New Approaches to Needs Assessment: Comprehensive and Rolling Diagnosis

François Grünewald

Chapter Chapter 5 in The Humanitarian Response Index 2008, 2009, pp 89-96 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract In a world of scarcity, resource management always entails difficult choices, according to priorities established in accordance with particular criteria. The allocation of funds for humanitarian action is no exception to this dilemma. In many instances, the tough laws of media and political pressure frequently govern fund allocations. The result is a world divided into well financed “media sexy” humanitarian operations and forgotten crises, sectors attracting rich resources (most often food aid), and those crises pushed to the side (for example, support for survival strategies). It is only recently that donors have paid more deliberate attention to other parameters, especially to prioritising when confronted with a large number of crises at once. Fund allocation between crises – or within a given crisis between sectors and agencies – remains a perilous exercise. The magic “needs-based prioritisation,” which would ease such difficult decisions, is something akin to the pursuit of the Holy Grail in the donor community.

Keywords: World Food Programme; Overseas Development Institute; Humanitarian Sector; South Sudan; Crisis Index (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-58461-7_5

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DOI: 10.1057/9780230584617_5

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