Humanitarian Assistance

The international humanitarian system provides a global public service but is unpredictable and haphazard. Donors can improve efficiency and effectiveness in three ways: establishing a multi-year common replenishment model for protracted and predictable crises, rebalancing country-level pooled mecha...

Coordination is essential to effective humanitarian action. However, the current system prioritizes large international aid agencies over local frontline actors and governments, and fragmented, technical sectors over a holistic, people-centered approach. We need a new model: an area-based model.

India’s second COVID-19 wave has been explosive, reaching world record totals of over 300,000 daily officially reported cases. The true number is likely to be much higher, with a large number of cases missed as indicated by the delays in testing and rapidly rising positivity rates - currently one in...

It is easy to critique humanitarian organizations for inefficiencies and other flaws in their coordination functions. But deeper examination of issues such as media exposure and incentives to coordinate makes it clearer that, given their current funding model, their actions may be rational instituti...

In every episode of the Rethinking Humanitarianism podcast, we ask our guests what they would do if they had millions of dollars—or perhaps a magic wand—to transform the way the world responds to people in need. Now, as a wrap-up to our first season, host Heba Aly puts these ideas to three peop...

Past humanitarian reform agendas have continually emphasised the need for humanitarian response to be locally owned. But for two decades, attempts to systematically elevate the representation, participation, and power of local actors have fallen short; donor governments still have an incentive to ch...