Humanitarian Emergency Response Review

This independent review into how the UK responds to humanitarian emergencies was commissioned by the Secretary of State for International Development and led by Lord Paddy Ashdown. It was asked to consider how the UK should best respond to humanitarian emergencies overseas, and the role the UK should play in the international humanitarian system. 

This review of how the UK carries out its humanitarian response work comes at a moment of reflection for the international system. As the horrendous events unfold in Japan and over a year after the Haiti earthquake and six months after devastating floods in Pakistan, many of those in charge of major aid agencies are wondering how to meet the challenges of the future. It also comes at a time of change for DFID, which has recently published the findings of its Bilateral and Multilateral Aid Reviews.

Thescope of the review does no tcover long-term chronic humanitarian crises. It focuses on sudden onset disasters or ‘spikes’ in conflict situations, but many of the recommendations will also apply to chronic situations.

The report is laid out in six sections. The introduction is followed by section two, which briefly describes the international humanitarian system and DFID’s role in it. The third section looks at potential future humanitarian challenges and the capacities there are to cope with these. Section four sets out the findings of the review. The review’s conclusions on how DFID should position itself in order to meet the future challenges are outlined in section five. Section six lists the recommendations.