Start Network [Consortium of British Humanitarian Agencies] [to 4 October 2014]
http://www.start-network.org/news-blog/#.U9U_O7FR98E

New challenges to the humanitarian project: a discussion starter
September 29, 2014
On the 25th September the Start Team presented a discussion starter at the Oxfam Global Learning Event, which addressed future challenges faced by NGO leaders and staff.

“We are caught in a race between the growing size of the humanitarian challenge, and our ability to cope; between humanity and catastrophe. And, at present, this is not a race we are winning”. (The Humanitarian Emergency Response Review, July 2011[i])

The humanitarian system is creaking. The international community is once again dealing with multiple crises at scale. The international community appears increasingly unable to deal with these challenges and the challenges of the future which for sure will include more demand, more surprise, more complexity and the increasing political significance of humanitarian crises set against the back drop of funding limitations in western economies. (For example, despite an overall increase in humanitarian funding to $22bn in 2013, over a third of funding requirements went unmet in UN-coordinated humanitarian appeals alone[ii]. According to Start Network estimates, 70% of initial emergency response is carried out by local actors and yet in 2012 only 2.3% ($51m) of the overall funding went direct to national and local NGOs / CSOs.[iii])…