LONDON (AlertNet) - The global humanitarian system enjoys much more funding and manpower than a decade ago, but due to poor coordination and leadership in crises it still falls short of needs, aid workers say.
Despite some progress, coordination of relief efforts is by far the biggest challenge to humanitarian action, according to a comprehensive survey by ALNAP. The poll is part of a report on the quality of relief work worldwide, released this month by the network of major humanitarian organisations and experts.
"A lot of people are highlighting that strengthening the coordination system is key to making the rest of the system work effectively," Ben Ramalingam, head of research and development at ALNAP, told AlertNet.
"Performance is seen as very variable between different sectors and emergencies depending on leadership," he added.
The findings chime with criticism of coordination between numerous providers of aid in Haiti after last month's deadly earthquake.
Partly as a result of poor communication and lack of clear leadership, some planes with life-saving medical supplies were delayed and food failed to reach many survivors in Haiti's devastated capital two weeks after the earthquake struck.
Ramalingam agreed that coordination of aid efforts in Haiti was one of the key issues to review, but added that the scale of the disaster and the destruction it caused posed unique logistical problems.
"Even if you had the best-prepared leadership system in the world, I think Haiti would still have come as a shock," he said.
Leadership within non-governmental relief organisations should also be strengthened, some interviewees said.
"(There is) not a forceful enough group of senior people running emergency responses in the big NGOs. And it's become too managerial - not enough capacity to speak out well on the big issues," the report quoted one respondent as saying.
But there are signs of progress, it found.
The United Nations' cluster system, whereby U.N. agencies lead the provision of different types of humanitarian aid in cooperation with non-governmental relief groups, has improved coordination since it was set up in 2005, most respondents said.
Emergency aid work has been particularly effective when led by the government of the disaster-hit country, for example Mozambique's response to floods in 2007 or India's actions during the 2004 tsunami.
In situations where the national authorities are less assertive, international aid groups do not cooperate enough with local agencies and do not consult local people sufficiently, the study said.
But coordination and consultation come at a cost.
Take this quote from an Oxfam evaluation cited at the launch of the ALNAP study in London:
"Whenever an NGO comes to the village, they want to form a committee. Now our village has so many committees, if we go to them all we don't even have time to cook."
Other key findings in the ALNAP report:
* In 2008, donors contributed some $6.6 billion to international efforts to help in emergencies - a nearly three-fold increase since the start of the decade after allowing for inflation.
But needs of affected populations have also gone up as the number of disasters increased and are still not matched by resources.
Humanitarian contributions to appeals by the United Nations, governments and aid agencies equalled over 85 percent of total stated requirements in 2008 and 2007, up from 81 percent in 2006 and 67 percent in 2005.
* The number of aid staff worldwide has risen by 6 percent a year on average over the past decade to reach a total of about 210,800 humanitarian workers in the field.
* The problem of corruption in humanitarian aid remains neglected in research and evaluations of humanitarian action.
ALNAP polled about 500 people, most of them employees of U.N. and non-governmental aid agencies, over the past year.
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