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Bureau for Humanitarian Response
>> Return to Home Page >> Central Programs >> Humanitarian Response The primary responsibility of the Bureau for Humanitarian Response (BHR) is to spearhead the U.S. effort to provide emergency disaster relief and other humanitarian assistance, particularly developmental and transitional relief during and after a crisis. Since 1990, both natural and man-made disasters have been on the increase, particularly in the least developed parts of the world, causing massive hardship and devastation. In 1998, disastrous crises plagued an estimated 418 million people. Seventy-four percent of these crises were natural disasters. More recently, a series of emergencies resulting from earthquakes, floods, and drought struck El Salvador, Ethiopia, Eritrea, India, and Mozambique, devastating their poorest populations. Complex emergencies continue to claim a major share of disaster relief and other humanitarian assistance resources from USAID and other donors. BHR is USAID's principal means of providing humanitarian assistance in response to these crises.
The other key responsibility of the Bureau is to lead USAID's efforts to build capacity among private voluntary organizations and other implementing partners for relief and development activities. A hallmark of BHR's programs is the degree to which they involve partners, including private voluntary organizations (PVOs), cooperative development organizations (CDOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), American schools and hospitals sponsoring overseas institutions, United Nations agencies, and international organizations. The Bureau has achieved great success in developing the capacity of these kinds of organizations to carry out relief and development activities. Increasingly, these organizations are demonstrating the capacity to take on additional program implementation responsibilities, even including many aspects of management. The Bureau's use of grants and cooperative agreements with these partners has further reduced management burdens. These partnering arrangements, which increasingly involve private for-profit enterprises, have helped relieve USAID staffing and operating expense constraints, while expanding community participation and concentrating development, relief, and transition assistance on the grassroots level where it is often most needed.
In carrying out these responsibilities, BHR is implementing a number of important initiatives and innovations.
- The Bureau continues to refine and apply performance-monitoring tools to strengthen program management and the allocation of resources. Reinforcing effective past practice, offices continue to consult with partners on adopting up-to-date Agency performance management and results reporting procedures and practices.
- The Bureau continues to actively pursue a resource-leveraging approach with its partners, as exemplified by the dollar-for-dollar match that is an integral feature of the competitive Matching Grants, Child Survival and other programs managed by BHR's Office of Private and Voluntary Cooperation (PVC) and of its innovative work on forging PVO-corporate partnerships.
- The Bureau continues to be the principal means by which the Agency delivers transition assistance to countries emerging from a crisis or teetering on the brink of one. This is accomplished mainly through BHR's Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI), which adheres closely to U.S. foreign policy interests and collaborates with other U.S. Government entities. In FY 2000, OTI initiated a new program in Zimbabwe and closed operations in Angola, Bosnia, Croatia, Honduras, and Rwanda. The Office continually updates its "watch list" to keep abreast of high priority countries where transition assistance can advance peace and democracy.
- USAID has markedly improved its efforts to integrate developmental relief, transition, and food security programs into country portfolios. The result has been a shifting of country program priorities to crisis prevention and mitigation activities focused on both natural and man-made disasters.
- Finally, BHR has worked in unison with the rest of the Agency to develop agency-wide response mechanisms for quickly dealing with crises as they arise. In 1999, BHR responded to 24 man-made emergencies, most of them complex, and 41 natural disasters, including those resulting from floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and cyclones. Last year, the Bureau's Offices of U. S. Foreign Disaster Assistance and Food for Peace provided humanitarian assistance in response to hurricane Mitch, earthquakes in El Salvador and India, flooding in Mozambique, and droughts in Ethiopia and Eritrea. This year USAID established the Emergency Response Council (ERC) chaired by the Deputy Assistant Administrator for BHR. This is part of a broader initiative to strengthen USAID's disaster activities and improve coordination in emergencies.
Through the work of its five offices that have line management responsibilities, BHR's programs support the Agency's four pillars of (1) economic growth and agriculture, (2) global health, (3) conflict prevention and developmental relief, and (4) the Global Development Alliance.
The Office of Food for Peace (FFP) utilizes the United States' abundant agricultural resources and food processing capabilities to enhance food security in the developing world by providing food aid through the Food for Peace program authorized under Public Law 480. The proposed FY 2002 budget for the development and emergency food aid programs funded by P.L. 480 Title II is $835 million. Substantial portions of these programs tap into partners' capacity to implement effective agriculture, nutrition, and child survival activities, including HIV/AIDS. The Office also provides institutional strengthening assistance to private voluntary and cooperative development organizations to improve their capacity to plan, implement, and evaluate food aid programs that increase food security for vulnerable groups. The funding request for these activities in FY 2002 is $6 million, divided between two sub-accounts: Development Assistance ($3.7 million) and Child Survival and Diseases Program Fund ($2.3 million).
- 962-001/962-002 Increased capacity of private voluntary and cooperative development organizations to enhance their P.L. 480 Title II planning, implementation and evaluation capacities
The Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) provides relief, rehabilitation, and reconstruction assistance to victims of natural and man-made disasters worldwide. In collaboration with its partners, OFDA manages program activities that: (1) meet the critical needs of targeted vulnerable populations in emergency situations; (2) increase adoption of mitigation measures in countries at greatest risk of natural disasters; and (3) enhance follow-on development prospects in priority, post-conflict countries. Where possible, OFDA incorporates HIV/AIDS prevention activities as an integral part of life-saving health services provided by private voluntary organizations or international organizations for populations affected by natural and man-made disasters. The majority of this health and nutrition assistance goes to Africa, and particularly the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, and Burundi. Overall, demands on OFDA resources have increased steadily in recent years. In FY 2000, the International Disaster Assistance account, which is the source of OFDA-managed funding for disaster response, underwrote relief for 74 disasters, from Afghanistan to Vietnam. Among the disasters were 21 floods, five epidemics, eight cyclones and hurricanes and three earthquakes. The total IDA request for FY 2002 is $200 million, of which $25 million is for the Global Development Alliance, to fund conflict prevention and developmental relief activities.
- 961-002.1 Enhanced HIV/AIDS Prevention for Populations Affected by Natural and Human-made Disasters
The Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) helps to advance peace and democracy in priority conflict-prone countries. It works with societies that are emerging from internal wars or other complex emergencies to promote national reconciliation, build open democratic and participatory processes, and broaden access to economic, political, and natural resources. OTI programs include supporting free and fair elections, coordinating national and local community campaigns to advance ethnic and religious tolerance, improving civilian democratic control over the military, strengthening newly independent media, preventing conflict from becoming violent, and helping local communities and civil society groups utilize democratic processes in making decisions that directly impact their lives. In FY 2001, OTI's programs include Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo (DROC), East Timor, El Salvador, Indonesia, Kosovo, Lebanon, Nigeria, Peru, Serbia/Montenegro, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe. In FY 2002, programs will continue in East Timor, Indonesia, Serbia/Montenegro, Sierra Leone, Peru, and Zimbabwe. In addition, OTI is monitoring those countries currently on its "watch list," with potential new programs under consideration for Macedonia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. The FY 2002 request for the Transition Initiatives (TI) account, which OTI manages, totals $50 million.
- 938-4497 Indonesia Transition Program
- 968-6613 Reintegration Skills Training and Employment Generation for Ex-combatants
The Office of Private and Voluntary Cooperation (PVC) supports activities that strengthen the capabilities of private voluntary and cooperative development organizations and their local partners to deliver development and relief at the grassroots level in priority areas such as child survival and health, micro-enterprise, agriculture, civil society, democracy and the environment. A key dimension of PVC's programs is the provision of crosscutting support for USAID's four pillars. The office allocates funds to individual private voluntary organizations (PVOs) and cooperative development organizations (CDOs) through competitive grants that include a cost-sharing requirement to leveraging additional private resources for development activities. PVC's competitive grants programs include Matching Grants, Child Survival, Cooperative Development, Development Education, Ocean Freight Reimbursement, and Farmer-to-Farmer. Each of these programs contributes to strengthening the organizational capacity of USAID's partners while enhancing opportunities with the private sector. The Matching Grants program, for example, helps PVOs diversify their resource base by developing business plans and building corporate partnerships. The FY 2002 request for PVC programs totals $59.7 million, split between the Development Assistance ($32.5 million) and Child Survival and Diseases ($27.3 million) sub-accounts.
- 963-001/960-001 Increased Capability of PVC's partners to achieve sustainable service delivery
- 963-001.2 Capacity Building for Foreign Torture Victim Treatment Programs and Centers
The Office of American Schools and Hospitals Abroad (ASHA) provides grants, on a competitive basis, to American-sponsored universities, secondary schools, libraries, and medical centers abroad. These educational and medical institutions, which serve as demonstration and study centers fostering interchange, mutual understanding, and favorable relations with the United States, provide foreign nationals the benefit of American ideas and practices in education and medicine. The request for the ASHA program for FY 2002 is $15 million.
- 964-001 Strengthen overseas institutions that demonstrate American ideas and practices
The Office of Program, Policy and Management (PPM) provides technical assistance and support to various operating units, both within and outside the Bureau. The office encourages coordination and cooperation and takes the lead in supporting USAID's strategic planning for humanitarian assistance programs, particularly for the Conflict Prevention and Developmental Relief and the Global Development Alliance pillars. Where appropriate, the office also provides technical assistance and other support related to the Economic Growth and Agriculture and the Global Health pillars.
In summary, BHR programs contribute significantly to all of the Agency's four pillars. The humanitarian assistance programs of FFP, OFDA, and OTI are a primary means by which the Agency achieves results on the third pillar, Conflict Prevention and Developmental Relief. PVC's programs also make important contributions to achievement of results related to this pillar, by strengthening the institutional capacity of PVOs, NGOs, and CDOs to implement the relief, transition, and other humanitarian assistance activities of the Bureau and the Agency. BHR is likely to have major involvement in creating and implementing GDA initiatives related to the third pillar, with $25 million from the IDA account set aside for strategic-alliance work in this area. Similarly, the Bureau is likely to play a leadership role in the implementation of the GDA overall, since PVC and ASHA will also utilize their wealth of experience to advance public-private partnerships in foreign assistance such as those contemplated under the GDA.
In relation to the first two pillars, (1) Economic Growth and Agriculture and (2) Global Health, BHR's programs also have much to contribute to the accomplishment of Agency results. FFP's development programs carried out under P.L. 480 Title II make major contributions to accomplishment of strategic objectives in such areas as food security, agricultural development, nutrition, maternal-child health, and basic education. PVC programs, such as those in micro-enterprise development, environment, and child health and survival, also constitute an important means for achieving Agency objectives related to these two goals, as do those of ASHA's medical and educational grants.
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Last Updated on: May 29, 2002 |
