Although over the last decade humanitarian aid levels from official donors have fluctuated, they have declined as a share of OECD wealth from 0.03 per cent to 0.02 per cent. However, while the aid response that year was exceptional, globally, the levels of need were not. Although in the wake of Mitch humanitarian needs were huge, this response was out of proportion with previous responses. The rise has done nothing to make the provision of humanitarian aid more equal between one crisis and another. The differing responses of donors Different governments bear differing levels of responsibility for the mismatch between human need and humanitarian action.
Some governments are much more resolute in honouring their obligations than others.
In recent years the UK Department for International Development has played a leading role in some aspects of humanitarian action, at the forefront of donor efforts to improve the response and performance of the humanitarian system, in particular that of NGOs. Along with the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the USA, the UK is one of the five major global providers of humanitarian aid, who together account for 64 per cent of the DAC total. The USA also falls down on this burden-sharing measure. Non-OECD governments are also demonstrably failing to invest resources in humanitarian action and vulnerability reduction in the longer term. Many governments with citizens in crisis also fail to garner support for addressing the problems, although where they cannot honour their obligations to their populations, they are bound by international law to accept international assistance to meet humanitarian need.