118. Useful fiction?

I, I really agree with this, and one of the things I find frustrating about this debate is that it is so technical, right? Just think about the way we are talking about it right now.

It is very, very difficult to understand, and this is basically what the four of us spend most of our time doing, right? And still, I don't know all of the intricacies of, of, of different severity levels and whatever.

But I just have this sense, I mean, I hear what you're saying about scope, that that's a big step forward, that we don't just shoot at everything with humanitarian assistance because there's a, there's a development, um, a protracted de- development issue.

But at the same time, there's also an element here of, of narrowing the scope to an extent where they're almo- I mean, we, we just silence the needs that we can't meet, right? We, we shoot the arrow first and then paint the target, in a sense, or shrinkflation.

We shrink the problem, so it still looks like we're solving it.

Is it...

I mean, where are we? Is it, it...

Are we Are we more professional because we now only scope out humanitarian needs and humanitarian situations and don't get into business that is none of our business, or are we narrowing the problem we're trying to solve so that it still looks like we're solving it?

So yeah, we go into this in the paper, and so a few years ago, again, when there was a different conception about what humanitarian was about, there's a different funding landscape.

You know, you have the people in need, and then the people who you're trying to target out of those people in need.

And ideally, we're trying to reach 100% of those people in need we actually assist.

And in the old days, it used to be that the people targeted for assistance was more or less or, you know, the majority of those people in need.

The problem is, is that as the resources are shrunk, and as the scope of these appeals were potentially became inflated, the gap between those targeted and those actually in need has, has increased enormously.

And so it's only a fraction, I can't remember the figures, but it's 30, 35% of those people who actually need assistance or actually have any chance of even as- receiving it 'cause they're targeted.

And so that gap has got bigger, and so the tension is to, on the one hand, keep the people in need number down because otherwise it's inflated, to use a credible measure to target the ones to the most, that are most severe, but also match that target to a realistic idea about how much funding, um, could be received.

And then it, this again leads, 'cause some of the tension, that the tension is to keep the people in need number down, even if the evidence is saying something else, uh, to reduce the target, uh, that will be driven, you know, by guesstimate about what funding we're gonna be receiving rather than actually who might need it.

So this is the kind of gaps that you're alluding to that kind of r- is, uh, is becoming much, much more severe now.

Inherent in this is we have, you know, these three questions, identify needs, the planning response, and trying to raise money.

But actually, the bigger question that overshadows all of this actually is what is the limit of humanitarian actions, and what is the scope of that? And within those three questions, actually we're answering it by, "Well, it's whatever we can afford." [laughs] Like, um, and therefore, that has, that is the tension that Damien's talking about.

It's that we're answering that question really through the, the, the funding ask, but actually we're trying to do lots of different things at once, and we don't necessarily have, um, I think on the needs analysis side or the resourc- response planning side, a good way to answer that question, um, aside from what we can afford.

And perhaps we need better ways to answer that question, uh, more transparency in the process so that we know actually how are we answering that question of where the limits are of humanitarian action.

Because at the moment, it's very much funding driven.

That's what makes my head explode, right? We, we have a concept that is called people in need.

It's not called people we can afford to help, right? And, and I think as a community, we have a problem if we're not...

I mean, if the, if the n- if the PIN number varies according to how much money is there, I, I don't know what we're doing, and I don't know how we can be accountable if, if we, we're making the weather.