Limitations and technical notes
Humanitarian aid contributions from Governments in this report include: 1. The humanitarian aid expenditures using data from the OECD DAC and FTS. The 29 OECD DAC members1 and some non-members report annually on Official Development Assistance (ODA) flows to OECD. Reports include bilateral humanitarian aid contributions plus ODA flows to multinational organizations. 2. Funding through inter-agency appeals reported by donors to FTS. Data is in current prices. Official Development Assistance – This comprises a grant or loan from an official source to a developing country (as defined by OECD) or multilateral agency (as defined by OECD) to promote economic development and welfare. It is reported by DAC members, along with several other Government donors and institutions, according to strict criteria. Humanitarian aid typically accounts for about 10 per cent of total ODA each year.
Humanitarian inter-agency appeals To raise money for humanitarian activities, humanitarian organizations often issue appeals or strategic response plans (post-2013). Appeals may contain information on the number of people affected by emergencies and their needs, the proposed activities to respond to those needs and the funding required. To respond to ongoing crises or after a major emergency, humanitarian organizations may participate in an inter-agency appeal process. This brings aid organizations together to jointly plan, coordinate, implement and monitor their emergency response. At the country level, the Humanitarian Coordinator leads the process, in collaboration with the Humanitarian Country Team. Types of inter-agency appeals include:
2. Flash appeals, which are used to structure a coordinated humanitarian response for the first three to six months of an emergency. Flash appeals are issued within one week of an emergency and are triggered by the Humanitarian Coordinator in consultation with all stakeholders. The appeal provides a concise overview of urgent life-saving needs and may include recovery projects that can be implemented within the appeal’s time frame. For the purposes of this report, the term “inter-agency appeals” is used to denote, interchangeably, consolidated appeals, strategic response plans, flash appeals and other appeals that follow similar principles and processes (such as joint Government-UN plans). See www.humanitarianresponse.info/programme-cycle/space.
Years, symbols and conventions • 2014 is the most recent year for which complete data was available at the time of publication. Where 2014 data is not available, the latest year is shown and this is noted. • A dash (-) means that data is not available or that aggregates cannot be calculated because of missing data in the years shown. • 0 or 0.0 means zero or small enough that the number would round to zero at the number of decimal places shown. • A billion is 1,000 million.
1. Strategic response plans (formerly known as consolidated appeals), which are used when several organizations appeal together for funds for the same crisis. Aid organizations use the strategic response process to plan, coordinate, fund, implement and monitor their activities. A strategic response plan can be issued for one year or more. Projects included can be planned for more than a year, but their budgets must be broken into 12-month periods.
1 Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European institutions
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