Latest Developments

April 2007

Update on the Good humanitarian Initiative of April 2007


March 2007
Best practice in Disaster Risk Reduction

Allocating Humanitarian Funding  according to need discussion paper and the Brussels Workshop


January 2007
Update on the Good Humanitarian Initiative of January 2007

Review of the OCHA Emergency Response Funds

December 2006
Evaluation of Common humanitarian funding paper December 2006


July 2006
The 4th annual meeting of the GHD Initiative took place on 13th July.

The first half of the meeting was dedicated to identifying ways in which donors could ensure that their resources are allocated to where they are most needed. A background paper on the topic was tabled by Ireland. A number of key action points were agreed to take this work forward. These included: exchange of experience in the use of severity indices; investing more in improving the evidence base for humanitarian decision-making; and examining how multilateral organisations ensure resources are allocated according to need when using unearmarked and pooled funding.

The remainder of meeting reviewed progress over the past year . The meeting agreed to further strengthen donor coordination at field level, drawing on new guidance for field colleagues. It also agreed to maintain a capacity to monitor progress against GHD objectives. The priorities for 2006/7 were agreed.Canada issued revised GHD Domestic implementation plans in both English    and French 

May 2006
Ireland has commissioned a consultant to review practical approaches to needs-based allocation. The aim is to help donors better fulfil their GHD commitment to provide assistance on the basis of need by understanding the constraints and challenges to doing this, and sharing approaches that have been successful. The report will be prepared in time for the ECOSOC humanitarian segment in July 2006 and will make a number of recommendations to donors to strengthen the needs basis of their allocations. Further details are available in the Terms of reference.

March/April 2006
The final OECD DAC peer reviews for 2004/2005 were released in February 2006. A compilation of the reports for Norway, Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium and Germany was produced in English and French , and a synthesis report is also available in English and French . With thanks to Henrik Hammargren for making these files available.

Jan Egeland, UN OCHA Deputy High Commissioner gave a speech on the DAC and Good Humanitarian Donorship at the DAC OECD meeting on 6 April. His speech can be found here.

January 2006
January GHD update is available here

December 2005
Humanitarian Financing

On December 15 the UN resolution A/RES/60/124 was passed which officially adopted the new CERF mechanism. The Central Emergency Response Fund, replaces the pre-existing Central Emergency Revolving Fund. UN General Assembly Press Release

Humanitarian assistance to be discussed at the High Level meeting of the DAC and formal endorsement of principles will be sought.

October 2005

Promotion of GHD

The Institute of Studies on Conflicts and Humanitarian Action (IECAH) and Intermon (Oxfam Spain) convened a seminar on GHD on 20 October 2005 to raise awareness among the Spanish government and NGOs about the initiative. Presentations on GHD were provided by the OECD-DAC, Sweden and UK  among others, followed by panel discussions.

Last updated: 10 August 2006

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