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Humanitarian assistancethrough NGOs
NGOs are major humanitarian actors. They raise additional humanitarian fundsfrom the public and they also spend money that comes from governments andmultilateral agencies. This chapter looks at both public and official sources of finance for NGOs and where than money is spent. It also explores funding thatflows from new pooled finance mechanisms.
NGOs received US$2.6bn of the US$3.1bn inpublic donations to NGOs, the Red Cross andRed Crescent Movement and UN agencies in2007
Public donations to NGOs, UN agencies andRed Cross and Red Crescent Movement
2007 / US$3.1bn2008 /
data not available in fullHumanitarian assistance from non-DAC donors
2007 / US$341m2008 / US$ 1.1bn
Post-conflict and security-related ODA (DAC donors)
2007 / US$3.1bn2008 /
data not available until December 2009Multilateral official humanitarian assistance(DAC donors to UN agencies)
2007 / US$913m2008 /
data not available until December 2009Bilateral official humanitarian assistance(DAC donors)
2007 / US$7.8bn2008 / US$10.4bn (prelim)
Total official humanitarian assistance(DAC donors)
2007 / US$8.7bn2008 /
data not available in full
20072008
US$15bnUS$18bn
Global humanitarianassistance
 
GHA Report
2009Page 546,0005,0004,0003,0002,0001,0000Contributions from the public toNGOsUnearmarked multilateralhumanitarian assistanceCERF and pooled fundingBilateral humanitarianassistance excluding spendingon NGOsTotal NGO humanitarianassistance
Figure 1: Channels of humanitarian funding compared, 2007. Please note these numbers are for comparative purposes and should not be added together [Source: Development Initiativesanalysis based on NGO reports, OECD DAC statistics, CERF and and CHF reports]
Caritas and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reported the highest levels of humanitarian assistance in 2007. These are both international groups made up of individual agencies based in different countries. Some NGOs are exercisingdecisions over far larger sums of money than many governments. MSF’shumanitarian expenditure, for example, was exceeded only by the United Statesand the EC. World Vision and Caritas each provided more humanitarian assistancein 2007 than all but four DAC donors.Large NGOs active in humanitarian work commonly have a mixed mandate. Forsome, their development assistance is limited to engagement with disaster riskreduction, recovery and rehabilitation. For others it encompasses the full range of development activities in both stable and unstable environments. Even for thosewhose mandate is described as purely humanitarian, involvement is oftenlong-term. International Rescue Committee (IRC), for instance, expects to arrivewithin days of the onset of a disaster, but its programmes often last for ten years.Mixed mandate NGOs also use their general funds to pre-finance humanitarianresponse and their humanitarian expenditure often exceeds the income raisedspecifically for humanitarian purposes.
How much is given by the public and how much comesfrom official sources?
Roughly half of NGO humanitarian expenditure was funded byofficial donors (US$2.3 billion), including UN agencies, and half (US$2.6 billion) was funded by donations from the public or othercharitable sources.
Figure 2: (Estimated) humanitarian assistanceexpenditure by NGOs by source of income,2007 [Source: Development Initiativesanalysis based on NGO reports and DAC CRSdata 2007]
Funded by publicdonations, US$2.6bnFunded by officialsources, US$2.3bn
How much humanitarian assistance is delivered by NGOs?
US$2.6 billion of the total estimated US$4.9 billion in humanitarian assistance spentby NGOs in 2007 was funded by the public or came from other non-governmentalsources such as trading and corporate donations. The remainingUS$2.3 billionconstitutes funding from ‘official’sources (defined as governments and UN agenciesfor the purposes of this report).
    U    S    $   m    i    l    l    i   o   n
   5 ,   4   2   2   4 ,    8    8   3   7   0    6   9   1   3   2 ,   5    6   0
 
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Humanitarian assistance through NGOs
Contributions from non-official sources spent through NGOs added roughly a fifthto the total volume of humanitarian assistance financed by DAC donors. To give asense of scale, the public’s contribution was more than three times the totalexpenditure of the CERF and country level pooled funds in 2007 and more thantwice the amount allocated in unearmarked funds to UN agencies (see Figure 1).The amount and share of money raised from the public is significant for severalreasons. Firstly, while it adds considerable resources to the governmental funds forhumanitarian work, it also has different characteristics.•Speed of response. Funding from the general public to NGOs is seen as a rapidway to respond to a humanitarian crisis. Public funds are reported to arrivesooner than money from official sources.•Lack of earmarking within a crisis. Although donations from the public are almostalways given for a specific emergency, they are usually unconditional and can bespent on whatever the NGO considers to be the priority within that emergency.This quick and unrestricted funding is particularly valuable. Funding from officialsources is often earmarked (although NGOs may have requested funds for aspecific activity) and may be restricted as to the timeframe over which it canspent, the activities it funds and the reporting requirements it demands.•Public and political awareness. NGO appeals can often raise public awareness of a situation and alert the media to crises. This is important not only for raisingfunds but for sustaining public and political commitment.Secondly, NGOs have more discretion over the allocation of their funding from non-official sources. They can decide which situations they want to issue an appeal forand how the money is spent within each crisis. Their influence over the type of humanitarian response in any country, therefore, is partly a result of the amount of money that they raise from the public.The proportion of humanitarian expenditure financed by public contributions variesgreatly between NGOs, from Norwegian People’s Aid, which is financed almostexclusively by official contributions, to MSF which funds nearly 90% of itshumanitarian expenditure from public giving.Some NGOs have a limit on the share of official funding that they will accept inorder to maintain their independence; others have institutional set-ups that rely onofficial finance for most of their work. For most NGOs however, the shares of officialand public funding may shift from one year to the next.
Which donors channel official humanitarian assistancethrough NGOs?
The amount of bilateral assistance channelled through NGOs varies betweendonors – and not all donors report in detail.Norway and Sweden spent over 45% of their bilateral assistance through NGOs.These countries are also providers of unearmarked support to UN agencies andpooled funding mechanisms. The EC and four other countries channelled overone-third of their bilateral humanitarian assistance through NGOs compared withan average of 28% for the donors who reported as a whole.
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