Building Resilience in Emergencies: Balancing the Response to Humanitarian Crises
14 April 2022, Washington, DC - Deepening climate crisis, increasing conflicts, economic downturns and the prolonged effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are all contributing towards increasing the need for humanitarian assistance and protection. This was even prior to the Russian and Ukraine conflict which is disrupting food value chains and increasing food prices - which were already at an all-time high.
To highlight policies and actions needed to ensure that collective responses to humanitarian crises are meeting immediate needs while also addressing the root causes of food insecurity, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Liaison Office for North America, convened an expert panel on 8 April. The session took place ahead of the Informal North America Regional Conference, which will convene US and Canadian governments to deliberate on their priorities for FAO. Also joining the discussion during the Q&A were Flora Mak, Senior Policy Advisor at Global Affairs Canada, and John Tuminaro, Senior Food Security Adviser at the U.S. Department of State.
To frame the discussion, Jocelyn Brown Hall, Director of FAO North America, quoted the FAO Director-General, stating “The sheer scale of humanitarian needs today with likely deterioration as the climate emergency deepens despite steadily rising funding from humanitarian actions highlights the urgency of addressing root causes within the immediate humanitarian response.”
Building resilience into agrifood systems, not as an after-thought, but as up-front and central to humanitarian response programs and their funding would build the bridge between short and long-term needs.
Jacob Kurtzer, Director and Senior Fellow of the Humanitarian Agenda at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), noted the need to look at donor countries as being part of the ecosystem so that their investments in priority areas and values are in alignment. “Donor countries can be much more creative, strategic and experimental in rethinking the relationship that we have with (the affected) regions, with those groups and with our partners who are taking on the vast majority of the safety and security risk,” explained Kurtzer.
“We believe that fostering social cohesion must be core to a comprehensive resilience approach across the humanitarian-development and peace nexus,’’ said Serena Stepanovic, Associate Vice President of Food Security & Livelihoods Sector at World Vision USA. The development organization is working with Tulane University to develop a multi-sectoral approach that will define key impact pathways for fostering resilience across food and market, health and social protection systems. The literature points to the need to integrate climate response within programs across the spectrum as climate shocks are not the sole trigger for humanitarian crises, but are ‘part of the mix,’ she added.
“We need to see both humanitarian and development work hand in hand and part of the shared solutions to the compounding crises that we see,” said Olga Petryniak, Senior Director of Global Resilience at Mercy Corps. ”We take a long view of these emerging crises so that we are meeting immediate needs today but also laying the foundation to avert future ones, so we get out of the cycle of humanitarian need.”
Underscoring sentiments from all the panelists, Malini Tolat, Senior Advisor Food Security and Livelihoods at Save the Children US, underscored “the need to increase resilience-building investments as they are a fundamental tool to reduce the impact of key drivers of food insecurity,” which in turn would “lead to the reduction and need for humanitarian relief long-term.” To illustrate this Tolat referenced a study conducted by USAID in 2020 that highlighted that a USD $1 investment in resilience would result in up to $3 in reduced humanitarian aid. In line with this, Tolat explained that Save the Children is investing in and looking to expand and improve its use of anticipatory action as a proactive approach, especially in the case of climate risks and extreme weather events. Although climate risks are a given for anticipatory action, “there is certainly scope to expand this to other types of crises that are triggered by conflict and other political, social and economic issues,” added Tolat.
Brown Hall further reiterated that an anticipatory action is an effective tool that FAO is spearheading to promote proactive approaches to predictable shocks to minimize the impacts of crises. However, the long-term approach can make funding harder.
Myth Busting in the Humanitarian Resilience Space
To conclude the discussion, Brown Hall prompted speakers to share a myth to debunk in the humanitarian and resilience space. Jacob Kurtzer started off by debunking “the myth that local partners are riskier and emphasize getting as much money as possible close to the action.”
Providing more agency to communities in need was further reiterated by Serena Stepanovic who urged the need to “shift away from strictly looking at clients as vulnerable because it limits our design thinking and the solutions and we need to understand the capacities that they already bring to the table even in the midst of crises.” Malini Tolat added it is a myth that the “ultra-poor can’t get engaged in commercialized economic activity,” it's rather related to the design of programs and how you facilitate the transition.
Providing a peace-building and conflict prevention angle, Olga Petryniak expanded on the notion that, “Often, we think that we cannot work on violence and conflict prevention in humanitarian crises, particularly when they're conflict-driven since it might go against impartiality, neutrality.” Yet she noted that humanitarian aid can be delivered equitably and fairly, “in such a way to build connection across people and not exacerbating the conflict dimensions as a player.”
Way Forward
The panel shed light on the shortfalls and opportunities to enhance humanitarian responses to the increasing number of crises happening simultaneously and derived from the interconnected factors, such as climate change and political instability. The session highlighted the need to further evaluate interventions to assist people in vulnerable situations by coupling humanitarian aid with development aid, while using anticipatory action approaches, to build resilience in an increasingly turbulent world.
Additional Resources
Learn about FAO’s work in emergencies