Taken at the flood.

• Author: Akashi, Yasushi
• Position: Includes related article on transparency and accountability - Humanitarian aid

At the threshold of a new century and at the end of the old wax, the world is not as secure as we had all hoped for. Over 50 million refugees and internally displaced persons - victims of over 20 crises worldwide - demand our compassion and assistance. Many communities remain vulnerable to massive destruction and loss of precious lives due to natural disasters. Development will be meaningless unless we save human lives, just as action to save lives without simultaneously providing for their future would be unconscionable.

I would like to make four introductory considerations:

Firstly, humanitarian and development actors can no longer afford to go their separate ways. We have learned that the response to humanitarian crises sets the stage for longer-term rehabilitation and recovery, and that both humanitarian and development strategies themselves can either alleviate or exacerbate conditions that may lead to crisis. We are in this together. It is our collective responsibility to "make it work".

Secondly, the very nature of crises is rapidly changing, but the quality of the response and the nature of our institutions are not catching up fast enough. Crises and conflict seem to have become the new reality of the current era. During the cold-war era, there was a certain predictability to the way in which political and humanitarian mechanisms could be used to respond to crises which were shaped by competing bipolar interests. On the humanitarian front, for example, standard approaches were used to help people who sought asylum across borders. In situations of famine, which were seen primarily as natural disasters compounded by politics (and not the reverse), there was a momentum to help people cope with what were essentially seen as food deficiencies.

Today, most crises are "complex" in the sense that many actors - political, humanitarian, human rights - and many dimensions - conflict, displacement, widespread poverty, famine - may be present at the same time. The vast majority of people in need of assistance are suffering in situations where "maximum harm" to civilians and the disruption of humanitarian assistance are often part of the strategy of warring groups. Institutionally, the international community has not yet come to grips with the implications of working in such contexts. It is now becoming necessary, as a matter of urgency, to reconceptualize the relationships among the various actors and the actions necessary to alleviate and overcome suffering.

Thirdly, there is growing uneasiness, if not frustration, with the present capacity of the international community to deal with the problems of countries in crisis. This uneasiness is perceptible within the various spheres of UN activity - political, peacekeeping/peacebuilding, human rights, humanitarian and development - and it cuts across...