User:H3lpful4all779/Humanitarian aid

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Funding

United Nations

Aid is funded by donations from individuals, corporations, governments and other organizations. The funding and delivery of humanitarian aid is increasingly international, making it much faster, more responsive, and more effective in coping to major emergencies affecting large numbers of people (e.g. see Central Emergency Response Fund). The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) coordinates the international humanitarian response to a crisis or emergency pursuant to Resolution 46/182 of the United Nations General Assembly. The need for aid is ever-increasing and has long outstripped the financial resources available. The Central Emergency Response Fund was created at the 2005 Central Emergency Response Fund at the United Nations General Assembly.

Types of humanitarian aid

Medical humanitarian aid

There are different kinds of medical humanitarian aid, including: providing medical supplies and equipment; sending professionals to an affected region; and, long-term training for local medical staff. Such aid emerged when international organizations stepped in to respond to the need of national governments for global support and partnership to address natural disasters, wars, and other crises that impact people's health. Often, a humanitarian aid organization would clash with a government's approach to the unfolding domestic conflict. In such cases, humanitarian aid organizations have sought out autonomy to extend help regardless of political or ethnic affiliation.

Limitations

Humanitarian medical aid as a sector possesses several limitations. First, multiple organizations often exist to solve the same problem. Rather than collaborating to address a given situation, organizations often interact as competitors, which creates bottlenecks of treatment and supplies. A second limitation is how humanitarian organizations are focused on a specific disaster or epidemic, without a plan for whatever might come next; international organizations frequently enter a region, provide short term aid, and then exit without ensuring local capacity to maintain or sustain this medical care. Finally, humanitarian medical aid assumes a biomedical approach which does not always account for the alternative beliefs and practices about health and well-being in the affected regions. This problem is rarely explored as most studies conducted are done from the lens of the donor or Westernized humanitarian organization rather than the recipient country's perspective. Discovering ways of encouraging locals to embrace bio-medicine approaches while simultaneously respecting a given people's culture and beliefs remains a major challenge for humanitarian aid organizations; in particular as organizations constantly enter new regions as crises occur. However, understanding how to provide aid cohesively with existing regional approaches is necessary in securing the local peoples' acceptance of the humanitarian aid's work.

Delivery of humanitarian aid

Truck for delivery of aid from Western to Eastern Europe

Methods of delivery

World Food Programme distributing food in Liberia

Humanitarian aid spans a wide range of activities, including providing food aid, shelter, education, healthcare or protection. The majority of aid is provided in the form of in-kind goods or assistance, with cash and vouchers constituting only 6% of total humanitarian spending. However, evidence has shown how cash transfers can be better for recipients as it gives them choice and control, they can be more cost-efficient and better for local markets and economies.

It is important to note that humanitarian aid is not only delivered through aid workers sent by bilateral, multilateral or intergovernmental organizations, such as the United Nations. Actors like the affected people themselves, civil society, local informal first-responders, civil society, the diaspora, businesses, local governments, military, local and international non-governmental organizations all play a crucial role in a timely delivery of humanitarian aid.

How aid is delivered can affect the quality and quantity of aid. Often in disaster situations, international aid agencies work in hand with local agencies. There can be different arrangements on the role these agencies play, and such arrangement affects that quality of hard and soft aid delivered.

Humanitarian access

Securing access to humanitarian aid in post-disasters, conflicts, and complex emergencies is a major concern for humanitarian actors. To win assent for interventions, aid agencies often espouse the principles of humanitarian impartiality and neutrality. However, gaining secure access often involves negotiation and the practice of humanitarian diplomacy. In the arena of negotiations, humanitarian diplomacy is ostensibly used by humanitarian actors to try to persuade decision makers and leaders to act, at all times and in all circumstances, in the interest of vulnerable people and with full respect for fundamental humanitarian principles. However, humanitarian diplomacy is also used by state actors as part of their foreign policy.

United Nations' response

The UN implements a multifaceted approach to assist migrants and refugees throughout their relocation process. This includes children’s integration into the local education system, food security, and access to health services. The approach also encompasses humanitarian transportation, the goal of which is to ensure migrants and refugees retain access to basic goods and services and the labour market. Basic needs, including access to shelter, clean water, and child protection, are supplemented by the UN's efforts to facilitate social integration and legal regularization for displaced individuals.