Newsdayfr.com features LIFE

“A necessity for humanitarian action”. In this article, Newsdayfr.com looks at the challenges facing the humanitarian world today. How can aid organisations become more effective? How can their work better meet people’s real needs? The article highlights LIFE as an example of an innovative organisation.

The humanitarian world is going through a complex crisis. Its effectiveness is being called into question just as the need for aid is growing faster than ever before. To meet these challenges, more and more organisations in the sector need to change the way they work.

They now need precise indicators to make their work as effective as possible. Traditional indicators such as the Human Development Index are seen as inadequate, because they are too broad and pay too little attention to conditions on the ground.

Against this backdrop, humanitarian organisations must look to innovative ways of assessing their impact. NGOs such as LIFE and Care, for example, put the emphasis on gathering local data and using advanced assessment tools to understand people’s needs and measure how effective their work is. To do this, we fit sensors in the drinking water wells we build around the world.

Careful advance planning is also essential for assessing the impact of humanitarian work. More and more organisations involve local partners and make a point of staying close to communities, so they can gauge their needs and how satisfied they are.

The current crisis in the humanitarian sector shows the need to adopt more effective and ethical practices. Some organisations took up these new standards early on, while others are still adapting to meet the complex challenges in front of them.