Donors and implementing organizations are alarmed by the gap between humanitarian needs in today’s most acute crises and the apparently diminishing access to populations in need. The total number of attacks against humanitarian aid workers has risen starkly over the past decade, and humanitarians face myriad barriers when trying to deliver assistance.

Executive summary

Humanitarian assistance and development cooperation pursue different aims and follow different principles. Their separation – while important to protect the independence of humanitarian action – has negative side effects. This paper seeks to contribute to the international debate by clarifying concepts, analyzing these effects and exploring donor strategies for addressing them.

The state of the debate

International food aid is a longstanding, valuable instrument for responding to food emergencies around the world. Over the past decade or so, the food assistance toolbox has expanded significantly, beyond the traditional shipment of commodities from donor countries. In order to speed up delivery and reduce costs, most donors now buy a majority of their food aid commodities in the developing world, a practice known as local or regional purchase or procurement (LRP).

Claudia Meier • C.S.R. Murthy
GPPi Research Paper No. 13

Introduction

The only international treaty governing food aid, the Food Aid Convention (FAC) needs urgent reform. Signatories agreed a decade ago that "food aid should only be provided when it is the most effective and appropriate form of assistance" and "should be based on an evaluation of needs by the recipient and the members" (Art. VIII). These goals have not been realized. The convention remains rooted in an outdated surplus disposal paradigm and favors responses that neither follow from careful evaluation of recipients' needs nor reflect recent innovations in food assistance.

This report contains the main findings and recommendations of an evaluation of UNICEF's response to the emergency in Northern Yemen following the outbreak of the sixth round of fighting in the Sa'ada conflict in August 2009. The evaluation was conducted between July and August 2010 and was designed as a Real-Time Evaluation. As such, the main purpose of this evaluation was to support a process of organisational learning of UNICEF's country office in Yemen.

To reach this goal, the evaluation team included a strong participatory component in the evaluation exercise and

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Background, scope and method

On January 12th 2010, an earthquake of magnitude 7.0 on the Richter scale struck Haiti's capital Port-au- Prince and its surrounding areas. The earthquake had devastating effects: an estimated 230,0001 people were killed, with many left injured and homeless. Material loss is reported to be equivalent to more than 100% of Haiti's national income.2 More than 2 million displaced persons3 sought refuge in spontaneous settlements in and around the capital, with host families, and in rural

Executive summary

On May 2 and 3, 2008, Myanmar was hit by a cyclone of unprecedented force, which had devastating effects on the Irrawaddy Delta and, to a lesser extent, Yangon. It is believed that 2.4 million people were severely affected by the cyclone. Given the scale of humanitarian needs created by Cyclone Nargis, the cluster approach was rolled-out rapidly in the first few days to ensure a coordinated response from the international community. Eleven clusters were activated by the end of June 2009, when they merged into a new coordination mechanism, namely Delta Recovery Groups.

Executive summary

This report is one of six country reports of the global Cluster Approach Evaluation Phase 2, for which a global synthesis report is also being produced. The evaluation assesses the operational effectiveness and the main outcomes of the cluster approach, as well as its interactions with other pillars of humanitarian reform. The report seeks to identify the added value of the cluster approach since its introduction in Haiti in early 2008 and to derive lessons for both improving the cluster system in Haiti and similar contexts in which the approach might be used