State of surge report

New research says sustainable, adaptable and flexible models to surge are needed to meet the increasing demands of humanitarian needs.

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The current humanitarian system is insufficiently equipped to meet the demands of ever increasing humanitarian needs in an increasingly challenging and unpredictable environment. There is a need to find sustainable, adaptable and flexible models to surge, ensuring that the humanitarian mandate is fulfilled in an uncertain future.

This is the damning conclusion of a new research report being launched on Thursday 7 April by The Transforming Surge Capacity Project of the Start Network with funding from UK Aid.

Led by ActionAid and in collaboration with 11 other humanitarian agencies and two technical partners, The Transforming Surge Capacity Project’s ambition is to make more localised and collaborative surge within the humanitarian sector a reality.

As part of its activities, the Project is launching this exciting new research report. “The State of Surge Capacity in the Humanitarian Sector is the largest snapshot on surge for a number of years, and reveals how surge in the humanitarian sector has evolved in the past decade. It features recent developments, future trends and lessons learnt around surge response within and beyond civil society.

The report further highlights some of the key issues affecting surge and underlines a growing recognition of the important role that local and national actors play in surge response. Better preparedness, enhanced capacity, coordination and collaboration at all levels are vital, with local people being at the heart of any response. In particular, there is a need for much stronger support to the critical role that women play in surge response in order to enable for the most vulnerable populations to be reached.

“This state of surge report shows we are on the right track to more collaborative and locally rooted disaster response. It also shows that we must go further – much further – it cannot be ‘business as usual’ if we are to respond to the increasing demands that are coming our way.” Richard Miller, Humanitarian Director of Action Aid.

The launch of the report will be held on Thursday 7 April 2016, 2.30pm at the Institute of Directors.

Gareth Owen OBE, the Humanitarian Director of Save the Children UK will be chairing a two-hour interactive discussion with panellists drawn from private and not for profit sectors, who represent different approaches and models of surge.

The Asia Regional launch of the State of Surge report was held on Thursday 31 March.

Download the report.