The ‘Summit for a New Global Financing Pact’, which took place in Paris on 22-23 June 2023, focused on the notion of ‘global public goods’, such as food, water, health and education. Certain researchers, such as the political scientist, Bertrand Badie, argue that these contribute to ‘global security’. The goal of the Summit was to identify innovative solutions to contribute to a ‘Global Financing Pact’ adapted to new international challenges and the solidarity that these imply.

Humanitarian crises are the most visible and tragic symptoms of poverty, conflict, the effects of climate change, and sometimes a combination of these different mechanisms. When we look at the international emergency relief model – which is referred to here as humanitarian aid – it concentrates many of the issues raised more broadly by the different facets of international aid. There are many interesting lessons to be drawn from examining the main characteristics of the humanitarian movement, especially in terms of the parallels that can be drawn with the more complex international aid system.

Three figures alone show that there is a need to question and reform the current financing system: the annual humanitarian relief budget, total Official Development Assistance (ODA) and total migratory remittances, that is to say, the amount of money transferred by migrants to their home countries. As the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war are exceptional events, we will focus on the figures from 2018: emergency humanitarian aid represented 28.9 billion dollars[1], ODA was 149 billion dollars[2] and migratory remittances represented 689 billion dollars[3]. There is therefore no doubt that the most powerful development aid – in other words, the one that allows families and communities to choose their priorities – comes from diasporas.

Half of the people who needed humanitarian aid in 2021 (152.6 million people) lived in countries that are very vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Two-fifths of people in need (39%, or 119.9 million people) lived in countries that are faced with the combined effects of high-intensity conflicts, high levels of socio-economic fragility and high levels of vulnerability to the effects of climate change. The intersection between climate risk and the two other factors is particularly important, as high levels of fragility and conflict limit access to climatic resources. High intensity conflicts can also increase climatic risk, which increases fragility and the risk of new conflicts. Almost three-quarters of the people who required humanitarian aid in 2021 (217.7 million, or 71%) were living in countries where there were high-intensity conflicts.

These initial aspects show that, if we focus solely on the response to humanitarian crises, a number of issues and recommendations should be addressed in policy debates so that new strategies and solutions can be explored to overcome the fragility of the current system.

A worrying global situation that is getting worse

The effects of climate change increasingly act as catalysts of crises, notably in less resilient states. The shocks that they cause make existing crises worse, resulting in more frequent protracted crises than ever before. The number of countries affected by a protracted crisis (countries that have been the object of UN appeals for at least five consecutive years) rose to 36 in 2021, compared to 34 in 2020, which represents 74% (227.3 million) of all the people requiring assistance. In addition, twenty other countries are affected by a recurring crisis, and have been the object of funding appeals for more than a year.

This combination of conflicts and climatic vulnerability is particularly problematic. Indeed, high intensity conflicts mean that there is a risk that development projects aiming to reduce climatic vulnerability will be interrupted, which can lead to the delocalisation of projects or, in unstable regions, can prevent access to populations. When this happens, humanitarian operations take precedence over development operations, which further increases long-term vulnerability. It also results in more funding going through multilateral organisations, with less flexibility in situations that nevertheless evolve rapidly and less participation by local organisations and populations.

In 2020-21, the number of people in a situation of food insecurity (food crisis, emergency or famine) reached 160.4 million, or a third more than in 2019-20. Since then, the increase in food prices in 2022, caused by the war in Ukraine as well as problems in the supply chain and a serious drought in the Horn of Africa, has further threatened food security.

There is also a clear overlap between people facing high levels of food insecurity and people living in conflict situations. Of the ten countries with the highest levels of food insecurity in 2021, the seven highest were also affected by a high-intensity conflict.

Regarding migration, the number of forcibly displaced[4] (uprooted) people continued to increase in 2022. Of the 400 million people concerned by vital and often protracted emergencies in 2022[5], more than 100 million were forcibly displaced and a third will cross borders to take refuge (in the sense of the Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951) in another country. The vast majority of these refugees will seek asylum in a state next to their country of origin, particularly on the African continent. In 2019, it is estimated that 53% of cross-border migrants from African countries stayed on the African continent, and that 23% decided to go to Europe[6].

The crossing of borders gives the crises that people are fleeing a regional dimension. This sometimes creates economic and political tension in host countries that are often fragile themselves. This is currently illustrated by several major conflicts: refugees from Darfour in Chad, Afghans in Pakistan and Iran, Rohingyas from Myanmar in Bangladesh, Venezuelans in Colombia and Ukrainians in neighbouring countries in Eastern Europe. The majority of displaced persons are increasingly concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2021, this region took in more than 32.4 million forcibly displaced people, which is 38% of the global total, and a significant increase of 12% since 2020. The vast majority of these people (25.1 million) are internally displaced within their own country due to a conflict. Sub-Saharan African countries accounted for 47% of the total number of internally displaced people in the world in 2021. And the increase in the number of climate-related shocks will further increase the number of people forced to leave their homes (climate-related displaced persons).

Funding methods that have become obsolete

The funding model that aims to respond to all these situations has a chronic and substantial deficit as it is incapable of raising the 52 billion dollars that the United Nations estimated to be necessary in 2022[8]. With the help of NGOs, in the end, 47 billion dollars were mobilised in that year, which corresponds to an increase in expenditure of 27% since 2021[9].

In the short term, the objective is to secure annual expenditure of around 50 billion dollars and to save a funding system that has run out of steam, without forgetting the need, at the same time, to make the analysis of financial needs more reliable and relief organisations more efficient. And though 50 billion dollars is a significant amount in absolute terms, if we compare it with other figures, it puts the arguments of those who accept our collective inability to meet needs into perspective. 50 billion is a sixth of the French state’s budget for ‘day-to-day health expenditure’[10] and about the amount of profit made by a private company like Exxon Mobil in 2022 (59 billion)[11].

The current system therefore has limits in terms of the money it is able to raise, while needs are increasing due to the growing number of crises and climate change. There is also a risk of politicisation given that only twenty countries contribute 97% of the funds collected[12]. These voluntary donations, which are given on the condition that they will be used for contexts that the donors choose, are annual and therefore unstable. And they are used to respond to crises which, as mentioned above, are often long-term with a cumulative effect. More than 80% of the people who need assistance are affected by crises that have been going on for at least five years.

Given all these challenges, the system for funding humanitarian aid will only be able to reform itself if it analyses its weaknesses and its blind spots, and tackles some of its most problematic trends.

The four ‘temptations’ of the current economic model[13]

The first temptation can be described as ‘neoliberal’[14]. This can be seen in the global financial model of international humanitarian aid, a quarter of which is based on the random generosity of private donors, and three-quarters of which is based on the optional contributions of a limited number of states. It has been present since the concept of the NGO appeared in 1945, when it was already used to describe entities that were far removed from the French concept of the ‘association’ as theorised by Alexis de Tocqueville in the 19th century. Indeed, the ingredients of liberalism can be found among international NGOs. Sometimes they do not recognise this, sometimes they assert it, and sometimes it is a source of conflict between organisations. These include: the cult of performance, the promotion of private money to guarantee ‘freedom of enterprise’, distrust of state power, calls not to be bound by any form of regulation/coordination, and sometimes hostile exchanges between NGOs on the subject of ‘competition’[15].

The second temptation is that of ‘western-centrism’, as can be seen from the sources of funding and the virtual monopoly of emergency humanitarian relief by NGOs from western countries. In 2022, nine western countries plus the institutions of the European Union provided 32 of the 38 billion dollars of funds collected from states (84 % of government funding). Meanwhile, the system has so far failed to implement the recommendation from the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS), in Istanbul in 2016, to give local and national NGOs more means so that they can deliver aid directly. Currently, these organisations from crisis-affected countries only manage 2% of the total funds engaged whereas the Summit in Istanbul had fixed an objective of 25% for 2020…

The third temptation can be described as ‘security-based’ due to the fact that, for a number of years, the main funders have made security one of their main preoccupations. The aim of controlling partners and staff, and even aid beneficiaries via screening strategies increases the bureaucratic burden on NGOs which places them in a delicate situation, and all the more so in war contexts. They are expected to adopt methods that threaten the founding principles of the movement that was theorised by the International Committee of the Red Cross, while at the same time ethical questions have emerged regarding staff security. The position of funding agencies is ambiguous in this respect because: they direct their donations towards countries at war, the majority of whom are faced with the question of religious extremism as a vector of violence; they mandate international NGOs to implement projects; but they sometimes oppose the negotiations that humanitarians have to have with all the actors involved in a conflict. There is therefore a clear transferal of risk by donor countries: international NGOs are responsible for implementing emergency relief, contributing to funding, carrying out peacebuilding activities, and counting the number of people who are injured, kidnapped or killed while carrying out their missions; while the states who contribute financially get the political benefit of the assistance delivered.

In addition to these issues, which have roots that stretch back to the birth of the different organisations, the Covid-19 pandemic and then the outbreak of war in Ukraine have added another risk: the temptation of retraction. The pandemic which spread at the beginning of 2020 had a paradoxical impact with large-scale state intervention, even in countries that are champions of unbridled capitalism, in order to avoid economic and social damage. These interventions therefore signalled the return of the welfare state. But over and above the reactions and strategies of each country in response to this unprecedented crisis, it is the role of governments in funding international humanitarian aid that is currently being questioned. In the last ten years, there have consistently been shortfalls in government funding of around 40% compared to the amounts requested in coordinated appeals by the United Nations. This represented a shortfall of around 10 billion dollars in 2018. This seems a derisory amount in relation to the amounts deployed by developed countries to preserve their economies. And the political and financial attention that has been given to the Ukraine conflict by the main donor countries has had an immediate impact on the ability to fund major long-term crises further afield: Haiti, DRC, Afghanistan and Yemen, for example, have been affected by this retraction.    

How could the system be transformed?

At the Paris Summit, during a thematic workshop organised by Action Contre la Faim, NGOs from the Global North and Global South drew up a list of proposals which was then presented in a declaration signed by the directors of the different organisations[16].

In addition to the points made above, an uncompromising, critical analysis of the financial management model that leads to this shortfall in funding is needed. Such an analysis will need to take into account: the operating funds of the different families of humanitarian actors; the weight of technocratic measures; the level of pay of certain actors and glaring pay inequalities. Combatting fraud and corruption also needs to remain a priority because the performance and efficiency of the aid system are essential prerequisites before raising the prospect of new potential sources of funding. To do this, we feel that there are three main areas that need to be changed.

First of all, we need to rethink multilateralism and public funding of humanitarian aid.

It has become essential to increase the number of countries who contribute to financial aid. Though an obligatory contribution from the richest countries has not been excluded in principle, there are questions about the conditions for its implementation. Also, if more countries contribute, the method of attributing the funds collected will need to be reformed. It would be preferable to adapt the existing bodies in charge of distributing funds rather than to create new mechanisms. It is essential that the decision-making process of the multilateral humanitarian aid system should be based on the principle of equity between states, the inclusion of populations, and the empowerment and representative nature of all the stakeholders, and not on the priorities decided by the funding agencies who currently dominate the economic model. How can we explain – and accept – that the European Union – the world’s second largest contributor of humanitarian aid – makes no financial contribution whatsoever to the organisations who rescue people trying to cross the Mediterranean?

Secondly, we need to find new sources of funding, including the private sector.

Reinforcing cooperation between humanitarian and development aid and establishing public-private partnerships combining humanitarian grants, development funds and the participation of the private sector is a possible avenue that would allow an alternative funding mechanism to be established for long-term crises. The ICRC’s experience in the water sector is a good example of the concept of ‘mixed humanitarian funding’. Similarly to the Rapid Disbursing Debt Conversion Mechanism (RDDCM), these  new approaches provide a realistic strategy for reinforcing local capacities which are required for sustainable humanitarian assistance. Political decision-makers also need to consider reforming the international taxation of multinationals and their shareholders. The new tax revenues that this would generate could then be channelled into humanitarian aid, the response to climate change and development aid, three concerns that are inextricably linked.

Lastly, it is essential to renew humanitarian approaches to adapt them to the times and new international contexts, and the aspirations of people from the ‘Global South’. 

It has become essential to reform the methods for responding to long-term crises, by instigating multi-annual funding guarantees. Such a reform would also imply that development actors would have to accept more risks by working in unstable contexts. Recognising the role of environmental degradation in causing crises is also essential. And it is unavoidable today for humanitarian projects to work with local democratic institutions. Local and international organisations need to work hand in hand to define priority activities and how the funds allocated should be used in the field. The concept of ‘localisation’ is something of a misnomer, in that the very principle of the role of local actors does not require a neologism that implies that this is a new strategy that has been devised by donors. The main source of solidarity, in emergencies and in development projects, is always the solidarity of relations and local communities, as is evident in the figures for ‘migratory remittances’ cited at the beginning of this article. What is more, the very concept of ‘civil society’ is not universal. Political decision-makers in certain countries, such as China[17], do not accept that citizens have a role of this kind. And the form and dynamics of this concept are different in each society, community and political system. In order to bring about these changes, there is an urgent need to analyse the root causes that have prevented the recommendations from the Istanbul Summit from being implemented and to find solutions to these.

In short, in order to cope with humanitarian crises, we will have to go and find money wherever it is to be found and, at the same time, encourage the countries who are the main funders and decision-makers to let go. In any case, reforming the way the international solidarity system is managed is an absolute priority if the organisations that make it up want to contribute to ‘building another world’.

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Tragic deaths in the Mediterranean

The recurring tragedies – whether documented or not – of boats sinking and people drowning in the Mediterranean are one of the most appalling effects of desperate people fleeing at all costs and taking terrible risks in order to achieve greater basic security. It is in the Mediterranean that the greatest number of people die along the migration route. Between 2014 and August 2023, the number of deaths is estimated to have been 27 845[7].

[1] https://devinit.org/resources/global-humanitarian-assistance-report-2019/ (p. 32).

[2] https://www.oecd.org/fr/developpement/repli-de-l-aide-au-developpement-en-2018-en-particulier-vers-les-pays-qui-en-ont-le-plus-besoin.htm

[3] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2019/04/08/record-high-remittances-sent-globally-in-2018

[4] Ibid., p. 56.

[5] https://devinit.org/resources/global-humanitarian-assistance-report-2023/ p.23.

[6] Africa Migration Report, Challenging the Narrative p. 19. https://publications.iom.int/books/africa-migration-report-challenging-narrative

[7] https://missingmigrants.iom.int/data  (Missing Migrants Project, ‘Deaths during migration’).

[8] Development initiatives, op.cit, p. 30.

[9] Ibid., p.28.

[10] Les dépenses de santé en 2021 – édition 2022 – Résultats des comptes de la santé | Direction de la recherche, des études, de l’évaluation et des statistiques (https://drees.solidarites-sante.gouv.fr/publications-documents-de-reference-communique-de-presse/panoramas-de-la-drees/CNS2022)

[11] Les Échos, ‘Exxon annonce un bénéfice record pour 2022 à $59 mds’ (https://investir.lesechos.fr/actu-des-valeurs/la-vie-des-actions/exxon-annonce-un-benefice-record-pour-2022-a-59-mds-1902203)

[12] Development initiatives, op.cit, p. 35.

[13] Pierre Micheletti, ‘0,03 % ! pour une transformation du mouvement humanitaire international’, published by Parole, 2020, p. 247-249.

[14] See: Mayer Nonna, Siméant Johanna, « L’espace de l’altermondialisme », Revue française de

science politique, 2004/3 (Vol. 54), p. 373-378. DOI : 10.3917/rfsp.543.0373. https://www.cairn.info/revue-francaise-de-science-politique-2004-3-page-373.htm ; ‘Les ONG : instruments du projet néo-libéral ou bases solidaires des alternatives populaires ?’, Alternatives Sud, 4 (4), 1997, p. 5-34 and Bernard Hours, « Les ONG, mercenaires du village planétaire ou gardiennes des ghettos ? », L’homme et la société, 105-106, 1992, p. 36-50.

[15] See Stéphanie Dupont, École de Journalisme et de Communication de Marseille Université de la Méditerranée, Promotion 2002, Mémoire de DESS (‘Nouveaux médias de l’information et de la communication : les enjeux d’internet dans la communication des associations’ : http://stephanie.dupont3.free.fr/integral.pdf) and  ‘Médecins sans frontières suspend sa collecte de dons pour l’Asie’, Le Monde, 4 January 2005. https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/2005/01/04/medecins-sans-frontieres-suspend-sa-collecte-de-dons-pour-l-asie_392968_1819218.html.

[16] https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2023/07/17/il-faut-un-nouveau-pacte-mondial-pour-financer-l-aide-humanitaire-internationale_6182356_3232.html

[17] Le Monde, « L’Occident, ennemi désigné de la Chine », 14 octobre 2022.