The Guardian: The world needs a humanitarian fund to assist long-term crises
Robin Davies, associate director of the Development Policy Centre at the Australian National University

“…It is anomalous that the world is equipped with global funds to finance action on infectious diseases and climate change, but not humanitarian crises. The centerless nature of fundraising for humanitarian action has long been a problem. The problem should no longer be tolerated. … A properly constituted global humanitarian fund would have good prospects of mobilizing much more funding for humanitarian crises than is presently available, from both governments and private donors. It would be especially useful for directing funds to where they are most sorely missing — protracted crises out of the spotlight. Its governing body could become an important global policy forum. Its resources, obtained via scheduled replenishments, could be used to benefit both low- and middle-income countries in need, including via blending with finance from the multilateral development banks. The World Humanitarian Summit provides a good opportunity to debate and register the merits of such a proposal…” (4/13).