The World Humanitarian Summit in May 2016 represented a turning point for the humanitarian business model. The summit gave the impetus to reflect seriously on how to operate in crisis environments where people’s needs can no longer be met by existing tools and operations. The humanitarian community took stock of the changing nature of crises in the world, and the growing inadequacy of the current humanitarian and development business models to operate in these contexts.

In 2016, the “One humanity, shared responsibility” report of the United Nations Secretary-General for the World Humanitarian Summit called for a new paradigm for conceiving, programming and delivering humanitarian assistance. The scale, complexity and longevity of many crises are proving challenging to the international community in designing and funding interventions fit for such complex situations.

Most people surveyed say that humanitarian assistance does not meet their most important needs. For households affected by crises, humanitarian assistance is an important, but generally fluctuating, element of their income. Even the most vulnerable need to complement it with other sources, including taking on more debt. The success of humanitarian assistance does not depend exclusively on volumes of funding. The survey suggests that the quality of the response and local authorities’ management of the crisis are critical elements in recipient satisfaction. Meeting people’s most important needs in a crisis therefore requires a thorough vulnerability analysis to understand household economies and the constraints they face, in order to combine humanitarian assistance with actions or programmes that enhance income generation and preserve assets.

The question of whether assistance is going to those who need it most is central to humanitarian action. The surveys suggest many recipients feel that the humanitarian system only targets those people who fall within agencies or NGOs’ mandates and programme objectives – many feel overlooked. On the other hand, humanitarian staff are confident that aid is going to those who need it most. This misalignment reflects how the segmentation of the affected population by a fragmented humanitarian sector can lead to people falling between sectors, most notably amongst the affected host population.

If humanitarian assistance is not sufficient to meet people’s most important needs, it is even less effective in achieving economic self-sufficiency, for which the lack of economic and livelihood opportunities is the primary grievance for the vast majority of survey respondents. In protracted situations, people want economic autonomy, not prolonged assistance. Because it is not designed to end need, and because it is unpredictable in nature, humanitarian assistance is not the right tool to build sustainable economic opportunities, especially in refugee contexts where strict restrictions can be in place to prevent refugees from participating in the economic life of their host countries. Creating an enabling environment for livelihood opportunities for people affected by crisis should rapidly become a priority for DAC members in their political dialogue with partner countries.

The project reveals improvements in the way aid is delivered. Some of the Grand Bargain commitments, such as multiyear frameworks and joint needs assessments, are starting to deliver positive initiatives that now need to be systematised. Building on years of practice, the cash agenda is becoming more widespread. Support to education in crises has also become a key issue for donors, showing that humanitarian-development silos can be overcome, resulting in positive outcomes and better responses. Some serious challenges remain however. The localisation agenda is progressing too slowly, mainly because donors’ architecture is designed to favour direct contracts to trusted partners rather than to a dense network of local civil society organisations active in the field. The participation revolution has not happened either. The humanitarian system is still driven by international organisations’ mandates and programmes, rather than by the affected people at the centre of the response.

The surveys’ results are a clear call to combine humanitarian aid with longer-term solution in crises contexts. The Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Recommendation on the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus calls for greater coherence when engaging in crisis contexts. This requires a common analysis that helps frame the context, risks and opportunities for donors engaging in crises using a set of instruments that includes, but is not restricted to, humanitarian assistance. Emerging good practice – on education for example – shows that global analysis and coherent programming can help international responses alleviate the impact of crises by supporting both affected people and local economies and infrastructure. Continuing on the reform path will mean turning aid programming into a genuinely people-centred approach, implying a significant shift from the current supply-driven humanitarian system to a customer approach.

In 2016 the OECD partnered with Ground Truth Solutions (GTS), an organisation that specialises in getting feedback from affected populations in crisis contexts.