Introduction
Humanitarian teams in 20 countries are aiming to reach some 62 million people this year with actions to save lives, protect the most vulnerable populations, ensure access to basic social services, strengthen resilience, and invest in disaster risk reduction and preparedness. They are acting in support of national and local efforts, which are the first line of response to humanitarian need. They are presenting this mid-year review in order to report, in the spirit of accountability, on their achievements versus the targets they set in their concerted action plans for 2012, and on the gaps where they cannot do provide the full necessary spectrum of humanitarian aid because of insufficient resources or other reasons.
The 2012 Consolidated Appeals—the international humanitarian system’s instrument for joint strategic planning and monitoring—encompass the coordinated actions of some 560 aid organizations, local, national and international. By participating in this joint process, these organizations have agreed to act in a concerted and strategic way in addressing humanitarian crises.
In the first half of 2012, a major new crisis has emerged in the Sahel countries, with spreading food insecurity and malnutrition, and a new conflict in the north of Mali that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Conflict, food insecurity and malnutrition have worsened in Yemen. South Sudan has had an accelerating influx of refugees and returnees, plus people displaced by fighting and mounting food insecurity and malnutrition. The appeals’ mid-year reviews tell the stories of how these changing crises are affecting people and how the humanitarian actors will respond.
The aid organizations represented in these appeals (CAPs) deliver a major part of the assistance that disaster-affected people need, but far from the only part. Local and national government, communities and civil society are almost always the fastest and most important providers of aid. Diasporas support humanitarian response through important fundraising, remittances, in-kind support, networking and awareness-raising. Religious and civil-society organizations similarly draw on networks of support. Some important international aid organizations, though they may coordinate with the multilateral system, prefer not to be counted in consolidated appeals; others may be amenable if the international humanitarian system reaches out to them. The inputs and results of these humanitarian actors are not easy to quantify, but the international humanitarian system has set itself the goal of better appreciating and accounting for them in its appeals.
Because of the new or escalating crises, the global total of CAP resource requirements has risen from US$7.9 billion at the start of the year to $8.8 billion following the mid-year reviews. Member States have managed to maintain much of their humanitarian funding levels despite economic turbulence. Funding for actions planned in the CAPs amounts to $4.0 billion at mid-year, 10% more than the $3.6 billion reported at mid-2011 (though the same in proportion to requirements—45%). Global international humanitarian funding in 2012 is slightly off the pace reported at mid-2011, $7.8 billion vs. $8.4 billion. The aim of the mid-year review is to demonstrate how humanitarian actors are using resources effectively for people in need, and that they can deliver what they propose if the resources become available.