Humanitarian aid shortfall

DW: How has the International Committee of the Red Cross' (ICRC) financial situation changed over the last few years particularly with regard to fundraising?

Helen Alderson: It is increasingly challenging. Today we have the biggest budget since World War II and the highest level of expenditure. We also have the highest level of income (contributions and donations) we have ever had, yet we anticipate a record deficit.

Can you give us the figures?

The figures of the anticipated deficit, I don't know yet as we are just over half way through the year. We are working to reduce it, but the organization has grown dramatically, particularly over the last 15 years and even more over the last two. That's because humanitarian needs are growing and the contexts in which we work have become much more complex. But we see that the ICRC is able to work in some of the most difficult places around the world and provide assistance and protection to victims of conflict.

How big is the budget?

We have a field budget of 1.6 billion Swiss francs and the headquarter budget is close to 200 million Swiss francs. So we are just under a 2 billion Swiss franc (1.8 billion euros) organization.

What would be a sufficient budget from your point of view?

Our current budget is what we require today based on needs and, importantly, on our capacity to respond to them. We have challenges here: one is access to the victims and security for our staff. We obtain this if we are accepted by parties of conflict. This is the case in many places, but not everywhere. The second big challenge is finding the right people with the ability to carry out the operation. We need to bring in more people. We need very experienced managers, health experts, logistical experts and so on. So this a real challenge for us. Thirdly, we need the funding to follow. It is all donations. We are a not-for-profit organization so we rely on contributions to fund our activities and we need more funding this year.

How does the refugee crisis in Syria for example affect your budget?

We work very much inside Syria and also in Jordan and Lebanon. Syria is our largest operation with a budget of 160 million Swiss francs (147 million euros).

How are private donations to the ICRC developing?

Our funds will always largely come from governments, yet we see private funding growing. We work very closely with national Red Cross organizations. For example in Germany, the German Red Cross collects funds. We are keen to help them collect more funds for victims of conflict so they can then work with us to spend that money. There are many private donors - the individuals who respond online or give after an appeal, and there were a lot of appeals this year whether the Middle East, the earthquake in Nepal or floods in Myanmar. Then there are philanthropists, companies or foundations that also give to the ICRC.

How is the funding for the ICRC from Germany?

Germany is one of the top 10 donors of the ICRC and we have very regular contact with the German government. They have a specified humanitarian aid budget and we are quite big recipients of that.

What about getting money through social media or generally finding new ways of funding?

We are a very well known brand - everybody knows the Red Cross - but we have a very fragmented structure with different national organizations in each country. We can take advantage of that brand through crowd-funding and using digital funding mechanisms but this is still a fairly new area. This is where we need to work more closely with the national societies of the Red Cross like in Germany.

What is the biggest challenge at the moment? Is there a risk of growing too quickly?

To be sure we can continue working and that we continue to be accepted by various parties to the conflict (are the biggest challenges). In many countries, like for example in Congo, there are between 30 and 40 different groups and new groups emerge frequently. When we go from one place to the other, we have to negotiate checkpoints all along the road so we can get to where we want. These parties have to know who we are, what we do and even facilitate our access so that we are able to work. We are deploying our people in very difficult situations, so having enough people and the right, competent people is important. We send people to very difficult places where they can't bring their families necessarily, with very strict security rules so they don't have much of a life outside work. We have a staff that is hugely motivated to do this but still it is not so easy. And we need more funds.

What kind of qualifications does ICRC staff need, and have the qualifications changed over the years?

We have become much more international. The ICRC was first a very Swiss organization. Now, we are able to draw from a much wider pool. We have a number of constraints - the number one is language. We desperately need people who can speak Arabic. There are nationality constraints. So depending where the person comes from it is not easy to work in a certain country. For example, in northern Mali, for security reasons our expatriate staff is from other African countries. In terms of professional skills, we need generalists, who are managers or who organize and coordinate work, and we also need an increasing number of specialists such as medical professionals, doctors, nurses, forensic doctors, but also logisticians, transport specialists, agronomists, vets etc. Today, we have over 14,000 employees in over 80 countries around the world.

Helen Alderson is Director Financial Resources and Logistics of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and a member of the organization's directorate in Geneva, Switzerland. A native of the UK, Alderson is responsible for fundraising, finance administration and logistics. The interview was conducted in Geneva by Manuela Kasper-Claridge.

The interview was condensed and edited for clarity.