Complex humanitarian emergencies are multifaceted and involve many actors. Relief interventions are often undertaken in a context beyond the control of implementing agencies, and are generally conditioned by overall foreign policy considerations. Political objectives help define the response, complicating operational coordination due to the involvement of multiple players with divergent approaches to strategic planning, decision-making, and delivery mechanisms.
The purpose of emergency assistance is often debated among relief experts, with some viewing it as solely for relief, while others see it as a means for rehabilitation and economic development. This ambiguity has contributed to the lack of rigorous and extensive monitoring and evaluation of humanitarian assistance, a situation likened to “methodological anarchy.” However, it is possible to assess the impact of humanitarian assistance on vulnerable populations to some degree, shedding light on the relationship between emergency assistance and the political and development processes at work.
In 1998, some 32 million people needed humanitarian assistance due to complex emergencies, which is triple the number of a typical year from the early 1980s. Most of these people are refugees or internally displaced persons, with about 40 percent residing in Africa. The value of humanitarian assistance worldwide has typically been less than 2.0 percent of official development assistance (ODA), but in 1994 it jumped to 6.8 percent ($4.3 billion) due to the crisis in the Great Lakes region of Africa.
The United States continues to be a generous provider of humanitarian assistance, with USAID’s Food for Peace Office, Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, and Office of Transition Initiatives primarily responsible for administering U.S. emergency assistance. This evaluation seeks to assess the effectiveness of U.S. humanitarian assistance in nations afflicted by complex emergencies, addressing three principal questions: Did U.S. emergency assistance save lives and alleviate suffering? Did it affect social tensions and political hostilities? Did it contribute to long-term economic development?
The evaluation is based on field-work carried out in three countries (Haiti, Mozambique, and Rwanda) as well as on evaluation results in other countries. Complex emergencies are typically political in nature, characterized by violent conflict and a breakdown of institutions. However, their underlying causes vary, with predatory governance being the principal cause of Haiti’s complex emergency, ethnic and ideological factors being pivotal in Mozambique and Rwanda, and poverty being a contributory factor in all three countries.
In Haiti, per capita income was $250 in 1994, while in Mozambique it was $80 in 1986, the lowest in the world. Poverty was just as severe in Rwanda, with the distribution of income and wealth being highly skewed in all three countries. Civilians in all three countries suffered widespread and systematic human rights abuses, with tens of thousands of refugees fleeing Haiti, millions fleeing Mozambique and Rwanda, and hundreds of thousands being the victims of wholesale massacre or genocide.
Donors, including USAID, responded with increased emergency assistance, both food and non-food, with nongovernmental organizations being the main implementers of the humanitarian response. In Haiti, the international community was feeding 1.3 million people, one in seven Haitians, each day, with the United States providing 68 percent of the food.