NEW YORK, 21 November 2008 (IRIN) - Do donor countries live up to the rhetoric and give emergency aid only where needed, without strings attached, and regardless of security and foreign policy priorities?

A new report released this week reviews the performance of 23 donors against their own guidelines and finds most wanting, coming under fire from winners and losers.

The Humanitarian Response Index 2008 (HRI), compiled by the international non-profit organisation DARA (Development Assistance Research Associates http://www.daraint.org/web_en/index.php ), found that millions of people do not receive the relief they vitally need, in part because donor countries do not adhere to their own "Good Humanitarian Donorship" (GHD) (http://www.goodhumanitariandonorship.org/) principles.

Among the GHD principles, established in 2003, are that emergency aid should be impartial, not driven by political, economic or security agendas; should strengthen capacity to respond to future crises, including prevention; assess needs and target effectively; and link relief efforts with long-term development strategies.

Top five

Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Ireland and the European Commission (EC) comprise the top five in the HRI index, scoring between 7.90 and 7.18 on a scale of 10, while the USA, the world's largest single nation donor, came in at 15 out of 23, with a score of 6.08.

However, even the winners have mixed feelings.

"We are concerned that a ranking system - the beauty contest approach – could discourage emerging relief donors," EC spokesman for development and humanitarian aid, John Clancy, told IRIN.

  DARA disputed this. "DARA believes that the HRI is not a beauty contest at all - but a serious attempt to measure and analyse 58 indicators of good practice, and help policymakers, donor agencies, humanitarian organisations and the wider public better understand the challenges of improving humanitarian assistance," executive director Silvia Hidalgo told IRIN.

"While some donors are uncomfortable with the rankings …we believe this is an incentive for positive change, rather than a barrier, and would hope that new donors have a benchmark of good practice that they can measure themselves by."

According to the index, the EC did well in funding to strengthen local capacity and working with local partners, but poorly in favouring countries with historical ties and geographical proximity. The USA scored well on working with NGO partners, monitoring and speed but earned lower marks for earmarking, partiality and neutrality.

"While donors welcome independent scrutiny of their humanitarian programmes and take seriously the need for donor transparency and accountability, we continue to be concerned that a quantitative ranking system such as HRI could detract from the collaborative and consensual spirit of Good Humanitarian Donorship (GHD)," US Agency for International Development (USAID) press officer Harry Edwards told IRIN.

Not all donors objected. Even Canada, which dropped three places to 10, partly because of reportedly low performance in funding for forgotten emergencies and crises with low media coverage, said it was satisfied that it ranked above average.

"Canada believes the DARA's Humanitarian Response Index is useful for promoting good humanitarian practice," Canadian International Development Agency spokeswoman Jo-Ann Purcell told IRIN.

The scorecard

DARA uses five thematic pillars in its index, based on the GHD initiative - responding to needs; supporting local capacity and recovery; working with humanitarian partners; promoting standards and implementation; and promoting learning and accountability.

It also compiled official data from donors, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, World Bank and UN agencies and conducted field research in 11 countries that experienced crises in 2007-2008, interviewing representatives of more than 350 humanitarian organisations and collecting over 1,400 questionnaires on donor practice.

The 11 target countries were Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Central African Republic, Chad, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nicaragua, occupied Palestinian territories, Peru, Sri Lanka and Sudan.

Barrier to new donors?

"This is not a competition but rather about ensuring the best possible collective international efforts to deliver adequate, effective and principled humanitarian aid," Clancy said. "Humanitarian aid delivery in crisis zones is a very difficult business and this kind of approach is not always helpful."

Edwards noted that as GHD co-chairs, USAID and Sweden wrote a joint letter to DARA expressing their concerns. (Sweden topped the index in 2007 and 2008.)

"One of the main concerns that donors continue to express is the methodology utilised by DARA to create the annual HRI," Edwards said, citing the importance of transparency and objective analysis, discrepancies noted in the quantitative data, over-weighting of "soft indicators" and lack of consultation with donors.

"USAID strongly urges DARA to take the necessary steps to improve quantitative and qualitative review systems, allowing for greater transparency in the process of formulation for the Humanitarian Response Index," he added.

DARA's Hidalgo disputed the criticism, noting that DARA outlined in detail the process, methodology, and indicators, as well as the limitations, and held extensive consultations with a multi-stakeholder peer review committee, including regular feedback from donors.

"In contrast, the collective indicators mentioned by both USAID and the EC [and produced through the GHD process] were developed without such an extensive consultation process, and follow the least common denominator approach, while the 58 indicators of the HRI seek to hold donors to higher standards for humanitarian response," she said.

"It is essential to understand how effective that aid is, as well to identify areas of concern, so that donors individually and collectively can improve."

NGO reaction

Among NGOs there was some mixed reaction. Tom Arnold, Chief Executive of Dublin-based Concern Worldwide said the Irish government's international aid programme had made a genuine effort to achieve high standards.   "The ranking of Ireland as fourth-highest in good practice at international level is the result of extraordinary effort and commitment," he told IRIN.

Oxfam welcomed some of the indicators while dismissing the overall rankings. "We're less interested in the overall indicator, which is for us a less useful measure of what's working and what's not," Oxfam America aid effectiveness team director Paul O'Brien told IRIN.

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