Measuring Commitment to Best Practice
HRI
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is Good Humanitarian Donorship?
Good Humanitarian Donorship is an initiative of the members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee. It provides a forum for donors to discuss good practice in humanitarian financing and other shared concerns. By defining principles and standards it provides both a framework to guide official humanitarian aid and a mechanism for encouraging greater donor accountability.
Why now?
Humanitarian aid has increased significantly ion recent decades as a result of the growing number of natural hazards and conflicts, therefore becoming an increasingly important component of international aid. DARA is committed to contribute to this improvement through the Humanitarian Response Index (HRI). The goal is to reduce the vulnerability of local communities to natural hazards and conflicts and, in accordance with the humanitarian objective to save lives, alleviate suffering and maintain the human dignity.
The experience DARA has accumulated in a variety of actions – like our participation in the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition (TEC)– and a senior multidisciplinary team, allowed for the creation of the Humanitarian Response Index. The HRI is the only index in its field and provides key information for more effective, transparent and responsible humanitarian action, which will help improve the quality of life of the beneficiaries.
What donors are measured?
The Humanitarian Response Index measures the actions of the 23 DAC members (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Commission) who committed to the Principles of Good Humanitarian Donorship.
What type of information is used?
The HRI uses qualitative and quantitative data. Several quantitative humanitarian sources of reference were consulted, such as the databases of DAC, OCHA´s FTS (Financial Tracking System), ECHO´s point system and other relevant databases and, information published by donors.
The qualitative data come from structured interviews based on various questionnaires completed by humanitarian professionals. The first of these questionnaires was completed by more than 800 members of implementing organisations in the eight crises assessed by the 2007 Humanitarian Response Index. The second was given to the headquarters of the implementing organisations that provided funding for these crises. Finally, a questionnaire was presented to all the analyzed donors and 20 of the 23 DAC members were interviewed in person in order to obtain information not available in other media, and also to validate the quantitative data form the sources of reference.
How will the HRI be useful for donors?
The Humanitarian Response Index will increase the quality of humanitarian action, as it offers detailed information about the reality of the assistance. It provides information that allows the strengths and weaknesses to be analyzed and will help establish a more effective, responsible and transparent design and implementation of future strategies.
How were the crises selected?
The selection of countries corresponds to several criteria. First of all, DARA aimed to include an extensive geographic diversity, and therefore, DARA’s team travelled to Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. Also, a variety of crises were chosen, ranging from natural hazards to prolonged crises and humanitarian emergencies resulting from armed conflicts. Furthermore, within the crises included, several had substantial financial needs; several had small financial needs; other crises received funding superior to their needs; and others received insufficient funding. Finally, crises were chosen in which the number of implicated donors was representative. The crises assessed include: Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, East Timor, Haiti, Lebanon, Niger, Pakistan, and Sudan. In 2006, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan suffered the greatest humanitarian crises of the year.
The final objective of this selection is to provide a diverse and complete snapshot of the different scenarios in which humanitarian action takes place.
Why an index?
Indexes are very useful and are valued for their ability to process and synthesize large amounts of information, express and raise awareness about certain ideas, even among non-experts; stimulate public debate, allow for comparison on an international scale among donors over a given time period (year), for the index in its entirety, each pillar and each variable taken into account.
How is the HRI funded?
The HRI receives its funding from DARA, a non profit organization whose main financial support comes from its Board of Trustees. DARA also receives funding from its evaluation and technical assistance activities, which are conducted for public and private clients.
How is DARA funded?
DARA is a non profit organisation with a variety of funding sources. The majority of its funding comes from the professional work carried out by the foundation, the evaluations and technical assistance DARA provides for public and private clients.
DARA actively participates in public biddings to conduct evaluations and/or technical assistance projects on a national and international level (Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and other bilateral agencies, the European Commission, United Nations agencies and other multilateral organisations, regional development banks and international and national NGOs).
This income allows DARA to move toward economic sustainability, in addition to financing other activities that by definition are not profitable on their own, such as research projects, and the translation to Spanish, publication and circulation of reports, guides and manuals related to the evaluation of development and humanitarian aid.