Will we see more parity in humanitarian financing? — Alexander Matheou
Last year, while the world was rightly focused on the great tragedies and unravelling in the Middle East, the humanitarian crises in Afghanistan, Myanmar and Bangladesh got progressively worse but received less attention and support. This trend will clearly continue throughout 2025. The best way to reverse it will be more support from Asia itself.
But will Asian countries step up to fill the vacuum in humanitarian financing? There are positive signs. Japan and Australia have been generous for decades. Korea’s role as a donor is growing. Seven years ago, China formed CIDCA (Chinese International Development Cooperation Agency) and has increased its global giving ever since. ASEAN provides regional leadership on humanitarian issues through the AHA centre. Indonesia recently contributed $30 million to the GAVI Vaccine Alliance. Some of the new Asian donors were recipients of aid just a decade or so ago, and several still are. It’s early days, but these trends give cause for hope that Asia will step up over time.
A less optimistic view would point out the blatant disparity in current burden sharing. Take the refugee camps of Cox’s Bazar. You would think that the countries with the greatest stake in the camps being safe and well-functioning would be Malaysia and Indonesia. But no, it is mostly European and North American donors who fund the camp services, not neighbours. You would think that India and China would be first in line to fund efforts to contribute to more stability in Myanmar through well targeted aid. But no, appeal coverage tells a different story. In both UN and IFRC appeals for Bangladesh, Myanmar and Afghanistan, donors from Asia Pacific make up around 5-17% of coverage, but take out Japan, Australia and Korea, and that percentage drops to insignificance. This less optimistic lens would see these figures as an indication that the global humanitarian system is in fact not global at all, but still the initiative of one geo-political block in a polarised world.
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The truth, probably, is somewhere in the middle, but the breakdown of appeal coverage should raise questions, and given aid cuts amongst traditional donors and growing divisions in the world, it’s a good time to consider how the global humanitarian system can be owned more globally despite political differences between those who finance it, and what might stop that from happening.
Asian donors, for example, may not want to join existing western-based donor clubs that are largely made up of like-minded European and North American states that sanction common enemies and discriminate positively in favour of allies. Not if their perspectives on the same crises significantly differ. Likewise, they may not feel at home in meetings in English with dominant voices setting the rules and the narrative. Some may simply prefer to focus on bilateral support and South to South aid as these may provide better visibility and soft power rewards, as well as being more expressive of the solidarity driving their aid. Some governments may be cautious about sending mixed messages about being both a developing economy and an international donor and therefore may be inclined to stay clear of the multilateral donor space. Some may simply believe that many of the worst crises, such as needs in Afghanistan, are rooted in military adventures of other states, and those states should be the ones to deal with the humanitarian consequences of their actions.
“…and given aid cuts amongst traditional donors
Alexander Matheou, Will we see more parity in humanitarian financing?
and growing divisions in the world, it’s a good time to consider how the global
humanitarian system can be owned more globally despite political differences
between those who finance it, and what might stop that from happening.”
None of these reservations about multilateral giving are insurmountable, but they should not be ignored. It would be a weak strategy to assume that diversifying a donor base means more governments and donors joining the same club to play by the same rules. If there is an ambition to include more then there should be a willingness to adapt more. It will help, for example, to keep aid discussions focused on neutral and impartial humanitarian assistance and as free as possible from political bias, so that states with varied world views can still feel comfortable in the same room. Meeting styles may need to be adjusted to accommodate those more at home with presentations than debate. The language of aid needs to work for describing friends and neighbours rather than strangers on the other side of the world in need of development. The visibility needs of new and emerging donors will need to be accommodated. The multilateral system will need to enable South to South support, and it should not be assumed that those that give are rich and no longer in need of investment themselves.
The transition to more parity in financial responsibility for global and regional humanitarian efforts will take time, but being conscious about the drivers likely to work for it and against it will help the right adjustments to be made. This is important. In the short term, because more contributions from Asia will help with the shortfalls that arise due to reduced coverage for appeals in places like Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar. In the long term, because it is hard to imagine the system that has protected and saved so many lives over the last fifty years will survive another fifty years if it remains the financial responsibility of the same handful of states that so generously support it now.
Will we see more parity in humanitarian financing?, Published: Monday 17 February 2025
Alexander Matheou, the IFRC Regional Director for Asia Pacific, has worked in the humanitarian sector for 20 years, both within and outside the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. He has worked across a variety of fields, including disaster response, food security, social exclusion, displacement and migration, HIV/TB prevention and institutional development. Alexander is a regular contributor of opinion pieces on humanitarian and development issues to an assortment of audiences and forums.
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