Several agencies are, however, continuing to provide assistance to Syrians that have crossed or are crossing the borders into Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, said it has registered 6,375 Syrians in Lebanon but said the actual figure there is likely to be higher as not all refugees register with the agency. Turkish officials said nearly 10,000 Syrian refugees are living in tent camps along the country’s border with Syria, and reports put the number of Syrian refugees already in Jordan at 10,000.

What does that mean for funding?

There are essentially three streams of humanitarian funding flows focusing on humanitarian activity in, on and around Syria:

1. Humanitarian activities in-country

- Some agencies have budgeted to support continued operations in and around Syria in 2012 and some donors have pledged support for humanitarian activities (e.g. the United Kingdom has pledged UK£2 million to “three established humanitarian agencies” (DFID, 17 February 2012) but in-country operations are currently restricted due to lack of access.

- The only funding reported to UN OCHA’s Financial Tracking System (FTS) specifically to address the crisis in Syria so far in 2012 is US$645,995 from Germany to the ICRC

- In 2011, UN OCHA FTS reported expenditure of US$11.8 million on humanitarian operations in Syria, from eight main donors. The three largest donors were: the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), US$3.3 million; Australia, US$3.2 million; and Switzerland just over US$3 million. Just over half of this was provided through the ICRC and World Food Programme (WFP).

- The ICRC budget for Syria in 2012 is CHF12 million – nearly three times higher than in 2011 – some of which will focus on assisting civilians in the current crisis and some of which will assist refugee populations (see below and also ICRC overview of operations).

Due to a technical problem, tables cannot currently be displayed. We are aiming to fix this in the next couple of days. Meanwhile, you can access them by clicking straight through to this spreadsheet.

2. Operations to support Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey

- UN OCHA FTS tracked just under US$1 million (US$912,974) for operations specifically relating to Syrian refugees in 2011. This was provided by three donors: Italy (direct bilateral contribution to Lebanese government); Norway (through Norwegian Refugee Council); and Switzerland to UNHCR.

- Some agencies are raising money to provide support to Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries – for example Muslim Aid and Islamic Relief.

- MSF set up a health programme for Syrian refugees in Wadi Khaled, in the north of Lebanon, in November 2011. Funding to support MSF operations such as this are not necessarily tracked within UN OCHA FTS.

[Note: Jordan is home to refugees from Syria, Iraq and Palestine. At the height of the crisis in Iraq, Jordan hosted an estimated 1.5 million Iraqis. The UN estimates that there are now half this number, though actual numbers fluctuate. This raises an interesting point about how many governments are providing support to people in crisis and how these resources are made visible, or not, in reports on international resource flows.

3. Operations in Syria to support refugees from Iraq and Palestine

Syria has the world’s third largest refugee population and is itself home to refugees from both Iraq and Palestine. The Syrian government has taken on the responsibility for providing some of the basic utility requirements – including, for example, in the camps that are home to Palestinian refugees (while UNRWA provides basic environmental health services including sewage and waste disposal and provision of safe drinking water).

- UNHCR’s 2012 budget for Syria stands at US$94.5 million, 20% less than that for 2011 due to the projected reduction in the number of registered Iraqi refugees. However, while the number of refugees is declining, their humanitarian needs are rising as their vulnerability increases. The Syrian Arab Red Crescent is UNHCR’s key operational partner.

- UNRWA provides health, education, and relief and social services to more than 496,000 Palestine refugees living in nine official and three unofficial camps in Syria.

- So far in 2012, UN OCHA FTS has tracked US$2.3 million in support of Iraqi refugees in Syria. This has come from Denmark in support of operations by Danish Red Cross and Danish Refugee Council. In 2011, US$26.2 million was provided for refugees of Palestine and Iraq inside Syria.

Download data from this spreadsheet. Tables will be shown here in the next few days.

Useful resources:

ICRC

ReliefWeb

UN data

BBC factfile

UNHCR

AlertNet

The main policy recommendations to emerge from a three-year consultation process, and clearly articulated in the report « Analyses et propositions sur l’action humanitaire dans les situations de crise et de post-crise » commissioned by Bernard Kouchner, and written by Alain Boinet (Solidarités International) and Benoit Miribel (Action Contre La Faim (ACF)), centre on adopting and promoting the EU consensus on humanitarian aid and on developing a national humanitarian policy framework.

Money-wise, the emphasis is to be on: post crisis reconstruction and preparedness (specifically, a proposal to spend EUR50 million a year on reconstruction programmes); partnerships with NGOs (target to spend EUR160 million through French NGOs by 2012); public information; bolstering France’s research/academic capacity; and engagement in the UN reform process.

I was asked to talk about: how France is currently situated in comparison with other donors in terms of financial flows (and in relation to development aid) – trends and main partners, comparisons with OECD DAC donors and other government donors; recipient countries; principal partners (NGOs, Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement, United Nations); trends in types of crises (DRR, post conflict). I was also asked to reflect on the ‘financial crisis’ and its implications. That was a lot to try and get through within 15 minutes … especially since I also wanted to use the time to talk about the value, impact and transparency of resources for people in crises.

The fact that France’s bilateral humanitarian contributions are ‘modest’ (a word that features in the report, p30), is not news. Since 2000, it has spent between US$15 million and US$55 million a year on bilateral humanitarian aid (i.e. specified or ‘earmarked’ funding for specific programmes or projects) with very little channelled through its own national NGOs. At US$344.7 million over the 10-year period 2001-2010 (US$310.7 million 2000-2009), that’s less than Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (US$793 million) and 16 OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) governments (19th, Finland, gave US$751 million), and more than Kuwait, Russian Federation and five other DAC governments (Luxembourg, New Zealand, Austria, Portugal and Greece). It’s interesting for people to be able to place their national expenditure alongside others’ of course, but the headline numbers are too broad, too sweeping to show us the true value of contributions and activities, which might not be comparable: what was the money spent on? where? who for? how long for? through which partners? with what impact?

We should also consider the extent of France’s contributions to humanitarian activities through its funding of the EU budget. The graphs in the slides and Excel clearly show the extent of this funding, together with multilateral ODA contributions to UNHCR, UNRWA and WFP. Some 25%-30% of France’s official development assistance (ODA) is provided in the form of ‘multilateral’ (i.e. totally unspecified) contributions to EU institutions each year. (It provides the second largest contribution after Germany.) And I learned at the conference that the EU spends 23% of its budget through French NGOs! With these multilateral elements taken into account, France is propelled to 9th largest donor over 10 years.

To meet the many demands placed on humanitarian delivery, which is pulled in so many directions, we need to be able to see all the resources available to address the needs – not just those in the ‘emergency response’ envelopes of OECD DAC governments (which happen to be the only ones we can get consistent and comparable data on). To meet the demands effectively, we need to put all resources available on the table so that we can make informed choices based on comparative advantage.

Humanitarian aid financing is but one resource that can be applied to promoting resilience to risk and addressing the consequences of poverty. It can work alongside local private and government resources; other aid and aid-like flows from a variety of government donors; private sector investments and donations; foreign security and peacekeeping investments. In order to harness the potential of all of these contributions, we need to be able to see them; and a precondition for that is transparency. Our generation is ideally placed to make the most of convergence in information, communications and technology to make that happen.

If you read French, you might want to take a look at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs website or this article by Jean-Jacques Louarn and Jérôme Larché at Grotius International.

Meantime, here are some additional slides. I’ve put the data in this Google Doc. The graphs didn’t convert from the Excel version of the file, so I’ve saved that here in our datastore.

Technical annex:

The tables below show (1) donors to the appeal (2) all humanitarian funding (i.e. appeal plus other contributions) reported by donors in response to the Libya emergency this year. The data is an extract from UN OCHA FTS and can be accessed in this Google Docs file.

Both the GHA and UN OCHA teams are happy to help with any data enquiries.

All humanitarian funding reported by donors for Libya, 2011

Our first two updates on funding in response to the Libya emergency, which also contains some useful external links to maps and sitreps as well as basic aid data and development indicators, can be found in Libya crisis #1 and Libya crisis #2. 

The data expressed below is an extract from UN OCHA FTS and can be accessed in this Google Docs file. Both the GHA and UN OCHA teams are happy to help with any data enquiries. 

Humanitarian financing headlines, 23 September 2011:

1. US$431.1 million has been tracked in response to the crisis in Libya, US$250.5 million of which in response to the UN’s regional flash appeal (which also covers priority humanitarian needs in Egypt, Niger and Tunisia).

2. As at 23 September, 61.4% (US$250.5 million) of the  UN regional flash appeal for US$407.8 million has been funded.

3. The Top 5 government donors to UN flash appeal are: the United States (US$56.8m, or 23.1% of the total appeal funding), European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO, US$40.4m, 16.4% of the total appeal funding), Australia (US$28.2m, 11.5%), United Kingdom (US$12.1m, 4.6%) and Norway (US$9.1m, 3.7%).

4. The top 5 government contributors to the overall emergency (i.e.  UN flash appeal funding as well as other funding for humanitarian projects not listed in the appeal) are: the United States (US$81.6m), European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO, US$55.1m), Australia (US$37.5m), United Kingdom (US$21.9m) and Sweden (US$19.5m).

5. So far, 61.4% of the UN’s appeal requirements have been met. The coverage of requirements ranges from 4.6% in Egypt to 80.7% regionally. 21.5% of the needs have been met within Libya itself, 55.6% in Niger and 55.7% in Tunisia.

6. The latest information on funding by cluster and by agency can be found on the UN OCHA FTS site.

Humanitarian financing headlines, 12 September 2011

1. The UN has tracked US$385.9 million in response to the crisis in Libya, US$246 million of which in response to the UN’s regional flash appeal (which also covers priority humanitarian needs in Egypt, Niger and Tunisia).

2. As at 12 September, 60.3% (US$246m) of the US$407.8m UN regional flash appeal has been funded.

3.The Top 5 government donors to UN flash appeal are: the United States (US$56.8m, or 23.1% of the total appeal funding), European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO, US$40.4m, 16.4% of the total appeal funding), Australia (US$28.2m, 11.5%), United Kingdom (US$12.1m, 4.6%) and Norway (US$9.1m, 3.7%).

4. The top 5 government contributors to the overall emergency (i.e.  UN flash appeal funding as well as other funding for humanitarian projects not listed in the appeal) are: the United States (US$81.6m), European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO, US$55.1m), Australia (US$37.5m), United Kingdom (US$21.9m) and Sweden (US$19.5m).

5. So far, 60.3% of the UN’s appeal requirements have been met. The coverage of requirements ranges from 4.6% in Egypt to 80.7% regionally. 18.5% of the needs have been met within Libya itself, 55.6% in Niger and 50.6% in Tunisia.

The information below is based on data published by UN OCHA Financial Tracking Service (FTS) on 31 August – a database that is updated daily. Both the GHA team and UN OCHA teams are happy to help with any data enquiries. Data on official development assistance (ODA) is taken from OECD DAC. The data can be accessed in this Excel file or this Google Docs file.

Other useful sources of information include:

• North Africa Humanitarian Response Portal
• Libya crisis map: http://libyacrisismap.net/
• Situation reports: http://reliefweb.int/taxonomy/term/140
• Appeal documents, needs and daily data updates: http://fts.unocha.org/pageloader.aspx?page=emerg-emergencyDetails&appealID=930
• Crisis background and news: http://www.trust.org/alertnet/crisis-centre/crisis/libya-turmoil
• For trends in development aid to the region, see Kerry Smith’s report, Arab Spring. http://www.globalhumanitarianassistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Arab-Spring.pdf

Humanitarian financing headlines, 31 August 2011

1. The UN has tracked US$374.8 million in response to the crisis in Libya, US$230.9m of which in response to the UN’s regional flash appeal (which also covers priority humanitarian needs in Egypt, Niger and Tunisia).
2. As at 31 August, 60.3% (US$246m) of the US$407.8m UN regional flash appeal has been funded.

3.The Top 5 government donors to UN flash appeal are: the United States (US$56.8m), European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO, US$40.4m), Australia (US$28.2m), United Kingdom (US$11.3m) and Norway (US$9.1m). Figures in the table below are US$ million.

4. The top 5 government contributors to the overall emergency (i.e.  UN flash appeal funding as well as other funding for humanitarian projects not listed in the appeal) are: the United States (US$81.6m), European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO, US$55.1m), Australia (US$37.5m), United Kingdom (US$21.9m) and Sweden (US$19.5m). Figures in the table below are US$ million.

5. The best funded clusters in the UN appeal are currently logistics and camp management/coordination.

Background and development indicators

6.The political and security crisis in Libya that began in February 2011 has resulted in acute pockets of fighting (centred mainly in and around Tripoli, Misrata and the Nafusa Mountains), has reduced the capacity of public institutions to function and has led to large scale internal and cross-border displacement. In addition to the challenge of protecting civilians from the direct effects of the fighting, humanitarian efforts have focused on trying to meet food, fuel and medical needs as well as shelter. (See: UN OCHA’s latest sitrep of 26 August for a detailed situation report).

7. According to the International Organization of Migration (IOM), over 800, 000 people have left the country (total population of 6.5m).

8. Libya is one of six Arab countries to have experienced protests and unrest since December 2010, along with Yemen, Syria, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Bahrain (see: Arab Spring http://www.globalhumanitarianassistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Arab-Spring.pdf).

9. Libya has received very little official development assistance (ODA or aid) – under 0.05% of the total allocated to over 150 countries since 2005. Indeed, as a region, ‘north of the Sahara’ (an OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) grouping that also comprises Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia) has accounted for 3.6% of total ODA over the past five years.

You’d think those questions would be easy to answer – just look at the numbers. But humanitarian aid flows are notoriously opaque, if only because there are countless actors with different (or non-existent) reporting procedures.

Heck, half of them can’t even agree on just what ‘humanitarian’aid is.

Happily, some folks care about decent data and are doing their darnedest to tot up global aid flows: where it comes from, where it goes and how it gets there.

In a picturesque corner of the British county of Somerset, researchers at Global Humanitarian Assistance (GHA) have been burning the midnight oil to bring us the first real snapshot of emergency relief since the fall of Lehman Brothers.

The 2010 figures are preliminary estimates, and they don’t include spending by governments and organisations in crisis-hit countries themselves. But they give a pretty good idea of where international aid is going.

The big surprise is that world spending on emergency relief has never been higher, despite all the belt-tightening. GHA puts it at a record-busting US$16.7 billion in 2010, up from US$15.7 million in 2009. That’s US$12.4 billion from governments and US$4.3 billion from private donors.

A lot of that increase is down to two catastrophic natural disasters last year: the Haiti earthquake and Pakistan floods. This is borne out by the fact that contributions to UN flash appeals for urgent funding were 17 times higher than in 2009.

But lest you think such generosity is proof donors are ring-fencing their aid budgets in the face of fiscal austerity, take a closer look at the numbers.

Most of the gains, it turns out, come courtesy of just four nations – the United States, Japan, Canada and Saudi Arabia. Collectively, they look set to have upped their contributions by just under US$900 million. We do not yet have the full final figures for 2010, but it could be that a great many others are spending less.

There may be all sorts of reasons for the declines. For some it could be part of a continuing downward trend. For others, things may be changing in the interplay between their humanitarian and development budgets – some may be spending less on humanitarian aid but more on development assistance. In only four countries (Greece, Ireland, Spain and Sweden) do both humanitarian and overall development aid look like they have declined in 2010.

Outside the traditional donor’s club, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee, 129 governments contributed to international humanitarian response in 2010 – 40 more than in 2009 and 29 more than in 2005, when more engaged than ever in response to the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami and the South Asia earthquake. Time will tell how their engagement will be harnessed in the future, especially during years where there appears to be no significant headline emergency in the news.

Humanitarian spending may be higher on paper than ever before, but the rising cost of doing aid means donors are getting far less bang for their buck.

Food prices are up more than 40 percent since 2007 and oil prices are about 36 percent higher in real terms. At the same time, contributions to long-running, “complex emergencies” fell last year – the hardest hit UN appeals were Chad, Central African Republic, Palestinian territories and Uganda.

As a result, a great many programmes were choked of funding. In 2010, 37 percent of overall needs went unmet, compared with an average of 30.2 percent for the preceding five years.

What else do the numbers show?

Despite the spike in flash funding after the Haiti and Pakistan crises, most humanitarian aid still goes to war zones, or at least countries emerging from wars. In 2009, the latest year for which GHA has figures on recipients of aid, more than 65 percent went to such places.

Sudan remained the number one benefactor of humanitarian aid for a fifth year in a row, with US$1.4 billion in 2009. Palestinian territories came second thanks to a 50 percent jump in aid to US$1.3 billion following an Israeli blockade and military offensive.

Next in line were Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan and Iraq. See a pattern? All are conflict zones.

This flies in the face of mainstream public opinion, which tends to see humanitarian aid as a helping hand after earthquakes, tsunami and other deadly acts of nature. Truth is, it’s the grinding, messy, morally complicated crises that call most consistently for emergency first aid.

The figures bear this out. Year after year, with a few subtle variations, it’s basically the same donors giving money to the same countries.

It’s too early to say what kind of long-term impact, if any, the financial crisis will have on aid. A lot may depend on the storm clouds now brooding over debt-addled nations. Will they unleash thunder or disperse in the wind?

In the meantime, humanitarian aid is looking decidedly stretched.

“I think it will be interesting to see what happens as more is being requested from humanitarian aid in different geographies,” said Lisa Walmsley, lead analyst on GHA’s latest annual report on humanitarian aid flows.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen with the Arab Spring. There’s a whole range of countries in sub-Saharan Africa that have been consistently attracting humanitarian funding of between US$300 and US$600 million each year since 2005 – so will that continue if donors tighten their belts?

“And what will happen in Asia where we have a tendency towards big natural disasters in densely populated areas with large numbers of poor people?”

At a time of economic uncertainty, government cuts and mounting scepticism from voters, donors have their work cut out in making the case for effective aid. Not surprisingly, many are starting to sound a little like financial managers. It’s all about value for money and return on investment.

In the humanitarian aid business, donors are essentially shareholders in a multi-billion-dollar global market. One hopes the decisions they make in coming months and years will yield real dividends for the people on whose behalf they are investing.

Tim Large is Editor of AlertNet, a global humanitarian news service run by Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Firstly, using Many Eyes to create a basic line chart showing the international humanitarian response since 1995 – this includes humanitarian aid provided by governments and the private contributions recorded by UN OCHA FTS.

I also published the total official humanitarian aid, official development assistance and population data in a Google Spreadsheet and created this.

… and all available, in Excel, from our Datastore..!

How much aid is spent in conflict-affected states?

Definition of conflict-affected: based on Uppsala conflict data programme’s reporting of conflict incidence plus presence of a UN mandated multilateral peacekeeping force (i.e. the number of countries receiving the aid in the graph above varies each year). 33 recipients of aid were defined as conflict-affected in 2009.

How much humanitarian aid is spent in conflict-affected states?

How much humanitarian aid is spent in fragile states (2009)?

43 of the 145 countries receiving humanitarian aid in 2009 were classified as fragile.

Each top 10 recipient of humanitarian aid in 2009, was classified as ‘fragile’.

Definition of fragile state: characterised by widespread extreme poverty, most off-track in relation to MDGs and commonly caught in or emerging from violence and conflict. Our list here is based on definitions and lists compiled by World Bank (Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) 2008), Brookings Institution (Index of State Weakness in the Developing World 2009) and Carleton University (Country Indicators for Foreign Policy (CFIP) index 2008).

What was aid spent on in 2009?

By ‘aid’ we mean official development assistance (ODA) expenditure as reported to the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC)

‘Other’ ODA =US$55.4 billion and here includes: transport and storage; communications; business, banking and financial services; forestry, fishing and industry; core support to NGOs; refugees in donor countries; etc.

Health includes population and reproductive health. If you take this out, Health expenditure = US$8.2bn

The humanitarian aid figure quoted here is the gross disbursement as reported to the CRS.

Governance and security accounted for 12.5% of aid expenditure in 2009

Governance and security = US$16.6bn, includes: conflict, peace and security (US$3.6 billion) and government and civil society (US$13 billion)

‘Other’ ODA =US$55.4 billion

Health includes population and reproductive health (half the overall US$16bn).

Top 10 recipients of governance, security and humanitarian aid in 2009

Governance and security includes: conflict prevention and government and civil society.

All these statements can be made!:

When debt relief is excluded, seven of the top 10 recipients of total ODA are also top 10 recipients of ODA for government and civil society and conflict resolution combined: Afghanistan; Palestine/OPT; Tanzania; Pakistan; Iraq; Sudan; and DRC.

Six top 10 recipients of humanitarian ODA are also top 10 recipients of ODA for government and civil society and conflict resolution combined:  Sudan; Palestine/OPT; Afghanistan; Pakistan; DRC; and Iraq.

Seven of the top 10 recipients of ODA for government and civil society and conflict resolution combined are also top 10 recipients of total ODA excluding debt relief: Afghanistan; Iraq; Palestine/OPT; Sudan; Pakistan; DRC; and Tanzania.

Six of the top 10 recipients of ODA for government and civil society and conflict resolution combined are also top 10 recipients of humanitarian ODA: Afghanistan; Iraq; Palestine/OPT; Sudan; Pakistan; and DRC.

Afghanistan received over US$1.3 billion in government/civil society aid in 2009 …

… and was the largest recipient of aid expenditure on conflict prevention …

… and six of the top 10 governance and security recipients were also top humanitarian priorities

Six top 10 recipients of humanitarian ODA are also top 10 recipients of ODA for government and civil society and conflict resolution combined:  Sudan; Palestine/OPT; Afghanistan; Pakistan; DRC; and Iraq.

Aid expenditure on governance and security is growing

‘Other’ ODA =US$55.4 billion

Health includes population and reproductive health. If you take this out, Health expenditure = US$8.2bn

The humanitarian aid figure quoted here is the gross disbursement as reported to the CRS.

What does ‘government and civil society’ aid include?

What does aid spent on ‘conflict, peace and security’ include?

But official development assistance (ODA) is only part of the picture

Between 2002 and 2010, the United States has appropriated US$52 billion in ‘Reconstruction assistance’ for Afghanistan – not all of this counts as official development assistance (ODA). US$19 billion has gone through state and USAID, of which some goes to security activities that are non-ODA eligible.

US$33 billion has been spent through the US Department of Defense (DoD), of which US$28 billion on training for Afghan security forces and counter-narcotics operations.

[Note:

ODA cannot be used to fund military equipment, services or debt relief. It cannot

fund security expenditure related to paramilitary functions or anti terrorism. It

cannot fund mine clearance if the objective is not developmental.

If the military are used to deliver humanitarian aid, limited additional costs can

be counted as ODA. To be additional, costs must be incurred over and above the

costs of keeping personnel on base in the donor country and take account of any

compensation received from the UN for the use of military services.

Within UN approved peace operations some activities in the post confl ict

phase can count as ODA. These include human rights, election monitoring,

rehabilitation of demobilised soldiers, advice on economic stabilisation,

demobilisation of soldiers and weapons disposal. Within these activities funding

must not go to the armed forces or for military capacity building. It has to be used

to increase democratic control or for civil society engagement.]

What is global expenditure on UN department of peacekeeping missions?

Source: GHA Report 2010, Development Initiatives, based on SIPRI Multilateral Peace Operations database

Many are asking about the consequences of the ongoing financial crisis, which first made its impact felt on the markets and the pockets of people in many developed countries in 2008. The above patterns in overall humanitarian expenditure for 2009 do not appear to be out of the ordinary. Humanitarian aid fluctuates each year. At US$52 million, the decrease is relatively minor. And many of the 2009 disbursements will have been budgeted for/made prior to the crisis breaking. For the moment at least, the humanitarian expenditure trend remains upwards.

But the headline figure does mask some variations in individual donor expenditure. While some donors reported substantial increases in their humanitarian aid in 2009 – the United Kingdom, for example, by just under US$150 million – others reduced theirs. Some of them considerably so. The 2009 data shows that EU institutions and the Netherlands reduced their humanitarian expenditure by US$350 million and just under US$107 million respectively for example. We are interested in trying to understand the reasons behind significant changes and will be following up with individual donors in the New Year.

At recipient country level, 9 of the 10 largest recipients remained the same in 2009. Myanmar ceded its place in the top 10 to Pakistan, which received the second highest increase (an additional US$370 million). Humanitarian aid to Palestine/OPT shot up to US$1.2 billion and now almost reaches that of the highest recipient, Sudan (US$1.3 billion). Some such changes are to be expected each year.

It is important not to discount the potential impact of the global financial crisis on humanitarian aid – not least because humanitarian aid is a financial flow that underwrites basic service provision in many countries that other official development assistance (ODA), trade, remittances, foreign direct investment (FDI), commercial lending and other financial flows do not/cannot reach. However, the 2009 figures may not be the best indicator of evidence.

Changes in individual donors’ humanitarian expenditure may or may not be symptomatic of financial crisis. They could indicate administrative or wider policy changes. We need to ask the question as the 2009 figures by themselves cannot answer. We will keep an eye on budget announcements (the newly launched budget4change.org is good for that) and the figures for 2010.

Some charts and tables based on the latest DAC release follow…

Top 10 donors of total humanitarian aid 2009

The 10 donors of humanitarian aid in 2009 were (in order): the United States; EU institutions (DG ECHO and others); the United Kingdom; Germany; Spain; Sweden; Netherlands; Norway; Canada and France. A slight change in order from 2008, with Italy ceding its top 10 place to Canada.

Top 10 donors of total humanitarian aid 2009 per citizen

When worked out on a ‘per citizen basis’ (i.e. dividing humanitarian aid expenditure by the total population), Luxembourg emerges as a very generous donor (with each citizen contributing just over US$126 to humanitarian aid expenditure), followed by Norway and Sweden. Also interesting to observe is that the United Arab Emirates is seventh on the list.

Biggest increases in humanitarian aid expenditure, 2009

The United Kingdom increased its humanitarian aid expenditure substantially in 2009 – up by US$149.4 million. Sweden, Australia, Turkey and Spain all increased theirs by over US$20 million. Smaller increases were also made by Canada, Finland, Hungary and Luxembourg.

Largest decreases in humanitarian aid expenditure in 2009

We are investigating the EU’s decline in humanitarian aid expenditure – when you look at changes by recipient country, they make sense in context of situation and trends … but given the extent of the apparent cut (US$350 million), we have asked the EU to comment. According to its own reports, DG ECHO’s funding remained relatively static.

Other notable changes came from Netherlands and Ireland.

Top 10 recipients of total humanitarian aid 2009

Sudan remains the top recipient of humanitarian aid for the sixth consecutive year. But its humanitarian aid volume went down slightly (by US$67 million). Humanitarian aid to Sudan has, since 2004, been between US$300 million and US$600 million higher than the next nearest recipient each year. This ‘margin’ has now dropped to around US$100 million.

Going up … biggest increases in volume of total humanitarian aid 2009

Palestine/OPT’s humanitarian aid rose dramatically in 2009. At US$1.2billion, it has almost reached the same levels as Sudan, which, as a top recipient since 2004, has always had between US$300 million and US$600 million more than the next largest recipient.

The United States increased its humanitarian aid expenditure to Palestine/OPT from US$22 million in 2008 to US$304 million in 2009. Detailed Creditor Reporting System (CRS) data shows numerous lines of project expenditure, including a large contribution to UNRWA’s General Fund, 2009 Emergency Appeal for the West Bank & Gaza. The European Institutions also increased their directly administered expenditure to the country fairly considerably (by some US$35 million), with contributions to UNRWA for emergency distress relief and reconstruction, and also to NGOs for food aid. The United Kingdom increased its expenditure to the country by a similar amount. The Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) doubled its expenditure there too (from US$5 million to US$9.4 million).

Humanitarian aid to Pakistan also increased considerably.

This emphasis on Palestine/OPT only changes the concentration of humanitarian aid expenditure on the top 3 or top 10 donors slightly however.

Going down .. biggest decreases in volumes of total humanitarian aid in 2009

Humanitarian aid expenditure in Afghanistan went down.. while overall official development assistance (ODA) to the country went up. Humanitarian aid to Myanmar had increased considerably in 2008 (following Cyclone Nargis) and declined again in 2009. Humanitarian aid to Ethiopia had also experienced an increase in 2008 (driven largely by the United States’ response to the food crisis).

Notes

1.       The data on which this report is based is available from the data store:

- for analysis by donor, 1990-2009

-  analysis by recipient should be made available soon (there’s a technical hitch in uploading the file! Sorry!)

2.       Our figures will differ from the DAC’s because:

-          we add in HA/ODA from core contributions to UN agencies

-           we do not include Korea as a DAC donor until the next DAC data release (April 2011, which will provide preliminary data on 2010 flows)

-          in 2009 we have included UAE’s reported HA contribution from Table 2a (as individual donor, as non-DAC donor and in total HA from all donors figure)

- we include the EC as a a donor.

3.       The figures quoted in the above text about the EC and United Kingdom’s contributions to Palestine do not take into account their totally unearmarked core contributions to multilateral agencies.

4.       Our figures relate to official development assistance (ODA or ‘aid’) expenditure as reported to the OECD DAC aggregate tables. The figures reported here exclude debt relief.

5. In 2009, total ODA increased by just over 4% to US$139.8 billion (excluding debt relief). Total humanitarian expenditure reached US$11.7 billion – an 8.4% share of total ODA.

6.       All data is expressed in constant 2008 prices.