State of the Humanitarian System, 2010

The humanitarian system has a fundamental responsibility to continually assess its ability to save lives and alleviate human suffering. The IFRC, as a global network, shares many of the issues and challenges identified by this initiative. I welcome this report for its ambition to assess overall achievements on a regular basis and believe it will help individual organizations and networks to reflect on and improve their own performance. We have learned from our participation in the initiative and we hope it will continue to grow and strengthen over the years to come.

Bekele Geleta, Secretary General of the IFRC I warmly welcome this first State of the Humanitarian System report because it shows deep commitment towards self improvement within the humanitarian system. I encourage this effort to be sustained over time so that it can gradually live up to its potential to further improve the quality of services provided by all humanitarian actors. The ICRC remains committed to lead its own self improvement and to contribute to that of the humanitarian system as a whole.

Angelo Gnaedinger, Director General of the ICRC Thanks to the collective efforts by members of the humanitarian community over the past five years, the humanitarian system has made significant strides in becoming increasingly rapid, effective, and predictable. That said, much more still needs to be done. ALNAP’s first State of the Humanitarian System report is unique in its scope and well researched. Findings such as these will contribute to the humanitarian community’s collective efforts to take stock of where we stand, face up to global challenges, and to decide how we can make more difference to the lives of people affected by emergencies.

Sir John Holmes, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator This is a very important and timely initiative from ALNAP. Careful consideration of the analysis in this report has potential benefits for all actors in our humanitarian sector. Repeated, with improvements, the State of the Humanitarian System report can provide a useful regular indicator of the progress we will hopefully be making as a system.

Mikael Lindvall, Deputy Director and Head Section for Humanitarian policy and conflict issues, Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs ALNAP’s State of the Humanitarian System report aims to assess the humanitarian system as a whole and analyse its performance over the last two years. This was an ambitious undertaking, but the results are impressive and require us, as humanitarian actors, to pause and reflect on our actions. Whilst progress is being made, we must find ways to improve our work with those who matter most: populations affected by conflicts and disasters.

While this report was not able to look at the considerable role of local NGOs and community based organisations, the first step has been taken, which can allow for a more extensive effort next time around. ALNAP has taken an essential step that will help us to better consider the work we are doing and to critically examine whether we are collectively performing well or not.

Paul O’Brien, Chair ICVA Executive Committee, Board Member of VOICE and Overseas Director Concern Worldwide