Attachments
Introduction
The Crisis Overview 2016: Humanitarian Trends and Risks for 2017, outlines the countries where needs are greatest, and growing, as we approach the end of 2016.
Based on our weekly Global Emergency Overview (GEO), and four years of data on humanitarian needs across 150 countries, we have identified ten countries where humanitarian needs are likely to be highest in 2017, as well as four that merit attention as they face a potential spike in needs. We also consider the humanitarian situation in the northern triangle region of Latin America, where the wide-ranging humanitarian impact of pervasive gang violence is chronically underreported.
COUNTRY SELECTION
The ten countries identified to be in highest humanitarian need in this report are those that have consistently been at Level 3 (Severe Humanitarian Crisis) in the ACAPS GEO for the 12 weeks preceding the report (mid-July to early October), and that we consider likely to be facing worse situations in the coming year.
The GEO measures underlying vulnerability, access constraints, and current needs to determine overall need for humanitarian assistance. It ranks countries according to three levels: situation of concern, humanitarian crisis, and severe humanitarian crisis.
The second list adds four countries, and one region that our monitoring and analysis determines to be at significant risk of a new or increased humanitarian crisis within the coming six months.
Our overview does not attempt to predict sudden-onset disasters, rather to analyse the broad evolution of the situation in countries hit by longer-term, more complex crises.
Despite the regional nature of many crises, we focus on countries because data collection and response is generally country-focused.
Comparing disasters is an intricate and controversial endeavour, and we cannot fully account for the complexity and diversity of the many crises around the world. This report is not therefore intended to rank or compare the humanitarian situation in different countries directly, but simply to summarise the evolution in the most pressing humanitarian needs.