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An image of a refugee camp in Bangladesh.
September 29, 2021

Rethinking Humanitarian Reform: What Will it Take to Truly Change the System?

This brief summarizes three years of research under the project, “Rethinking Humanitarian Reform,” led by Jeremy Konyndyk, Patrick Saez, and Rose Worden, and funded by the aid departments of the United Kingdom and Australia. The project aimed to understand the incentives behind the humanitarian system and shift them to better prioritize the needs of affected populations. Read more at https://www.cgdev.org/project/rethinking-reform-toward-demand-driven-humanitarian-action.

Patrick Saez , Jeremy Konyndyk and Rose Worden
An image of humanitarian aid being unloaded from a plane.
July 29, 2021

Financing the Global Humanitarian Public Good: Opportunities for Change

On July 7, CGD convened a private, online, high-level roundtable of 15 major humanitarian donors, multilateral agencies, and NGO leaders under the Chatham House Rule to discuss humanitarian financing challenges and four proposals to reform the humanitarian business model. This note explores what was discussed, and what we can learn about the future of humanitarian reform.

Rose Worden , Patrick Saez and Claus Sorensen
The cover of the paper
July 7, 2021

Financing the Humanitarian Public Good: Towards a More Effective Humanitarian Financing Model

The international humanitarian system provides a global public service but is financed on a voluntary basis. The way official donor funding is mobilised and allocated is unpredictable and haphazard, reducing efficiency and effectiveness. Donors should overcome the collective action problem that is inhibiting change and reach a critical mass of finance delivered through collective mechanisms. This paper outlines the case for - and obstacles against – change. It suggests three ways to make some progress: a multi-year common replenishment model for protracted and predictable crises; rebalancing country-level pooled mechanisms; and aligning core funding to agencies with agreed core functions.

Patrick Saez , Jeremy Konyndyk and Rose Worden
Hand-sewn clothing hangs on a clothesline in Cox's Bazar, Bangla
June 22, 2021

Shifting Power in Humanitarian Nonprofits: A Review of 15 NGO Governing Boards

Humanitarian nonprofit organizations, from small, volunteer groups, to international NGOs with thousands of paid staff, operate in a patchwork of intersecting, competing and reinforcing missions. They share a common objective: to protect the lives of vulnerable people in crisis. When organizations fail to maintain public confidence in their mission, as in the recent spate of #AidToo scandals, the cost falls most heavily on the populations they aim to serve, but accountability to aid recipients is often missing aside from these isolated incidents incurring heightened public scrutiny.

Rose Worden and Patrick Saez
The cover of the paper
October 13, 2020

Inclusive Coordination: Building an Area-Based Humanitarian Coordination Model

Area-based approaches treat needs holistically within a defined community or geography; provide aid that is explicitly multisector and multidisciplinary; and design and implement assistance through participatory engagement with affected communities and leaders. Integrating these elements of area-based logic into the humanitarian coordination architecture would better align humanitarian action around the expressed needs and aspirations of crisis-affected people.

Jeremy Konyndyk , Patrick Saez and Rose Worden