Blog »
Prioritization in humanitarian aid: intelligence in the face of drastic funding cuts
- Entry published onFebruary 15, 2025
Among the many dilemmas that arise when working in humanitarian action, there is one that stands out for its frequency and importance in contexts of complex humanitarian emergencies: What to do when there are not enough resources to meet all the needs? This question, today, once again takes on enormous importance, after the worst forecasts for the beginning of 2025 have been fulfilled. We have abruptly entered a terrible scenario of drastically declining global funding for humanitarian action.
At this time, the proper prioritization in humanitarian action of geographic areas, key effective interventions, and cost-utility measurement becomes more important than ever. Moreover, humanitarian actors that do not demonstrate their capacity and performance by prioritizing these elements throughout the project cycle may find it more difficult to survive. However, this prioritization is not only difficult to carry out, but also requires a clear strategic vision and adaptation to the new scenario.
It is important to prioritize areas, needs and interventions
It seems wise to prioritize context analysis and needs assessments, despite the challenges involved
Obviously, when resources are scarce, it is more important than ever to focus on responding in the areas most affected by humanitarian crises, where the needs are most urgent. However, the obvious does not make it feasible, at least from an economic point of view.
Due to the usual funding model for humanitarian action, donors focus their interest on project implementation. These organizations and agencies offer funding attached to specific projects already drafted and proposed, generally of short duration. Only a small percentage, usually around 7%, can be used to cover costs not directly attributable to the funded project. All the prior work of analysis of the humanitarian context, to understand what the needs are, where they are concentrated, what capacity already exists, and whether the operating environment ensures sufficient humanitarian space for access, has a significant cost. This, however, is usually mostly covered by the organizations' own scarce funds, with an investment that will not always result in a new project.
The risk aversion of humanitarian organizations may block the prioritization of context analysis and quality needs assessments. However, if the investment is sufficient, and they are carried out with rigor, efficiency and technical quality, they can return an indispensable benefit.
It's not enough to study the context; it's also essential to identify the most effective interventions
The needs assessment should provide an important knowledge base for the identification of the most relevant, effective and feasible actions, and the design of effective projects. The bridge that links both elements, context and response, must be supported by strong technical pillars. This is the only way to ensure that the proposed actions are backed by scientific evidence and solid prior learning to understand which approaches and processes are most likely to succeed.
It is not a matter of automatically prioritizing the interventions recommended in guidelines and manuals for acute phase emergency response. Prioritization also requires careful adaptation to local circumstances, which in turn requires community participation -and not just the judgment of experts from outside the community-, at least to the extent that emergencies allow.
A commitment to include more transformative components, from a perspective related to the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus approach, can also be cost-effective. In some cases, scarce resources can reduce the risk of an eventual humanitarian crisis, mitigate the vulnerability of the population to it, or increase local capacity to respond. This may be particularly relevant in a humanitarian funding crisis scenario, where the likelihood of scaling up the response to a major humanitarian crisis becomes unfeasible.
It is also a priority to ensure the positive impact of interventions, measure it rigorously, and be accountable for their effects
The quality and impact of interventions may be at risk
The fewer resources there are to respond to growing humanitarian needs, the more important it is to make good use of them and to be able to demonstrate it. Again, however, mere obviousness does not help to overcome the challenges imposed by the scarcity of funds, unless there is a clear strategy of commitment to quality behind it.
Unfortunately, in order to demonstrate similar results to the above with fewer resources, it is much easier to lower the quality of interventions. This is not only a question of reducing certain quantitative humanitarian standards (e.g., delivering less water than necessary, or reducing the value of multipurpose cash transfers), but also qualitative aspects. It is tempting - and short-sighted - to address the problem by not prioritizing the technical excellence of humanitarian professionals, recruiting less experienced personnel, or reducing their supervision to the bare minimum, if the deficiencies of the programs can then be hidden under poor indicators or those calculated without rigor, which manipulate a false image of effectiveness.
Measuring impact and getting it right is now more of a priority than ever
If there is a time to prioritize communication and accountability to the general public about the impact of humanitarian interventions, this is it. It is both a matter of ethical responsibility, and of legitimate defense of the need for quality humanitarian action, in its most difficult moments.
Simplistic messages must be overcome. The humanitarian system has for too long been cloaked in the self-congratulatory beneficiary count, a measure that, while easy to communicate and understand, and intuitive in showing the scale of humanitarian aid, is also used for inappropriate purposes. Given the lack of standardization in the methods of counting beneficiaries, and the disconnection of this concept from any measure of benefit received, its meaning is not as complete as is sometimes implied. Moreover, the problem is not solved by avoiding double counting between sectors or interventions. A beneficiary of an action of minimal impact, or poorly implemented, is counted the same as a beneficiary whose suffering has been greatly alleviated.
It is time to be more ambitious with the way in which the impact of humanitarian action is measured and communicated, despite the difficulties and the fact that the ideal will always, and even more so now, be far from the possible. It is necessary to use impact indices (similar to the calculation of quality-adjusted life years in public health) to standardize the measurement of the cost-utility of humanitarian action, in all sectors, at least for actions considered key. Thus, for the calculation of a humanitarian impact index, utility would be measured in terms of the number of beneficiaries, but also in terms of the theoretical effectiveness of the actions carried out, the quality of their implementation, and the level of need of the people reached.
Difficult times require difficult decisions
The advantages of betting on an adequate prioritization in humanitarian action of geographical areas, interventions, and the measurement and communication of their cost-utility, with a solid technical rigor, far outweigh their disadvantages, and even more so with the reduction of humanitarian funding. This will be the measure of the intelligence of the humanitarian system and its actors, in a scenario that no one wanted, in which humanitarian action of quality and high impact is more necessary than ever.
Blog
The blog entries in Salud Everywhere expand its content on humanitarian aid and cooperation, health in humanitarian crises and career advice with news, opinion and analysis.
English 
Español