Floods in Bihar. Hurricanes in Haiti. Food shortages in Zimbabwe. Humanitarian crises often strike at the same time. So how do aid agencies deal with so many demands on their finite resources and funds? The director of Cafod gives an insight into the tough choices that have to be made
Juggling priorities is a necessary part of life for any large organisation but for an aid agency the stakes can be high, with decisions made on how or whether to respond having a potentially serious impact on the lives of the most vulnerable.
Humanitarian crises never queue up quietly waiting for their turn, but often seem to strike at the same time. For example, at the moment Cafod is responding to flooding in the Indian region of Bihar, the aftermath of three hurricanes in Haiti and planning an
increased response to the catastrophic food crisis in Zimbabwe. Neither does one humani- tarian crisis magically right itself the moment the next disaster hits, with most affecting communities for months or even years; and so Cafod is also continuing to help in areas hit by disasters that have long disappeared from the headlines.
At the same time as responding to current need in the three countries above, we remain mindful that the hurricane season is not yet over in the Caribbean, that the flood waters from Bihar will hit Bangladesh within a couple of weeks with unknown consequences, and that the same region is entering the cyclone season which killed around 3,000 Bangladeshi people last year. Meanwhile, the effect of the ban on aid agencies working in Zimbabwe, which has only just been partially lifted, has deepened the already grave food crisis enveloping the country.
In addition, those working in humanitarian relief know that some natural disasters will always catch us by surprise. The Asian tsunami was a case in point, striking when most British aid agencies had shut their offices for Christmas and presenting the international aid community with a humanitarian and reconstruction challenge to which it is still responding nearly four years on. When such a disaster comes out of nowhere, we have to be careful to protect existing vital humanitarian work from being shunted sideways by the new demands on resources and staff. For example, when the tsunami hit, Cafod was responding to major ongoing humanitarian crises in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Darfur which had long faded from the headlines. So, Cafod staff know that however stretched we already are and whatever spending commitments we have made to meet humanitarian needs, tomorrow might present an even greater challenge.
As we are regularly faced with a convergence of needs that stretch our resources both financially and in terms of staff time, how does Cafod choose how and when to respond to humanitarian crises? The starting point for this decision, as for much of our work, lies in our partnership ethos. We work hand in hand with church agencies and other local non-governmental organisations, which carry out the work on the ground that is supported by our financial and technical assistance. So, Cafod does not have squads of emergency workers on standby to fly out to disaster zones but we have funds set aside and a highly skilled technical team ready to support our partners' response to a humanitarian crisis.
The trigger for Cafod's involvement is always a request for help from our partners and usually that request will shape the scale and nature of our response. Cafod works in more than 40 countries and has formed many close working relationships over the years with partner organisations in those countries. It is natural that if a partner organisation asks for our help, we are more likely to respond as we know the capabilities of that partner and we have a history of working together in the country.
Our membership of the Caritas Internationalis network gives our humanitarian work a huge advantage because Caritas has access to emergencies almost anywhere in the world. Local Caritas organisations extend into the most remote parishes and are often already working in health and development there. If a humanitarian crisis occurs, they are already there, and they will be there long after many international agencies have departed.
However, we do not only work with Caritas agencies. Sometimes the strongest partner for Cafod will be outside the Church, for example in Islamic countries, and we regularly work with partners of other faiths or none.
How we respond depends on what our partner asks for. So, for example, a partner organisation in a country hit by a cyclone might have enough expertise among its staff to know exactly how it should respond but lacks the money with which to do it. In that instance, it is appropriate for Cafod to respond with a grant, while offering further monetary and technical help if needed. After the recent floods in Bangladesh, our partner Caritas Bangladesh had huge experience in helping communities affected by flooding and they knew that they could count on us for support when asked.
Often, though, our partners are facing a disaster bigger than anything they have coped with before or requiring skills that they don't possess. In such cases, Cafod can offer a support officer from our humanitarian team to work with the partner for a few weeks or months to help shape the response. So, for example, we might send in a nutritionist who can share knowledge of similar situations to support a partner facing a food crisis.
Sometimes the decision on whether to respond to a crisis depends on the ability to work in a place safely. There are an estimated 30 conflicts in the world at any one time, and nothing disrupts normal life more for entire communities and sometimes nations than armed conflict. Increasingly, however, the belligerents in some conflicts do not recognise foreign humanitarian workers as neutral and there have been incidents of killings and abduction. As a humanitarian agency, one of our primary responsibilities is to ensure the safety of our staff, and this sometimes means that we decide not to work in a country or region even when the need for our help is immense. However, often the local diocese or Caritas are the only agencies able to work in these difficult situations and can do so with our support. We cannot respond to every humanitarian situation in the world as that would result in making meaningless token gestures. Nor do we respond to each request with the same scale of funding or engagement.
Our membership of the Caritas network means that in those instances where we do not work in an affected country and so decide that we are not able to respond, there is a good chance that another Caritas member will be able to help. Caritas Internationalis plays an important role in coordinating the collective response of the network by issuing global appeals for funding from member agencies.
Where we do decide to respond, the financial scale of our response can range from a "solidarity grant" of a few thousand pounds to a commitment of millions. Clearly, this is influenced by the scale of need but also by our ability to respond. So a large humanitarian crisis that occurs where Cafod has good working relationships with partners, and a solid knowledge of the background to the situation, would tend to lead to a greater engagement than a large humanitarian crisis where we did not have those relationships.
What Cafod categorically does not do is respond to humanitarian crises merely because they are in the headlines. We are deeply privileged to have a very loyal base of supporters who provide us with financial help year in and year out. That allows us to be able to keep a contingency fund called the General Emergency Budget from which we can make speedy grants in the immediate aftermath of a disaster striking. This is often the time when many partners struggle to get funding from other sources and so cannot buy the equipment and supplies they need. For most of our humanitarian work we are not dependent on the proceeds of an appeal.
Sometimes, however, the scale of a crisis is too big to be funded by the General Emergency Budget and we do launch an appeal. This is not an easy decision to make because we are calling on the generosity of our supporters. However, if the need is too great to be met by our existing resources, in terms both of funds and available staff, then it is a decision we have to take or our existing work could suffer.
Cafod is fortunate to have a supporter base that responds with speed and compassion to our appeals. Last year's Zimbabwe appeal has raised £2.3 million to date, and that money continues to fund our vital work in the country. Knowing that our Zimbabwe response work has secured the money it needs also frees up the emergency budget for other humanitarian crises throughout the year, such as Haiti and Bihar. It also means we can respond immediately if tomorrow brings disaster to another community, region or nation.