Global Humanitarian Assistance Report 2021 – Key figures

The Global Humanitarian Assistance Report has been published for over 20 years by Development Initiatives.

It provides a detailed picture of international humanitarian assistance, based on extensive and accurate data. You will find here a summary of 4 of the 5 chapters of this report, the last one being the methodology.

Enjoy your reading!

Find access to the PDF of the full Development Initiatives report here.

Summaries of 2018, 2019 and 2020 GHARs can be found on the Humanitarian Challenges website, in the “Studies” section.

Chapitre 1: People and crisis

This first chapter takes stock of the extent of global poverty in four points. The central message is that the pandemic has both exacerbated existing needs and fueled new crises in countries that did not need humanitarian assistance, increasing the total volume of aid needed.

People living in extreme poverty are increasingly concentrated in fragile countries at high risk from the impacts of Covid-19

Source: Development Initiatives based on World Bank PovcalNet, national sources, INFORM Index for COVID Risk and OECD.

People living in extreme poverty are increasingly concentrated in countries that are fragile and at high risk from the impacts of Covid-19. In 2020, 66% of people living in extreme poverty (less than $1.90/day) were also living in one of the 52 countries classified as fragile by the report, up from 40% in 2010. Poverty reduction is progressing overall but is very uneven and has increased by 8% in fragile states.

Acute food insecurity disproportionately affects the poorest and has been stimulated by the pandemic. The report estimates that more than 80% of people living in severely food insecure areas live below the international poverty line ($3.20/day).

The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbates humanitarian crises, with more people in more countries affected. The pandemic has exacerbated existing crises but has also been the main driver of humanitarian needs in some countries like Iran. The report estimates that 243.8 million people in 75 countries have been assessed as needing humanitarian assistance (224.9 million in 65 countries in 2019). High numbers of people in need remained concentrated in a small number of countries: more than half of those in need in 2021 lived in just nine countries.

The number of displaced people increased for the ninth consecutive year to 82.1 million (+3.4%). In 2020, 10 countries hosted 54% of IDPs, a similar proportion to 2019. Many IDPs are in situations of protracted displacement with no possibility of safe return to their homes.
- 58% were forcibly displaced within the country;
- 32% were refugees (26.3 million);
- 5.1% were asylum seekers (4.2 million);
- 4.4% (3.6 million) were Venezuelans displaced abroad.

20 countries with the largest forcibly displaced populations and risk of impacts from
Covid-19, 2019 and 2020

Source: Development Initiatives based on data from UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Index for Risk Management (INFORM) and Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

The report also makes two findings:

Women and girls in conflict zones are twice as likely to experience gender-based violence. This gap is likely to increase with the pandemic. The UN estimates that there will be 13 million early child marriages between 2020 and 2030 due to the pandemic.
The availability and delivery of covid vaccine has not been equitable, and countries experiencing a protracted crisis have some of the lowest single-dose vaccine coverage rates in the world (2.4% compared to 12.5% in other developing countries covered by COVAX).

Chapitre 2 : Humanitarian and wider crisis financing

In this chapter, the report highlights that in 2020 global humanitarian needs have increased faster than ever, while the growth of humanitarian aid has stalled. International humanitarian aid volumes had been growing steadily over the years 2012 to 2018 (12% per year on average), peaking in 2018 at $31.3 billion.

International humanitarian assistance, 2016–2020

Source: Development Initiatives based on Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC), UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Financial Tracking Service, UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and our unique dataset for private contributions.

Funding needs through UN-coordinated appeals were also following a steady increase (+90% compared to 2015). However, actual funding declined for the first time in 5 years. Of the $38.8 billion requested, $18.8 billion (including $5.7 billion related to covid) was not funded, compared to $11.1 billion in 2019.

Of the 55 calls in 2020, only 7 received 75% or more of the required funding. The number of calls with less than a quarter of the funding requirement met worsened significantly in 2020, with 17 calls receiving less than 25% coverage. In 2019, no calls were funded at less than 25%.

Funding and unmet requirements, UN-coordinated appeals, 2011–2020

Source: Development Initiatives based on UN OCHA FTS and UNHCR data

The UN-coordinated appeals do not represent all the needs, so significant funding is provided outside of the appeals. For example, in 2020, the needs of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) rose sharply to a record level of over 1 billion, while the funding gap continued to widen (58% coverage).

In addition, the role of the broader development community is increasingly important and countries in crisis now receive far more development funds than humanitarian funds.

Official Development Assistance (ODA) received by countries in crisis has thus increased from 47% of total ODA in 2010 ($51 billion) to 65% in 2019 ($94 billion). The proportion of ODA reported as humanitarian aid has doubled from 15% in 2010 ($7.6 billion) to 29% in 2019 ($27.2 billion).

ODA from multilateral development banks to the 20 largest recipients of humanitarian
assistance, 2010–2019

Source: Development Initiatives based on OECD DAC CRS

Multilateral development banks (MDBs) have become increasingly active in crisis contexts, providing increasing volumes of ODA to countries in crisis.

MDB disbursements to the 20 largest recipients of humanitarian assistance have doubled since 2014, from $5.4 billion to more than $10.7 billion in 2019. However, the share of disbursements in the form of grants has decreased significantly in favor of loans.

For the epidemic response, total MDB financing reached $120 billion in April 2021, 95% of which was in the form of loans. The IMF has been the largest contributor, committing $50.4 billion to date.

Finally, the total volume of ODA with disaster risk reduction as its primary objective has increased from $1.4 billion in 2018 to $1.9 billion in 2019.

Chapitre 3 : donors and recipients of humanitarian and wider crisis financing

This third chapter makes the key finding that most government donors increased their contributions in 2020, but significant reductions by a few key donors caused overall aid to stagnate.

The volume of international humanitarian aid from the top 20 government donors in 2020 stabilized at $23.1 billion. As in previous years, the top 20 public donors in 2020 contributed 96 percent of total international humanitarian aid allocations. The top three donors (US, Germany, and the UK) accounted for 61% of total donor contributions.

20 largest public donors of humanitarian assistance in 2020 and percentage change
from 2019

Source: Development Initiatives based on OCED Development Assistance Committee (DAC), UN OCHA Financial Tracking Service and UN Central Emergency Response Fund data

The largest donors to Covid-19 were the United States, Germany, and Japan.

It should also be noted that many donor countries also hosted exiles and that most government spending within their own borders is not accounted for. In the previous year, three countries accounted for nearly two-thirds of all in-country refugee spending: Germany (29 percent), the United States (21 percent), and France (13 percent).

Another important indicator highlighted in this chapter is the proportion of gross national income (GNI) devoted to international humanitarian assistance because it reflects the importance of humanitarian spending relative to the size of a country’s economy. Within this framework, five donors provided more than 0.1 percent of GNI as international humanitarian assistance in 2020, as shown in the following infographic.

20 donors providing the most humanitarian assistance as a percentage of GNI, 2020

Source: Development Initiatives based on OECD DAC, UN OCHA FTS, UN CERF, World Bank World Development Indicators and International Monetary Fund World Economic Outlook data

The proportion of total private funding from individuals continues to grow. For example, in 2019, international humanitarian aid from private donors increased by 9%, from US$6.2 billion in 2018 to a record $6.8 billion in 2019.

Sources of private international humanitarian assistance, 2015–2019

Source: Development Initiatives based on GHA’s unique dataset of private contributions.

While total international humanitarian aid stagnated, 112 countries received more than $5 million in humanitarian aid compared to 69 countries in 2019. One explanation is that the top 10 recipients received 57% of all funding or $13.3 billion (-11%) in 2020 compared to 66% ($15 billion) in 2019.

In addition, with $1.3 billion provided in response to the pandemic, these countries actually received $12.0 billion for other pre-existing or emerging humanitarian needs in 2020, $3.0 billion less than in 2019.

Overall, countries outside of the top 10 recipients received more funding in 2020 than in 2019, but less if those for Covid-19 are removed.

10 largest recipients of international humanitarian assistance, 2019–2020

Source: Development Initiatives based on UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Financial Tracking Service (FTS) data.

CHAPITRE 4 : funding for effectiveness and efficiency

According to this chapter, international humanitarian assistance would have been provided broadly in the same way in 2019 as in previous years: multilateral organizations received most of their funding from public donors, and NGOs from private donors.

Channels of delivery of international humanitarian assistance, 2019

Source: Development Initiatives based on Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC), UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Financial Tracking Service (FTS) and UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) data and Development Initiatives’ unique dataset for private contributions.

Local and national actors are often the first to respond to crises, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting restrictions on access. Commitments made at the Grand Bargain, an agreement among the largest donors and humanitarian agencies in 2016, included a global target of 25% of total international humanitarian aid transferred to local and national actors by 2020. Since then, while the absolute volumes of international humanitarian aid passed directly to local and national actors have increased, the scale of this aid falls far short of expectations.

Direct funding to local and national actors reporting to UN OCHA FTS, 2016–2020

Source: Development Initiatives based on UN OCHA FTS data

Pooled funds are an increasingly important part of humanitarian funding because of their responsiveness and flexibility. They consist of the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and the Country-based pooled fund (CBPF). Contributions to the UN pooled funds fell sharply in 2020 to $1.5 billion from a record $1.8 billion in 2019.

It should be noted, however, that the proportion of PBC funding to country organizations continues to grow despite the absolute decrease in CBPFs.

Total funding to UN-managed humanitarian pooled funds, 2011−2020

Source: Development Initiatives based on UN OCHA’s CBPF Grant Management System and UN CERF data.

Quality funds (multi-year, unearmarked funding as a proportion of total funding) are another option favored by the Grand Bargain. They should represent 30% of international humanitarian aid by 2020. While they have increased significantly in volume by 2020, as a proportion of total funding, they remain below 2016 levels.

Proportion of resources received by UN agencies reported as earmarked and unearmarked, 2016–2020

Source: Development Initiatives based on data provided bilaterally by UN agencies.

Multi-year funding is, according to the Grand Bargain, funding that lasts 24 months or more from the start date of the initial funding agreement. This method of funding provides implementing agencies with predictable resource levels that can allow for efficiencies and effectiveness by allowing them to plan ahead.

15 donors, which provided 84% of total government humanitarian assistance in 2020, allocated 42% (US$6.5 billion) of their multi-year humanitarian funding in 2020 compared to 50% (US$7.3 billion) in 2019.

Finally, the volume of humanitarian cash and voucher assistance (CVA) continued to grow in 2020 across all types of organizations. This method that can be rapidly deployed in suitable areas was often the modality chosen to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Total funding for humanitarian cash and voucher assistance, 2015–2020

Source: Development Initiatives based on data collected with the help of the Cash Learning Partnership from implementing partners and on UN OCHA FTS data

To summarize, here are the key 2020 trends to remember:

– Humanitarian needs are growing: 243.8 million people living in 75 countries have been assessed as needing humanitarian assistance. The Covid-19 pandemic is exacerbating and creating humanitarian crises.

– While global humanitarian needs have grown faster than ever, the growth of humanitarian assistance has stalled. Appeal coverage rates are declining.

– Most government donors increased their contributions in 2020, but significant reductions from a small number of key donors have caused overall aid to stagnate. Overall, countries received less funding in 2020 than in 2019, particularly if those for Covid-19 are removed.

– The structure of international humanitarian assistance remains the same: Multilateral organizations received most of their funding from public donors, and NGOs from private donors. The funding commitments made at the Grand Bargain are far from being met.

Rodolphe Rouyer

The humanitarian in the trap of the time, who embraces too much embraces badly…

To run after one’s time – and its conceptual fads – is an exhausting exercise, if not vain. One can also wonder if it is not an approach which by nature disperses energies, knowing no limit, at the risk of a 360 degrees “catch all”… likely to make one lose the North.

Any time generates its conceptual fads, which fade away, by dint of rubbing up against reality… Ours does not escape it, and even seems particularly fertile in this field. The reasons are numerous and could be the subject of an article in itself. But the fact is that today no dimension of human activity escapes it… Humanitarianism, thus, finds itself caught, “embedded”, we could say, in this general movement where the certainty of speaking and acting in the name of the universal good leaves little room for doubt, nuance, or even the consideration of reality. In the era of globalized humanitarianism, “industrialized” according to some, more and more standardized, framed, constrained, sometimes directed, this involvement is concretized by an increasingly massive impregnation of these conceptual fads, by donors, influencers (such as certain large Anglo-Saxon NGOs) or partners of humanitarian NGOs, such as United Nations agencies or governments.

Thus, these NGOs and humanitarian organizations are now encouraged, often by those they need to continue to exist as structures for action, to demonstrate, or at least affirm loud and clear, their adherence to the long list of these conceptual fads. Any written document, issued, consultable, from a humanitarian organization becomes an opportunity to respond to an implicit summons, that of positioning ourselves on each of the themes in the air of time, to “check all the boxes”, as a good and irreproachable student, responding to the favorite subjects “that must” be addressed, as we say in our jargon. Independent in principle, we find ourselves, in an unspoken way, “assigned to sign” at the bottom of each paragraph of a doxa which aims, of course, only at the good of all.

Pierre Brunet in Afghanistan in 2003, as part of a mission with the multiple operational teams of Solidarités International in the country.

Honesty demands that we recognize that there is more than meets the eye in this phenomenon. First of all, it is important to emphasize the sincerity of the individual adherence, as citizens, of a good number of humanitarians to a large part of these themes and concepts. Furthermore, the irruption of these concepts into our thinking often leads to an enrichment of our approach, which can lead to a widening of the scope of our action. Finally, this conceptual irruption forces us to leave our comfort zone and to question ourselves, to re-distinguish the priority from the secondary, the essential from the complementary, the obvious from the debatable, and to redefine the responsibilities of all the actors.

Having said this, let’s look at the main themes and conceptual fads that we humanitarians are being asked (or at least suggested) to take on or at least make our own by adherence-absorption-integration in our mandate, whatever it may be. Small non-exhaustive inventory à la Prévert or “What we should address, in addition to the humanitarian needs of people in distress…” :

The urgency of responding in the short and medium term to vital needs and at the same time putting in place sustainable solutions has founded the double nexus of emergency and development. The complementarity between humanitarian and development approaches, now often implemented together and in parallel, is an undeniable progress. However, in recent years, a third nexus has been insisted upon, the triple nexus of emergency-development-peace, in which humanitarians, at the risk of their fundamental principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence, should, through their actions, participate in the establishment of peace in the countries in conflict where they intervene. This false good idea, just like the recent one of participating in the fight against terrorism by screening our teams, partners, service providers and especially beneficiaries, is fortunately rejected by the majority of humanitarian NGOs in the name of these principles. This is the first example of concepts that have been seductive, but which are inoperative, dangerous and incompatible with what we are.

Iraqi women of Solidarités International register beneficiaries of humanitarian aid ®Solidarités International

The localization of aid, a theme highlighted at the May 2016 Istanbul Global Humanitarian Summit, has since become a staple of any humanitarian NGO’s positioning. In addition to the fact that humanitarians did not wait for this summit to see the interest in general and the benefit for the populations of assisted countries of favoring, whenever possible, the design, organization and implementation of aid provided, as close as possible to the needs, by national humanitarians, doesn’t this much sought-after concept often overlook a few important points? Among these, don’t we sometimes forget a little quickly, in our eagerness to embrace it, that international humanitarians contribute to the effectiveness and efficiency of aid through their commitment, their skills, experience and expertise, which are sometimes rare in countries in crisis (in addition to the question of logistical capacities and emergency response), and through the framework of humanitarian principles and rationalized and shared operating methods of which they are the guardians? Should we throw the baby out with the bathwater?
The fight against the effects of climate change is a vital and global issue. We know this. Our role as humanitarians is to participate, whenever possible, through relevant programs of adaptation to this change, of resilience in the face of shocks, to limit and mitigate its effects on populations that are often among the most threatened on the planet. We have been doing this for many years now, and will have to do it more and more, better and better. But is it essential to complicate and weigh down our action by multiplying the “processes” for measuring our carbon footprint and the tools for “accountability” of our “eco-responsibility”, as we are not, by far, the most polluting organizations on the planet? As for the fight to limit global warming, is it within the scope of our mandate, of our mission? We are not the UN, and even the UN is struggling on this crucial issue…
The notion of protection of populations, for the past twenty years, has become more and more important in the field of humanitarian semantics, and as a “prism” for a growing number of programs implemented. The principle of protection is, in itself, a very good thing, no one disputes this. But, once we have established as its foundation the International Humanitarian Law (IHL) that we must defend relentlessly, what does this notion, which is very broad in nature, mean in concrete terms? Does it fall within the scope of our possible action? Yes, insofar as it is our responsibility “to do no harm”, not to aggravate in any way by our action and our behavior the threats and attacks on the dignity and fundamental rights of the people in distress that we are helping… Yes, because when it comes to specific groups (women, children, the handicapped, such and such a community, etc.), it is true that we must, whenever necessary, pay particular attention to them and inform the competent actors of the serious attacks of which they are victims. But beyond that? In countries where people are threatened at any moment by war and violence, where explosive barrels or gas are dropped on them, where schools or hospitals are bombed, is it within our reach, and is it lucid, to claim to be doing a work of protection?

Clearance operation in Haiti, 2011®Solidarites International

In a way, we humanitarians have to reinvent the wheel. The decisive point of this affair is, let’s remember, the need for most humanitarian NGOs to send “subliminal messages” to the donors of the international humanitarian system by “ticking the boxes” of the conceptual fads of the moment. But should we give in to the temptation of catching all, losing our compass? On the contrary, can’t we take advantage of this context to find the North? To return to the realistic idealism that has made our action indispensable, to rediscover the modesty of our pretensions, but the concrete ambition to save more and more lives. We are not going to save the world, and we are not going to change the world. Once again, we are not the UN, which is already failing to do so… Of course, humanitarian organizations cannot, and should not, be cut off, as if in a watertight bubble, from the issues, the questions that concern and grip this world, but should they strive to embrace them all? He who embraces too much embraces badly…

Pierre Brunet, writer and humanitarian worker:

Born in 1961 in Paris to a French father and a Spanish mother, Pierre Brunet found his first vocation as a freelance journalist. In 1994, he crossed paths with humanitarian aid and volunteered in Rwanda, which was devastated by genocide. In early 1995, he left on a humanitarian mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, then torn by civil war. There he took on the responsibilities of program coordinator in Sarajevo, then head of mission.

Upon his return to France at the end of 1996, he joined the headquarters of the French NGO SOLIDARITES INTERNATIONAL, for which he had gone on mission. He will be in charge of communication and fundraising, while returning to the field, as in Afghanistan in 2003, and starting to write… In 2011, while remaining involved in humanitarian work, he commits himself totally to writing, and devotes an essential part of his time to his vocation as a writer.

Pierre Brunet is Vice-President of the association SOLIDARITES INTERNATIONAL. He has been in the field in the North-East of Syria, in the “jungle” of Calais in November 2015, and in Greece and Macedonia with migrants in April 2016.

Pierre Brunet’s novels are published by Calmann-Lévy:

January 2006: publication of his first novel “Barnum” by Calmann-Lévy, a story born from his humanitarian experience.
September 2008 : publication of his second novel ” JAB “, the story of a little Spanish orphan girl who grew up in Morocco and who will become a professional boxer as an adult.
March 2014: release of his third novel “Fenicia”, inspired by the life of his mother, a little Spanish orphan during the civil war, refugee in France, later an anarchist activist, seductress, who died in a psychiatric institute at 31 years old.
End of August 2017: release of his fourth novel “Le triangle d’incertitude”, in which the author “returns” again, as in “Barnum” to Rwanda in 1994, to evoke the trauma of a French officer during Operation Turquoise.

In parallel to his work as a writer, Pierre Brunet works as a co-writer of synopses for television series or feature films, in partnership with various production companies. He also collaborates with various magazines by publishing columns or articles, notably on international news.