Head of the Humanitarian Policy and Planning Section at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Alain BOINET
Hello Aurélien Buffler, for the readers of the online magazine Défis Humanitaires, could you briefly introduce OCHA and yourself ?

Aurélien Buffler
Hello Alain and hello everyone. OCHA is – in French the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) – the office of the United Nations Secretariat responsible for coordinating the humanitarian efforts of the United Nations and its partners.

It’s the office, when we all have one, that tries to ensure that UN agencies, NGOs and other humanitarian partners work together in Sudan, Gaza and Ukraine to achieve common goals and best help people in need.

Within OCHA, I’m in charge of a team responsible for humanitarian policies; specifically humanitarian policies relating to international humanitarian law, humanitarian access and everything to do with the idea of humanitarian aid based on humanitarian principles.

We have 3 main objectives:

The first is to support OCHA teams and humanitarian teams in the field when they have questions relating to these issues. For example, what legal regime applies or what policy precedents can be used to build a response. This is operational support.

The 2nd objective of my team is to provide secretariat support for discussions between the Member States here at headquarters on these issues, particularly in the Security Council. Last week the Security Council held its open debate on the protection of civilians, and considered the Secretary-General’s report on the protection of civilians. It is my team that both drafted the report and supported the discussions between Member States.

The 3rd objective of my team is to coordinate policy issues at global level. We work with our partners, the UN, NGOs and the Red Cross, to ensure that we have the same understanding of the major developments in the areas I have highlighted, and work together to resolve these challenges.

For example, when it comes to the impact of sanctions or counter-terrorism measures on humanitarian aid, my team is working to coordinate the position and advocacy of humanitarian organisations.

Alain BOINET
The Secretary General of the United Nations has just published a report on the protection of civilians in armed conflict. At the initiative of Switzerland, the UN Security Council has also just adopted a resolution on the protection of humanitarian and UN personnel in conflict zones. In 2023, 500 humanitarian workers were victims of violence, including 250 who were killed. On the eve of the 75th anniversary of the 1949 Geneva Conventions in August, what is your assessment of the situation and what initiatives and measures have been taken by the UN with the support of OCHA to protect civilians and humanitarian workers ?

Aurélien Buffler
Is the work of humanitarian workers more difficult and risky these days ? It’s difficult to assess. I note, for example, that humanitarians have never been so present in so many places with so many resources to help so many vulnerable people.

That said, the environment in which we operate has changed, particularly in terms of security. In Gaza, Sudan, the Central African Republic and most other crises, the humanitarian flag is no longer in itself a guarantee of security. We have had to adapt, in particular by strengthening our security risk management.

However, these necessary risk management efforts will never be enough to protect us. What we really need is for the parties to the conflict to respect humanitarian law and facilitate our work, particularly humanitarian access; in too many contexts, this is not the case. We now see parties to conflict who feel more uninhibited in their decisions to attack humanitarians for one reason or another. Obviously, when parties want to block humanitarian aid, one very effective way is to attack humanitarian staff and their means of operating. And of course, it is those on the front line, the local NGO staff, who are most at risk.

The adoption of Resolution 2730 on the protection of UN and humanitarian personnel by the Security Council sends an important political message to the parties to the conflict and, more broadly, to the Member States.

More broadly, on the protection of civilians and respect for international humanitarian law, both the United Nations and the ICRC shared their concerns with the Security Council and Member States during the open debate on 21 May. Our observation is that the rules exist and that they cover everything, or almost everything, but that there is clearly a problem with respect for and implementation of these rules by the parties to the conflict and States.

One trend is particularly worrying: certain parties to the conflict and certain States are adopting extremely permissive and elastic interpretations of international humanitarian law, which is tantamount to emptying international humanitarian law of all substance.

There is also the problem of widespread impunity for the most serious violations.

The Secretary-General’s report reiterates that international humanitarian law must remain the basis of any protection of civilians. The report also stresses that beyond international humanitarian law and the obligations of the parties to the conflict, the protection of civilians must be considered from the point of view of the civilians themselves and the damage they suffer. The report therefore encourages states to put civilians and the suffering they endure at the centre of discussions. This represents a paradigm shift for an issue that has hitherto been approached from the point of view of the parties to the conflict and their legal obligations.

There have already been significant developments in recent years, notably the adoption of the political declaration on the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, which is already in line with this approach.

Alain BOINET
In its 2023 report, OCHA noted a significant drop in humanitarian funding. The initial appeal concerned 230 million people with a budget of 56 billion dollars. The funding received enabled only 128 million people to be helped, with a budget of 24 billion dollars. How do you interpret this significant drop ?

Aurélien Buffler
In 2023, $24 billion was received out of the $56 billion requested. There’s a gap of almost $32 billion. What’s also new and striking about 2023 is that the resources available to us have fallen significantly. I think that in 2022, we had received around 30 billion dollars.

Why is that ? Many of the countries that fund the bulk of humanitarian aid have reduced and cut their development aid and humanitarian aid budgets.
Humanitarian aid is funded mainly by Western donors. In comparison, alternative sources of funding, whether from other governments or the private sector, remain relatively small. So, on the one hand, budgets are falling in donor countries and, on the other, there are no alternative sources of funding. This sums up the difficulty of funding humanitarian aid today.

Alain BOINET
In 2024, in this context, OCHA adopted a new methodology, a joint and intersectional analysis framework, which introduces a new international standard for assessing humanitarian needs and protection risks. Can you tell us about the main features of this new framework, which raises many questions ?

Aurélien Buffler
Our methodologies have always evolved. I think what’s interesting today is how the new framework tries to have a slightly more intersectional vision and also how protection is better integrated than it was before, in particular by becoming a common objective for all sectors.

This also goes beyond a change in methodology. The observation is that we have fewer resources today than we used to, so we need to prioritise more effectively. That’s just a statement of fact. It’s a pragmatic approach. If you look at the global analysis, there are 300 million people with humanitarian needs. But in 2024, we will be focusing on the 180 million who, in our view, are the most vulnerable. That’s not to say that the other 120 million don’t also have needs; it’s just that we don’t have the means to help them.

Alain BOINET
I’d like to finish off with a question from one of the members of the Humanitarian Challenges Expert Committee. Does this new analytical framework correspond to a new definition of humanitarian need, or is it a way of improving the percentage of funding for international humanitarian aid ?

Aurélien Buffler
It’s probably a bit of both. I think there is indeed an effort to refine the notion of humanitarian need: what is humanitarian ? What isn’t ? This is not a new debate.

This is happening at a time when humanitarians are under pressure to take on more and more things. At a time when the political, security and development sides of the United Nations are facing certain challenges, humanitarian aid is often seen as the solution; the part where there is money; where there are means to take care of more and more needs. This is neither true nor tenable. Humanitarian aid is only a fraction of development aid. Humanitarian aid is only a fraction of development aid, and humanitarians are not equipped to do anything other than humanitarian work.

As for improving the percentage of funding by reducing needs, that is not the intention. We simply want to present a realistic picture: our response plan must be in line with the resources available to us. There’s not much point in drawing up response plans that we know in advance won’t be financed.

Alain BOINET
At the European Humanitarian Forum in Brussels in March, the European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid, Janez Lenarčič, said that the humanitarian lifeboat was sinking. Cindy McCain of the World Food Programme said: ‘In Afghanistan, we have cut 10 million people off from aid. In Syria, 4 million. In Somalia, 3 million.

Do we have a clear idea of the consequences of cutting off aid to these populations? Could a humanitarian organisation like OCHA assess these consequences, particularly with a view to re-mobilising donors or showing them the consequences of this lack of resources ?

Aurélien Buffler
You’re absolutely right. Most humanitarian organisations are faced with increasing humanitarian needs and funding that is not keeping pace, or is even decreasing. So they have to cut programmes. And in the humanitarian sector, cutting programmes means cutting aid that goes to people in need.

Unfortunately, we don’t always have the means to monitor these populations once they have left these programmes.

I’d like to pick up on the European Commissioner’s statement that the boat is sinking. I think that’s a pretty good image. I would add that it’s also because we’re perhaps loading the boat a little too much. With development facing certain challenges and conflicts lasting longer and longer, humanitarian aid is seen as the only way out. The problem is that humanitarian capacities are limited.

Alain BOINET
In his speech to the European Humanitarian Forum, Martin Griffith stressed that we desperately needed political will to meet the challenges we face. What exactly do you think he meant ?

Aurélien Buffler
We need political will to get out of certain crises. What armed conflicts have been resolved in recent years ? And these conflicts are the main cause of humanitarian needs today.

It will only be possible to move away from humanitarian aid for the populations concerned once these crises have been resolved. And it’s not the humanitarians who can do that, it’s the political leaders who are responsible for peace and security.

We also need the political will to ensure that international humanitarian law is respected, and to put an end to the violations and the blocking of aid.

It was interesting to hear what you said at the beginning of this question about official development assistance increasing in 2023 while humanitarian aid fell. This would mean that political decisions have been taken to increase development aid and reduce humanitarian aid. We also need to ask what channels are used and how this aid is distributed. Finally, does this aid support the multilateral system or is it more bilateral cooperation ?

Alain BOINET
Where are we this year in 2024, following OCHA’s appeal to help 185 million people for a budget estimated at 46.4 billion dollars? I checked the OCHA website and I think we’re only at 15% of the funding needed.

So before the International Humanitarian Conference on Sudan in Paris on 15 April, only 5% of the $4 billion requested had been mobilised. Although the conference raised $2 billion, the situation still gives cause for concern ?

Aurélien Buffler
We are effectively at 15% of funding as of June. If we continue at this rate, we will have covered around 30-35% of our needs by the end of the year. This is clearly not enough; it means that 65% will not be covered and that many people will not have the aid they need.

What is worrying is that already in 2023, we have received only 43% of the aid needed, compared with the usual average of 55% to 65%. I’m afraid that at the current rate, we’ll be on the same trajectory.

Alain BOINET
In this year’s OCHA appeal, Martin Griffiths states: ‘The situation is also a wake-up call. Humanitarian aid is not going to be the only solution. We need to share the burden. He was speaking to development players. Have you seen any progress in this area ? And where do we stand on the humanitarian-development nexus, which is not entirely new ?

Aurélien Buffler
This discussion dates back at least to the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016 and even earlier. And it’s true that progress has been too mixed since then. In too many crises, humanitarians find themselves alone trying to manage the consequences of things that go beyond their mandate and competence.

In many contexts, development actors find it difficult to take over because of funding problems or political difficulties.

There are also sources of funding, notably from the World Bank, which are based on certain criteria that many of these countries do not meet, and so we are blocked and the result is that humanitarian aid is seen as the answer to everything.

Alain BOINET
The main donors of development aid are the member countries of the OECD, for the most part the Western countries/ Are you seeing any changes, or even closer ties, on the part of countries like China, Brazil,….

Aurélien Buffler
There are many more players or states prepared to contribute in one way or another to the humanitarian effort than there were 20 or 30 years ago, that’s undeniable. You’ve noted some of them, and we can also take the Gulf States as an example.

But the reality is that OECD countries continue to fund the overwhelming majority of humanitarian aid.

The question is whether these new players have the means and the ambition to carry weight in terms of funding. And if they do, is funding for United Nations aid their priority ?

I note that in some countries, humanitarian aid is not funded by UN agencies or others. There are national institutions with their own networks in the countries affected, but they don’t have the ‘codes’, the need or the desire to work with the current humanitarian system. But is the humanitarian system capable and open and flexible enough to integrate these players and their sources of funding? This is a legitimate question.

Alain BOINET
We’ve come to the end of this interview. How would you like to conclude ?

Aurélien Buffler
The humanitarian system is facing a number of challenges. Many of them are not new and have been discussed at the World Humanitarian Summit and in the Grand Bargain: location, funding, public participation, etc.

How can we respond to these challenges ? One of the most interesting discussions in recent years has been around the flagship. The flagship takes up these major themes, but in a much more pragmatic way than we have seen up to now.

The flagship starts from the ground up, leaving established processes to one side. In the pilot countries, Niger, the Philippines, South Sudan and the DRC, some interesting things are already coming out of it.

The first very interesting thing that has come out of it, and I think we need to stress this, is that when we talk to people, when we listen to them, they don’t have the same vision as we do, either of their needs or of the way in which we should respond to their needs. This is fundamental and forces us to reflect on the way we work and its real impact. Are we really meeting people’s needs? Not the needs we define, but the needs that people themselves define? This is a thorny and difficult question. Of course, we have to guard against simplistic answers. I think there are a lot of good things that humanitarians do. At the same time, we have an obligation to listen to those we are helping and to question the impact of our actions.

Alain BOINET
In 2016, at the World Humanitarian Summit, the Grand Bargain stated that one of its priorities was to simplify administrative procedures. In fact, even today, some actors and even audit firms are saying that we are in the midst of a shock of increasing complexity and that, as a result, what is being imposed on international NGOs is itself being imposed on national NGOs, which are unable to respond to the escalation of standards to the detriment of the operational implementation of humanitarian aid.

Not only is there no simplification shock, the opposite is actually happening. Everyone is protecting themselves to the detriment of all those involved, and particularly at the end of the chain, local players who are not in a position to meet these standards.

Aurélien Buffler
I quite agree with this observation. What is to blame for this?

Certain obligations and processes are imposed on our donors, notably by their parliaments, to control the use of public money. That’s understandable, of course, but we also have to recognise that this often means more processes and more monitoring of reports.

I think there is also a tendency to import management techniques into the humanitarian sector, which means more and more processes and indicators to measure effectiveness.

Finally, there is perhaps also a tendency on our part – we humanitarians – to take refuge in processes to feel more professional and secure.

Taken together, all this adds up to a level of complexity that cannot work for small local NGOs, or even for large local NGOs that are not in the same frame of mind, that sometimes do not have the tools to do this, or the patience or the will.

I believe that if we are serious about localisation, we will have to fundamentally change the way we work with these organisations, including reducing the number of processes and reports and at the same time recognising all the risks we transfer to these organisations and helping them to manage these risks, particularly the security or fiduciary risk.

In terms of logic, the flagship goes in this direction. Because it doesn’t start with the process. The process is defined by the local players as closely as possible to their needs.

Alain BOINET
Aurélien, I would like to thank you for this long interview, which has enabled us to work together in a spirit of partnership to tackle the problems and improve humanitarian action for populations at risk.

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Aurélien Buffler is Head of Section for Humanitarian Policy and Planning at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Aurélien has over 20 years’ experience in the humanitarian and human rights field, including as OCHA Team Leader for the humanitarian response in Syria; Head of Coordination for OCHA’s office in the Occupied Palestinian Territories; and Human Rights Expert for the OSCE mission in Kosovo.

 

 

Statement by Martin Griffiths on the financing of humanitarian aid in 2024 : (3) Publier | Fil d’actualité | LinkedIn