Financing International Humanitarian Action: a Review of Key Trends

Overall, global humanitar ian assistance more than doubled over the 1990s, from $2.1 billion at the beginning of the decade to $5.9bn in 2000.This growth is linked to the predominance of complex conflict-related emergencies. In 2001, donors contributed $2.1bn in response to 20 complex emergencies, and $311 million for 49 natural disasters.Although the number of people and countr ies affected by natural disasters is greater than for complex emergencies, conflict-related crises usually cause greater loss of life and entail more expensive response operations.The exception is a particularly severe and large-scale natural disaster, like Hurricane Mitch in 1998, when the response exceeded the combined total for all natural disasters in the previous five years.