Humanitarian-Development Collaboration

Humanitarian-development collaboration is key to reducing risks and vulnerabilities, ensuring that no one is left behind, preventing crises from worsening and addressing the root causes of crises. Given the increasingly long-term duration of many crises, reducing the impact on affected people requires meeting immediate needs as well as investing in long-term solutions to reduce chronic vulnerabilities and risks. Building the capacity of formal and informal institutions, improving livelihoods, and increasing access to services boosts resilience and self-reliance and enhances people’s ability to cope with current disasters and withstand future crises.

In practice, this involves providing short, medium and long-term assistance to vulnerable people concurrently, while prioritizing “reaching those furthest behind first” and fostering diverse partnerships between humanitarian and development actors. To enable and strengthen cooperation in fragile contexts, the IASC provides guidance, identifies good practices, and supports country operations in implementing a joint approach, including through joint analysis and planning and linkages to peace. For example, IASC Results Group 4 on Humanitarian-Development Collaboration has provided guidance on working towards Collective Outcomes in collaboration with the United Nations Division for Sustainable Development Goals, the Joint Steering Committee and the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The group is mapping good practices in effective humanitarian-development collaboration in humanitarian crises, including working with peace actors as relevant.