annual Global Humanitarian Policy Forum*, held in December 2022.

In this climate, aid agencies are under pressure to do more with less, but Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths stressed: “We’re not here to play triage with the needs of people. Our job is to set out where the needs are, where they can be reached and how this can be done feasibly.”
 
Here are five humanitarian policy takeaways for 2023:

To address the explosion in needs, we must invest in sustainable, locally led solutions

With needs at an all-time high, humanitarian action requires a rethink. The humanitarian system has historically focused on delivering goods and services at scale, but it still thinks short term, with an “emphasis on outsider-driven action.” When crises strike, “parachute experts” are still deployed rather than tapping into local expertise. “We don’t listen enough. We check off a list, like a customer satisfaction survey. But we don’t have a business model to adapt to what people really want. If there’s one priority in the coming year, it’s that one,” said a panellist.

The way forward

The focus must shift to “investing in vulnerable communities, looking at whose capacity and leadership is needed, where expertise is lodged and what will be left behind after one to two years,” said a panellist. Preparedness, resilience and prevention require investment in local communities’ capacity. We need to ensure that humanitarian action is integrated with long-term development so communities can withstand hazards, which takes a sustained approach. International actors should help local actors to fill gaps in capacity, but not take over. “The key is to reinforce, not replace.”

Donors need to turn words into action on direct financing for local aid groups

Panellists called for a long-overdue shift in mindset among donors towards more direct funding for local responders. Despite long-standing commitments of more direct funding, including the 2016 Grand Bargain target to channel a quarter of humanitarian funding to national NGOs by 2020, funding to local and national organizations fell from 2.8 per cent in 2017 to 1.2 per cent in 2021. Most funding continues to pass through multilateral agencies and international NGOs, making it slow to reach the front lines. As a result of this underfunding, local NGOs struggle to meet “simple overhead costs that ensure their sustainability, efficiency and effectiveness.” Thus, they often remain invisible, and local communities remain ignored and unheard.

The way forward

Given donor risk aversion, recommendations to help pave this transformation include setting up local expert registers and emergency funds for local organizations to access; developing standards for engagement with local organizations to enhance trust; and amplifying best practices and their impact. International organizations can help by stepping up advocacy with donors on local funding. Resources must be put in the hands of affected communities, and international aid agencies must move from being “doers” to “facilitators,” shifting the power and putting local communities in the driver’s seat.

Invest in prevention to save lives

The evidence is clear: preventive investment saves lives. In Central America, “climate shocks are intensifying but the number of people dying is decreasing,” partly due to enormous improvements in early warning systems. COVID-19 struck every community, but outcomes for communities differed widely depending on their level of preparedness and resilience.

The way forward

“Use as much anticipatory action as you can to get more resources out while it’s cheaper and more lives can be saved.” The groundwork must be laid far in advance, as “an emergency is not the time to swap business cards.” The private sector, faith-based organizations and others each have an important role to play in this preparedness, because “we need a huge movement” to do it well.

How to close the hunger gap for women and girls

“Hunger is sexist,” said a youth leader. Far more women than men are food insecure, and this hunger-gender gap has grown eightfold in the last four years. In addition to women eating last and least and taking on the burden of household care in a food crisis, there are multiple economic drivers of women’s hunger including a lack of meaningful inclusion in agricultural value chains, limiting their agricultural output and access to markets.

The way forward

First, we need to understand the problem by using gender-disaggregated monitoring. “The time has passed when it is acceptable not to monitor these things and hold ourselves and others to account.” Recognizing that “gender equality is a must to end hunger,” panellists stressed that women need access to cash transfers, savings, credit and insurance. This needs to be backed by financial training and reinforced with community childcare, flexible working hours and transport assistance.

Calls were made to showcase successful local solutions, from community kitchens and climate-smart agricultural practices to renewable energy technologies, and for such schemes to scale up. Women’s organizations, youth networks and many others need to be part of these solutions, requiring investment so they can flourish. Information is power – both women’s access to information and evidence-driven programming. “How much funding are women’s organizations receiving?” asked a panellist. We need to know.

Build trust through better information sharing

“One year you have drought, the next you have a hurricane. You either have no water or too much. This is difficult to explain.” Aid organizations witness firsthand the acute humanitarian impacts of the climate crisis and therefore must be a "loudspeaker... on the urgency to act.”

The way forward

Humanitarians could do much more on early warning messaging, which still does not reach many at-risk communities. They need to focus more on sharing information with local communities in simple, accessible ways without using scientific jargon. This includes not only early warning but the long-term impacts of climate change. “Sea-level rise is a slow-onset event, but at some point, it will flood everyone living in the area.” Tracking this requires highly localized monitoring and analysis, which is shared with local communities. Building trust is critical, and humanitarians can help by building confidence in institutions. Preventive approaches work only if the trust is there.

*The Global Humanitarian Policy Forum is convened by UNOCHA, UN Foundation, FAO, ICVA, ICRC and WFP.