Have you ever wondered how the international humanitarian response system actually works in practice? How is life-saving assistance provided to people caught up in conflicts, natural disasters and other crises when the capacity of their governments to respond is outstripped?  How many agencies are on standby? How much does it cost to respond to some of the most difficult and devastating emergencies on the planet? And is the system doing a good job? For the first time, there is one report that provides answers to all of these questions.

With funding from USAID, the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance (ALNAP) interviewed hundreds of aid workers, donors and aid recipients. The information  —  statistics on funding flows, needs versus spending and lives affected — enables us to get an authentic snapshot of the vast, shifting mass of agencies, donors, governments and affected populations that are part of the humanitarian community. The new State of the Humanitarian System report shows us how well the system is performing so that all agencies can be more accountable and learn from their experiences.

Have you ever wondered how the international humanitarian response system actually works in practice? How is life-saving assistance provided to people caught up in conflicts, natural disasters and other crises when the capacity of their governments to respond is outstripped?  How many agencies are on standby? How much does it cost to respond to some of the most difficult and devastating emergencies on the planet? And is the system doing a good job? For the first time, there is one report that provides answers to all of these questions.

Take, for example, $16 billion: This is the total contribution to emergency response efforts and other specific humanitarian activities in 2010 from governments, United Nations bodies and private individuals. And that number is growing, despite the economic downturn. In fact, the largest Western donors—the U.S. Government and the European Union—have actually increased their average contributions by 60% and 20%, respectively, from 2008.

When you consider that $48.4 billion was spent on pet supplies in the United States alone in the same year, it’s still a relatively small amount of money. And this $16 billion had to stretch to respond to the needs of over 300 million people estimated to be affected by disasters like the Pakistan floods, the earthquake in Haiti and conflict-affected Afghanistan. Interestingly, however, the past two years have also seen a fivefold rise in private funding, including from corporations, foundations and ordinary people. It seems that although public and corporate giving only represents a small fraction of global humanitarian response (less than 6%), the public’s willingness to donate to alleviate suffering doesn’t appear to wane during tough financial times.

Constant innovations can lead us to completely reimagine aid. This means everyone involved needs to stand back and take stock. Put simply, humanitarian aid in 2030 is unlikely to look like humanitarian aid in 2012. The ALNAP report shows several trends, or pathways, that the system could follow, which means it might look radically different in the future. Changing environmental and political climates mean we’re faced with new and different types of disasters. The rise of Southern NGOs and governments seeking to play a greater role in disaster preparedness, response and recovery is likely to lead to a greater range of voices at the table. Longer-term development agendas and disaster preparedness/recovery programming is increasingly overlapping with “traditional” disaster relief functions. If humanitarian organizations simply continue with business as usual, without a serious reality check, they are in danger of becoming irrelevant or poorly adapted to a changing world.

To download the State of the Humanitarian System report, 2012, click here.