World humanitarian day: which countries gave the most aid and who received the most?
Sarah Marsh
On World humanitarian day we look at countries who give aid and those that are in need
World humanitarian day celebrates people who help others - the aid workers who risk their lives to support people in great need.
The United Nations (UN) are the force behind this day. The 19th of August was chosen because it's the anniversary of the Canal Hotel bombing in Baghdad in 2003. In the Baghdad bombing 24 people lost their lives including Sérgio Vieira de Mello the Special Representative of the Secretary-General to Iraq and the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The day aims to raise awareness about humanitarian aid and encourage others to get involved.
Humanitarian work has become increasingly dangerous with the number of threats and attacks on aid workers rising dramatically. According to the World Humanitarian Day website 242 aid workers were killed, kidnapped or hurt in 2010.
To mark World humanitarian day we're looking at the countries that donate the most and the places that receive the most humanitarian aid.
It's clear that if we wanted to trace the way aid is distributed around the globe we would be left wanting - the data is very sketchy on how aid flows from donor to people it is intended for.
However a recent report by the Global Humanitarian Assistance Initiative does a good job of showing where aid comes from and goes.
From the data published we can see the biggest donors (in absolute terms) over the past 3 years by country:
We can also find the situation for refugees in each country and get some indication of the countries needs from these figures:
We have collected together a number of figures from the Global Humanitarian Assistance Initiative report and added them to the spreadsheet below for you to explore. Let us know what you would like us to do with the data in the comments.
Data summary