A young man with a strawberry in his hand
Part one: Global trends

Humanitarian-Development-Peace Collaboration to Reduce Need

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

This young man was selected by the Women-Young Entrepreneurs and Citizenship project (ProFeJec) to receive support from a business incubator in Ouagadougou to transform part of his strawberry production into the first local organic strawberry jam in Burkina Faso. ProFeJec aims to improve the contribution of young people and women to the sustainable economic and social development in the country. UNDP/Aurélia Rusek

Looking to 2021, nearly twice as many people will require humanitarian assistance than just five years ago. Critical gains have been made in addressing need and vulnerability through closer collaboration. The humanitarian community can continue to build on these gains by strengthening collaboration between humanitarian development and peacebuilding actors.

The COVID-19 response builds on a growing culture of collaboration across humanitarian and development actors. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinators and country teams collaborate to create a joint understanding of the immediate and long-term impacts of COVID-19. This joint analysis has also examined the drivers of need across humanitarian and development sectors. Assessments and response plans to address the pandemic’s socioeconomic impact more regularly include IFIs and complement humanitarian response efforts. Of the countries covered in this GHO, 22 also have a socioeconomic plan ready for 2021 and beyond, and Myanmar has participated in the UN Secretary-General’s COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund to more comprehensively address the population’s humanitarian and development needs.

Graphic

Countries with HRPs and Socioeconomic Response Plans

The COVID-19 response has led to a significant expansion of national social protection systems, with over 200 countries implementing such measures since the outbreak began. This has benefited over a billion people, including millions of vulnerable people across humanitarian contexts. This illustrates the importance of linking national social protection systems with humanitarian cash assistance (see Cash and Voucher Assistance for more details).

IFIs have increased development investments in fragile contexts, offering opportunities for closer collaboration to reduce vulnerability. By mid-September 2020, IFIs and multilateral development banks had pledged approximately $182 billion to assist Governments and the private sector to respond to and recover from COVID-19, focusing particularly on fragile contexts to support the immediate health response and minimize the socioeconomic impact. IFIs have increasingly repurposed funding to support the immediate response to COVID-19, complementing humanitarian response efforts.

References

  1. In 2020, 235 million people will require humanitarian assistance (people in need) compared to 125 million people in 2016.
  2. Gentilini, Almenfi, Orton and Dale, Social Protection and Jobs Responses to COVID-19 : A Real-Time Review of Country Measures, World Bank, 22 July 2020
  3. Based on data from the UNFPA-World Pop-Flowminder population project for Afghanistan.
  4. Segal and Gerstel, International Financial Institutions’ Ongoing Response to the Covid-19 Crisis, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, 21 September 2020