Updated: ALNAP State of the System report is out

Bringing together much of the work done by ALNAP since the tsunami, this first pilot report provides a baseline and working methodology which will be built upon and improved in subsequent iterations.

Download the report from the ALNAP website. Although there is an excellent executive summary, a quick run-down of the key points follows in the full post.

Aims of the report: Provide a system-level mapping and assessment of international humanitarian assistance over the last two years according to key criteria. Includes new, previously unavailable descriptive statistics and highlights some new initiatives in policy and practice.

Areas of focus: Operational performance of the ‘formal international humanitarian system’, focussing on emergencies involving international agencies and an appeal for international assistance. Limitations: did not eventually cover national, local and community-based organisations and does not measure beneficiary-level impacts.
Key findings:

• the international system has grown in staff size by an average annual rate of 6% over the past decade, and has reached a population of roughly 211,000 humanitarian workers in the field.
• In 2008, some $6.6 billion was contributed by donors directly to international emergency response efforts, and the combined humanitarian expenditures of aid organisations on overseas programme activities totalled around $12.8 billion.
• In terms of performance, findings indicate an overall positive trend in areas having to do with the internal workings of the humanitarian system – such as coordination mechanisms, funding vehicles and needs assessment tools – while at the same time some fundamental issues, such as leadership and the system’s engagement with and accountability to beneficiaries, remained weak. The findings thus depict a system steadily and incrementally improving its own internal mechanics and technical performance, while remaining deficient in some big picture requirements for effectiveness.

Findings against the OECD DAC review assessment criteria:

Coverage/sufficiency: still insufficient as despite growing sector and rise in funding, needs have also gone up. Nonetheless coverage is improving over time - over 85% of total stated requirements met in 2007 and 2008, compared with 81% in 2006 and only 67% in 2005. Declining in some contexts due to insecurity or host government restrictions. In the most contested environments, insecurity for aid workers has increased markedly.

Relevance/appropriateness: Quality of needs assessments still seen as a weakness, but have improved with a majority of respondents reporting adequate inter-agency needs assessments in their contexts and wider breadth of types of programming improving flexibility. However evaluations and beneficiary consultations show common instances of multiple assessments without sufficient follow-up. Beneficiaries continue to be inadequately consulted and involved in assessments and subsequent programme design. Prioritisation is improved but may be proliferating with too many parallel processes appearing.

Effectiveness: Responses are more timely thanks to significant agency investment in standby capacity and new mechanisms (e.g CERF). Growing attempt to better link humanitarian and development actors with disaster risk reduction (DRR) efforts and to increase investments in DRR. Overall, coordination seen to improve with introduction of Cluster Approach and positive views about the value of clusters outnumbered negative ones. But leadership was a noted weakness - the Humanitarian Coordinator (HC) system needs strengthening. Other coordination trends highlighted included a growing role for regional bodies (e.g. ASEAN) and agency consortia. Monitoring identified as a continuing weakness. HR improvements (in capacity, quality, and professionalism) were encouraging but Many agencies made real efforts to increase investment in operational capacity and quality of human resources. Improvements in professionalism of humanitarian staff noted, but high staff turnover and a need to invest more in national staff development. There are also growing capacities on the part of national governments to meet the needs of their own citizens in times of disaster in many contexts, which requires greater consideration in advance of launching response efforts.

Connectedness: An unmitigated scarcity of investment in local and national capacities was a repeated theme, as were concerns with the top-down tendencies of the system and the risk of undermining local capacities. However, there are also signs of improvement in how international agencies work with local humanitarian actors, with the survey finding a majority of respondents felt efforts at capacity building had increased in the past two to three years. A clear momentum around need for greater downward accountability and participation, and a growing number of examples of investments in feedback and complaint mechanisms and greater transparency, which benefits programmes.

Efficiency: Efficiency issues, including the risks of corruption, continue to be relatively neglected in literature/evaluations of humanitarian action, although Transparency International is developing an anti-corruption toolkit. -Widespread concern about overhead and programme support costs, particularly in relation to new financial mechanisms. People also noted, however, that constant drive to minimise administrative costs was leading to chronic under-investment in key capacities that could serve to improve performance. Arguably too great a focus on driving down admin costs.

Coherence: focus on: i) whether core humanitarian principles, international humanitarian law (IHL) and refugee law were being respected in humanitarian programming - a real challenge with a noted lack of respect for IHL and the principles in many recent conflicts and integrated or 'whole of government' approaches threatening humanitarian space - both requiring renewed advocacy efforts and more principled action by agencies, and ii) consistency in objectives and actions for protection and for advancing the crosscutting issues of illness, age, gender and disability which are hard to keep sight of once 'mainstreamed'. Improved guidance and awareness but confusion about the concept of protection and who has responsibility. There has been criticism of the quality of protection work, including the deployment of inexperienced staff, breaches of confidentiality of affected populations and inconsistent knowledge and application of relevant laws.