Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
After the publication of “Humanitarian Financing Is Failing the COVID-19 Frontlines,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs asked for the opportunity to publish a response on CGD’s site, presented here.
Longstanding weaknesses in the humanitarian business model are undermining the COVID-19 response in fragile and conflict affected states. Extensive delays, poor mechanisms for tracking disbursement of funds from intermediaries to implementers, and persistent obstacles to financing local actors are preventing funds from reaching organizations on the frontlines of the COVID-19 fight. Donor governments have generously contributed nearly $2.5bn in humanitarian COVID-19 financing.
This is a crisis of truly global scale and it will place enormous constraints on traditional humanitarian operations.
Is the humanitarian system broke or broken?
The political and economic crisis in Venezuela has caused the biggest population movement in recent Latin American history. Support from the international community has predominantly focused on short-term humanitarian assistance, which will remain important for the most vulnerable Venezuelans. However, in what has become a protracted displacement crisis, it is also essential to shift to a longer-term vision and approach underpinned by development finance.
At the 74th UN General Assembly meetings, Jeremy Konyndyk and I held a high-level side event at the Rockefeller Foundation headquarters focused on a vital but inadequately addressed aspect of the humanitarian system and humanitarian reform in particular: who has power, who lacks power, and how to change it.
On the sidelines of the 74th annual proceedings of the UN General Assembly, one recurring idea caught my attention: interconnectedness.
The theme of this year’s World Humanitarian Day casts a spotlight on women on the frontlines of humanitarian crisis.
Criminalizing humanitarian aid to refugees and migrants has not only failed, it is also causing unnecessary deaths and suffering. The recent agreement last month by 14 EU member states to a new “solidarity mechanism” to allocate migrants and refugees rescued at sea is a welcome development.
In honor of World Humanitarian Day, Jeremy Konyndyk argues that the core humanitarian imperative—that lifesaving aid should be provided to all in need on the basis of their humanity, regardless of beliefs or identities—is increasingly under threat.
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