From humanitarian aid to development assistance
- Page updated on18 de April de 2025
In addition to humanitarian action, there is another type of international cooperation: development cooperation. Both differ in the type of contexts in which they are carried out, the purpose of the type of actions carried out, and in the principles that underpin them.
Table of contents:
Two different approaches to international cooperation...
While humanitarian action seeks to alleviate suffering in humanitarian emergencies, development cooperation pursues more long-term goals, seeking to address the root causes of crises, strengthen public institutions and create opportunities for people to lift themselves out of poverty and improve their living conditions. Humanitarian actions tend to be shorter in duration (although many humanitarian crises are protracted) and cannot aspire to achieve far-reaching or sustainable long-term change.
Similarly, while humanitarian principles focus on ethical imperatives and for access to people affected by humanitarian emergencies, development cooperation principles focus more on effectiveness:
- Ownership by developing countries of development priorities in order to lead them.
- Investment focused on achieving results such as poverty eradication, inequality reduction or sustainable development.
- Inclusive alliances among stakeholders based on mutual trust and respect.
- Transparency and mutual accountability among actors and with the beneficiaries of cooperation.
...with a link of union
Despite these differences, the fact remains that conflicts are becoming increasingly protracted, with the result that the lines between development cooperation and humanitarian action are often blurred. Moreover, humanitarian emergencies and complex humanitarian emergencies have a huge negative impact on the sustainable development of the countries where the majority of the world's population lives, often receiving humanitarian aid in exchange for reduced development cooperation and thus failing to emerge from the crisis and reverse the situation.
For these and other reasons, for years there has been a call for a better connection and coordination between humanitarian action and development cooperation to address the vulnerability faced by people before, during and after a humanitarian crisis, with the Nexus between humanitarian action, development and peace approach. This proposal, although in substance it does not raise anything new and is not exempt from debate and doubts, is producing changes in the way large international organizations such as the United Nations or the World Bank work and -which ultimately determines the real changes- in the way cooperation programs are financed.
Core concepts
External links
- OECD, 2011. The Busan Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation.
- GPEDC, 2016. Nairobi Outcome Document.
- The New Humanitarian, 2019-20. Searching for the nexus.
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