Humanitarian Response Index

The Humanitarian Response Index (HRI), of DARA International Foundation, is the first instrument in the world to measure the individual performance of humanitarian donors. The HRI focuses on the members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, and the European Commission), contrasting their performance with that established in the Principles of Good Humanitarian Donorship, defined and approved by the donors, in 2003. since it is an annual report, the HRI will allow detailed analysis of the evolution of humanitarian action, donors´ commitments and outstanding challenges.

CONTEXT

In recent decades, as a result of the increasing number of natural hazards and conflicts, humanitarian action has increased significantly, therefore becoming an increasingly important component of international aid. The complexity of this context requires new instruments to improve the efficiency of donors and of the system of response as a whole. DARA is committed to contribute to this improvement through the Humanitarian Response Index (HRI), a practical tool that contributes to the compliance with the Principles, and certainly the improvement of the aid provided to the beneficiaries.

OBJECTIVES

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 HRI supports donors in their implementation of the GHD Principles. Specifically, the HRI aims to:

*Attract attention to the Good Humanitarian Donorship Initiative.
*Help donors better understand their strengths and weaknesses.
*Develop a tool that allows transparency and the accountability to be measured.
*Promote a dialogue about how to put a better humanitarian response into practice. By affecting the donors, the HRI is influencing one of the links of the humanitarian response; a link with important influence on the rest of the chain. Donors are actors with enormous capacity to propel improvements and affect the whole system. They are the ones that can promote more relevant responses and actions which are more focused on the real needs of the victims of crises.

METHODOLOGY

Although the HRI is an initiative of DARA financed by its own resources, the methodological design for its creation involves the participation of a multitude of actors in the humanitarian field (governments, NGO’s, United Nations agencies, experts, etc.), who provide data, opinions and experiences that will put into focus the snapshot of international humanitarian assistance.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. First of all, members of implementing agencies working in countries that recently experienced a humanitarian crisis fill out a questionnaire. Secondly, the DARA contacts the headquarters of the implementing organisations that direct funds to these crises. Finally, DARA consults with all assessed donors in order to obtain information not available in other sources, and to validate the quantitative data from other reference sources.

Formulation and structure of the IndexWhen creating the Index, five categories were established for the different Principles of Good Humanitarian Donorship. These categories were created using 32 qualitative and 25 quantitative indicators (taken from the questionnaire and information from reference sources). Subsequently, the weight allocated to each of the indicators and categories in the Index was determined.

The established categories and their respective weights in the Index are as follows: :1. Responding to humanitarian needs (30%):2. Integrating relief and development (20%):3. Working with humanitarian partners (20%):4. Implementing international guiding principles (15%):5. Promoting learning and accountability (15%)

The score of each donor is established from 0 to a maximum of 7.

2007 HRI – RESULTS

Scores range from 0 to a maximum of 7

LINKS

* [http://www.daraint.org/web_es/hri.html?lang=es Humanitarian Response Index]
* [http://www.daraint.org DARA]
* [http://www.goodhumanitariandonorship Good Humanitarian Donorship]
* [http://www.oecd.org OECD]