admin January 25th, 2012
Another famine is looming in Africa’s Sahel region – the third drought in the area in the last 10 years. And the big question facing the international community is whether the lessons of not responding soon enough to the drought in the Horn will be learned – and acted upon – here.
We know already that the European Union has taken a lead. And DFID has announced that it is sending therapeutic food to help 68,000 children in Chad, Mali and Niger, three of the countries worst affected by poor harvests.
Continue Reading »
Tags: CERF, Chad, DFID, Drought, Ethiopia, EU, Famine, Kenya, Mali, natural disasters, Niger, Sahel, Somalia, UNICEF, WFP
admin August 2nd, 2011
Sadly for the people suffering in the Horn of Africa, the famine there is destined to become a case history of international inaction in advance of a known disaster, a ‘How not to do it’ of emergency preparation and response. And all of the key players – governments, aid agencies, UN organisations – are already lining up to say that it was not their fault, even before the much-needed aid has really begun to arrive.
The first jolt to the emergency relief system was delivered by the Tsunami at Xmas 2004 when the existing systems were found wanting. In particular, too many organisations turned up to help with little or no coordination. Chaos ensued.
Some progress had been made on this front by the time the earthquake hit Haiti in January 2010, but there was still a fair amount of chaos.
Continue Reading »
Tags: Al Shabaab, Andrew Mitchell, BBC, DFID, earthquake, Ethiopia, Famine, FEWS, Haiti, Kenya, Mogadishu, Somalia, tsunami, WFP
admin June 16th, 2011
DFID yesterday produced its response to the Humanitarian Emergency Response Review (HERR), chaired by Lord Paddy Ashdown. You can read the press release and download the paper here.
Disappointingly, as far as Advance Aid is concerned, the words ‘pre-positioning’ do not appear at all in the 36 page response. Nor does the phrase ‘local procurement’. So whilst there will be a lot of changes in DFID’s approach to responding to disasters, pre-positioning and local procurement are not explicitly part of any new approach.
Continue Reading »
Tags: Andrew Mitchell, DFID, HERR, Lord Paddy Ashdown, natural disasters
admin May 31st, 2011
Bang in line with Andrew Mitchell’s approach at DFID, Accenture has produced a new report that argues that the way forward for international development is ‘convergence’. This convergence it sees as a narrowing of the gaps that currently exist between the commercial and NGO sectors – plus a changing relationship of donors (government and private) with both.
Accenture talks about a “convergence of solutions”, which it describes as “an approach that puts the needs of those most affected squarely at the heart of the matter”. NGOs would surely say that this is what they do already but the key to what Accenture is arguing surely comes in its observation that “development problems are so complex, so large, so persistent, so fluid that they require a wide range of approaches” and it suggests that these approaches could just as well come from the private as from the NGO or the public sectors.
Continue Reading »
Tags: Accenture, Afghanistan, Andrew Mitchell, Bayer, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Clinton Foundation, DFID, Ericsson, GSK, Heineken, Mercy Corps, NGOs, Rwanda, UNHCR
admin May 17th, 2011
If news had just emerged from your department that the costs of two aircraft carriers had risen from £4bn in 2007 to £5bn in 2010 and £7bn now, I guess you would also be casting around for other budgets to savage.
Especially when it also turns out that the planes to go on one of these carriers will not be available until three years after the ship itself goes into service.
Continue Reading »
Tags: Denmark, DFID, Germany, Japan, Liam Fox, Sweden, USA
admin April 5th, 2011
For all that Andrew Mitchell’s new-style DFID has been promising to bring the private sector into the ministry, the recommendations in the recent Ashdown Committee report (HERR) on working more closely with the private sector in humanitarian situations are hugely disappointing. They neither strongly advocate increased private sector involvement, nor do they advocate the disciplining of the private sector when it underperforms – something that seems long overdue in the humanitarian space.
In fact there is just one recommendation, Recommendation 21, and it asks that DFID “ensure that the new Private Sector Department gives full consideration to those areas where private sector expertise can improve humanitarian response effectiveness, including at the country level”.
Continue Reading »
Tags: Andrew Mitchell, DFID, HERR, Lord Paddy Ashdown, natural disasters
admin April 4th, 2011
The Ashdown Committee’s report, amongst other things, provides a breakdown of where DFID’s spending on humanitarian aid goes. The sums involved are substantial – £528 million in 2009/10 – that was spent as follows:
Continue Reading »
Tags: CERF, Crown Agents, DFID, HERR, ICRC, Lord Paddy Ashdown, NGOs, OCHA, Red Cross, Save the Children, UN, UNDP, UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP
admin March 28th, 2011
Lord Paddy Ashdown has spoken, with the publication today of his Humanitarian Emergency Response Review (HERR) for DFID, and he has some interesting things to say. We have to welcome, in particular, the section on ‘Changing the funding model’, something that Advance Aid has been arguing for.
Within this section there is an acknowledgment that funding is not done well at the moment and he states that, “DFID…needs to use its funds to promote change – to ensure that agencies are equipped to respond fast and deliver what people really need.” He goes on to offer the following damning critique, “Funding is not proportionate to needs, it is not equitable, it is not coordinated or harmonised, it does not focus enough on prevention and it does not demand demonstrable performance of funded agencies.”
Continue Reading »
Tags: CERF, DFID, Emergencies, HERR, Lord Paddy Ashdown, natural disasters, UN
admin March 22nd, 2011
In just under a week, DFID’s Humanitarian Emergency Response Review (also known as HERR, otherwise knows as the Ashdown Committee) will be submitting its recommendations. It could be a real red-letter day for those involved in the provision of emergency relief, because the way that we currently do things has to change and Ashdown has the ability, and the remit, to deliver change.
Continue Reading »
Tags: DFID, Emergencies, Lord Paddy Ashdown, natural disasters
admin March 3rd, 2011
Alongside the review of which countries the UK will continue to support with aid, covered in this blog yesterday, DFID has also been carrying out a review of the 43 multilateral agencies into which it will pour £3.7 billion in 2010/11.
The 43 have been ranked as Very Good, Good, Adequate or Poor. At the extremes, nine are ranked as Poor and nine as Very Good. In the middle, nine are Adequate and 16 are Good.
Continue Reading »
Tags: Asian Development Fund, Commonwealth Secretariat, DFID, FAO, GAVI, GFATM, IDA, ILO, IOM, PIDG, UN-HABITAT, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNIDO, UNISDR