GHA Report 2009: money - what do we do with it?

The new Global Humanitarian Assistance Report is out. It provides an overview of how much is spent on humanitarian assistance, where it goes and how this meets/does not meet the needs of the beneficiaries.

The four main chapters focus on

• official (DAC) humanitarian assistance
• humanitarian assistance from non-DAC donors
• humanitarian assistance through NGOs
• financial mechanisms

Financing decisions affect behaviour and humanitarian architecture. They help determine the power of different groups and they influence policy priorities and capacity development. The financial choices made within and between humanitarian crises will often have consequences that are felt well beyond the scope of the original time-bound intervention. In short, humanitarian assistance is not just about the scale of contributions.