The future of emergency response – the international system v national governments

next week, but it was the humanitarian bit that got my attention. Here are some highlights from the internal discussion paper: “There is growing awareness that global humanitarian response needs to be turned on its head, shifting capacity and power to the South, particularly to national and local government institutions and civil society organisations, to prepare for, respond to, and lead humanitarian action. The world is moving away from a western-inspired, UN-centric model of humanitarian action to one which is much more diverse and localised, and sustainable. This is both a trend and a desirable outcome.   Disaster risk reduction and preparedness, and building resilience must be a large part of the answer and are known to be cost-effective, yet commitments by the international community and national governments in these areas remain limited. In many developing countries, pressure from citizens will be essential if the state is to fulfil its role in DRR, preparedness, response and reconstruction. The international community must do more to support this role with finance, technical assistance, know-how, research, etc. Accompanying this shift must be a re-commitment by established donors and INGOs, regional bodies, national governments, emerging donors and civil society to universal principles of humanity, impartiality, independence and dignity in humanitarian response.”  The discussion on the rising importance of nation states in humanitarian response was particularly interesting. Our humanitarian guys set out a handy 2×2 matrix on this:

	State Willingness
State Capacity	Willing and Able Operational support only in major crises National advocacy for improved state performance E.g  Vietnam, Brazil	Able but Unwilling Support for local actors depending on their independence Operational in large crises National/international advocacy for state to assume responsibilities E.g  Pakistan, Sri Lanka
	Willing but Unable State capacity building and support for other local actors Operational in large crises Advocacy for international support E.g Mozambique, Bangladesh	Unwilling and Unable Operational in small and medium crises as well as large More work with UN and civil society organisations Advocacy to the extent possible E.g  Yemen, Sudan

We discussed which of the quadrants we are/should be working in, and how NGOs need to adapt their approach. Willing and Able: This is the comfort zone, but increasingly states will build their capacity and NGOs’ role is likely to diminish (for example, India often prefers to respond to disasters without calling for foreign aid). Willing but Unable: Outside humanitarian actors should focus more on building state capacity, seconding in staff, supporting state relief efforts etc. That capacity building work needs to be done in ‘peacetime’, raising some big funding challenges as long as the serious money follows disasters. One option might be to allocate a small percentage of disaster funding to long-term capacity building and disaster risk reduction work. That would be analogous to the British Government’s recent decision to allocate 5% of any direct funding to governments to assorted watchdogs (parliaments, civil society organizations, media) to ensure the money goes to its intended purposes. Able but Unwilling: Here, the focus is more likely to be on trying to persuade the government to step up. That is likely to involve advocacy and convening, building coalitions with sympathetic bits of the state (eg local governments) and non state actors (churches, business associations) to exert leverage. Unwilling and Unable: This looks more like old school humanitarian work, bypassing the state and saving lives. The practical people reckon the area of expansion is the second (willing but unable), whereas as an advocacy type, I’m keen on the third (able but unwilling). Either way, it will be fascinating to watch how humanitarian work manages to balance what it calls the ‘humanitarian imperative’, with the complexities of engaging with the state.]]>