Aid agencies are far more accountable to disaster affected people than they were a decade ago, says the latest Humanitarian Accountability Report, but problems remain in transparency about interventions, communication with aid recipients, monitoring and reporting on sexual abuse and eliminating corruption. Aid practitioners say there has been a change in mindset. Recognition of the importance of accountability is the biggest system-wide shift. But while many agencies are attempting to be more transparent about their operations, information often flows more freely upwards to donors, than downwards to beneficiaries.

A new SIPRI report reveals that 90 per cent of the air cargo companies identified in arms trafficking-related reports have also been used by major UN agencies, EU and NATO member states, defence contractors and some of the world’s leading NGOs to transport humanitarian aid, peacekeepers and peacekeeping equipment. In some cases, air cargocompanies are delivering both aid and weapons to the same conflict zones.

Making Pooled Funding Work for People in Crisis
Donor governments increasingly look to the UN to improve the coordination and leadership of humanitarian aid; many see pooled funds as a promising mechanism to enforce coordination and joint planning and to ease their own administrative burdens. However, in the experience of Oxfam, the overall added value of pooled funds has not been proved conclusively. Recognising that pooled funds are here to stay, this note considers the successes and failures of these funds to date and makes suggestions for their continued improvement.

Does the ideology of aid use distress to mask injustice ? Is the aid industry legitimizing the idea of a world divided between the successful and the weak, thus leading to a global apartheid, where people are subject to a global moral order ? Read this critical analysis by IRD-Director Bernard Hours.