World Humanitarian Data and Trends (WHDT) 2018 highlights major trends in the nature of humanitarian crises, their causes and drivers. This year’s report includes case studies on the evolution of protracted crises, attacks on health care, attacks on education, water and conflict, and strengthening local action through country-based pooled funds.
Humanitarian crises are increasing in number and in duration. Between 2005 and 2017, the average length of crises with an active inter-agency appeal rose from four to seven years, while the number of active crises receiving an internationally-led response almost doubled from 16 to 30. The majority of people targeted receive assistance for five years or more (nearly 60 per cent). Since 2015, appeals for crises lasting five years or longer have spiked and now command most funding received and requested (80 per cent). These trends emphasize the need for closer collaboration between humanitarian and development actors to decrease vulnerability in the long term.
Data runs until 2016, which is the most recent year for which complete data was available at the time of publication. To find out more details about each crisis, click on the country name.
Number of Cumulative Appeals | ||
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To find out more about the state of current crises, visit Humanitarian Insights
Protracted crises, often driven by intractable conflict, have consequences that affect entire communities and put basic services in jeopardy. International humanitarian law prohibits the targeting of civilian objects, emphasizing the importance of schools and hospitals to the civilian population, especially children. However, these facilities continue to be targeted during conflicts.
Protection of health-care workers and facilities in armed conflict is a tenet of international humanitarian law and the focus of Security Council resolution 2286. Yet, health-care workers, facilities and transports were casualties of more than 700 attacks in 2017 – and potentially many more that went unreported. Attacks were concentrated in the Middle East and Africa, with Afghanistan (66), occupied Palestinian territory (93) and Syria (252) recording the most incidents.
In 2017, the United Nations verified 188 incidents of military use of schools, both by government forces and rebel groups. In Syria alone, since the onset of the conflict in 2011, the protracted crisis has resulted in severe consequences. By May 2018, more than 2 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 were out of school, while more than 180,000 education personnel, including teachers, have abandoned school sites and classrooms.
In the face of protracted crises, humanitarians are moving towards working closer together with development and other partners, to address root causes of vulnerability.
Nigeria: Construction of 700 shelters for IDPs in Pulka, with support from the Nigeria Humanitarian Fund.
CBPFs play a valuable role in supporting the localization of humanitarian assistance and aid delivery by directing funding to national NGOs that may have more familiarity with on-the-ground conditions. In 2017, CBPFs funded 1,288 projects implemented by 657 partners. Allocations to local partners have generally increased. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the share of funding to national NGOs rose from 21 per cent in 2016 to 38 per cent in 2017. However, overall contributions to CBPFs still fall short of the target set under the Grand Bargain, which envisions 15 per cent of humanitarian requirements to be channelled through CBPFs. Reaching this target would allow CBPFs to be even more effective in distributing funds to the best-placed responder.
The global picture on internal displacement is currently incomplete. Not all incidents of internal displacement are reported and only some of the figures can be verified. New tools are emerging to bolster collection and verification efforts.One example is the Internal Displacement Event Tagging and Clustering Tool (IDETECT) – this tool mines huge news data sets, and through natural language processing and machine learning algorithms, it classifies reports by type of displacement, while also extracting information about location and the number of people displaced in real time.
Nigeria: internally displaced people at Wege Arrival Camp (Pulka Transit Camp)
The timelines below illustrate the flow of displacement facts captured through IDETECT, validated and cross-checked against events that took place in Nigeria through 2017.
To find out more about the current humanitarian response in Nigeria, visit Humanitarian Insights https://www.hpc.tools/plan/642