Proportion and distortion in humanitarian assistance - ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action in 2005: Evaluation utilisation

This chapter reviews the functioning of the humanitarian system in 2005 through
the lens of a set of 43 evaluations deposited with ALNAP. It explores the relationship between needs and the allocation of humanitarian aid, seeking to illustrate and illuminate questions of distortion and proportion in the humanitarian system.

The issue of proportion and distortion has been identified as a matter for concern in ALNAP Reviews of humanitarian action since 2001. The 2003 Review observed wide variation in the allocation of humanitarian funding during the 1990s, with people in Ethiopia receiving only $2 per head while those in Bosnia-Herzegovina received $116 per head (ALNAP, 2003, p 14). The same Review went on to note that this was not by accident but because of ‘distortion’ caused mainly by political factors. The 2004 ALNAP Review found that ‘inequities in funding continue’, with over 80 per cent of requirements already pledged for the Tsunami response compared with only around 40 per cent pledged for Sudan and the DRC (ALNAP, 2004, p 18). It summarised the reasons for these inequities as ‘national interest, geopolitical interest and media focus’ and noted, as did the 2003 Review, that the issue had not often been recognised by evaluators.