From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

FROM POVERTY TO POWERlead agencies in nine areas of humanitarian action (for example,UNICEF leads on nutrition, water, and sanitation, while UNHCR is incharge of managing camps for people affected by war or disaster).At the UN ‘World Summit’ in September 2005, the organisation’s192 member governments promised to improve the timeliness andpredictability of humanitarian relief, including upgrading the UN’sexisting Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). This wouldenable the UN system to provide a rapid response and adequatelyfund ‘neglected emergencies’, rather than waste precious weeks andmonths passing the hat round to donors.In its first year, the CERF committed $259.3m for over 331 projectsin 35 countries. This included $182.4m for rapid response and $76.9mfor underfunded emergencies. Donors duly upped their pledges to$342m for 2007. CERF funding has undoubtedly saved lives, particularlyin underfunded or ‘forgotten’ emergencies. However, even the CERFsuffers from administrative and disbursement delays both at its headquartersin New York and in the field, since funding is channelledthrough UN agencies that have done little or nothing to adapt theirown procedures – early signs that an overly cumbersome system fordisbursing funds might undermine the CERF’s effectiveness. 186In 2006 a high-level panel appointed by the UN Secretary-Generalmade some further recommendations that could improve its humanitarianresponse: UN bodies need to work together as a single entity inany given developing country, with a single boss, budget, and office;funding for UN operations, both to promote development and toreact to short-term emergencies, needs to be more predictable andlong-term; the UN needs a single, powerful voice on women (it currentlyhas three separate entities); and it needs to pay more attention toenvironmental and sustainability issues. 187For their part, in 2003 donor governments set up the GoodHumanitarian Donorship initiative to identify and promulgate bestpractices. This is based on 23 principles, including increasing thetimeliness of aid and providing aid according to need. 188 InternationalNGOs have also set up a series of learning and accountability projects,most sporting the inevitable acronyms. HAP (The HumanitarianAccountability Partnership) looks at downwards accountability tothose affected;ALNAP (The Active Learning Network for Accountability390