Is sustainability of humanitarian action a debate of the past?
As the humanitarian sector reconsiders its purpose and scope, sustainability risks becoming an afterthought, precisely when it is most needed. In this blog, Claudio Alberti (OECD Development Co-operation Directorate), Sofiya Yuvshanova (UNICEF Europe and Central Asia Regional Office), and Samandar Mahmodi (Afghan Evaluation Society) draw on recent evaluations and the OECD DAC criteria to argue that sustainability remains relevant in humanitarian settings when applied flexibly, with attention to systems, ownership, and adaptive pathways.
The push for a humanitarian reset has prompted a sharper focus, with growing calls to narrow humanitarian action to the most immediate, life-saving tasks. In a world of shrinking budgets and overlapping crises, this push for hyper-prioritisation is understandable. Yet an almost exclusive focus on the urgent risks of overshadowing an essential dimension: sustainability. This means asking whether today’s investments yield benefits that endure and whether responses help build systems and capacities that can last.
The evaluation criteria of relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability, first laid out by the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and updated in 2019, remain the global benchmark for assessing humanitarian and development interventions. The sustainability criterion considers whether the benefits of an intervention are likely to continue, taking into account institutional capacities, systems, ownership, and the broader conditions that support continuity over time. In humanitarian contexts, sustainability is often the most contested and neglected of the six criteria. Does it apply when needs are urgent, funding cycles are short, and volatility is high? Recent evaluations suggest the answer is yes, provided the criterion is applied flexibly and with an eye to adaptive pathways rather than fixed end states.
Why sustainability matters in humanitarian settings: lessons learned
In humanitarian contexts, this raises complex questions: what does continuity mean when crises are protracted, or when national systems are unable or unwilling to deliver basic services? Does a longer-term perspective risk overshadowing urgent life-saving measures?
Recent UNICEF evaluations across Türkiye, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia illustrate both the challenges and the possibilities. In Türkiye, the evaluation of the Conditional Cash Transfer for Education (CCTE) showed how support to refugee families endured when integrated into national cash systems. The cash-plus model for education and protection demonstrated strong potential, even if protection elements faced resource constraints. In Ukraine, the Spilno Spots initiative distinguished from the outset between temporary humanitarian hubs and permanent municipal services, making government ownership central to planning for sustainability. In Georgia, sustainability was assessed not only in terms of handover to government, but also through policy uptake, achieved despite political volatility.
These cases show that sustainability is not about waiting for stability, but about embedding resilience and institutional pathways during the crisis itself.
The challenges: applying the sustainability criteria thoughtfully
Sustainability has historically been less prominent in humanitarian evaluations than in development contexts. Many evaluations omit it or address dimensions of sustainability through concepts such as resilience, connectedness, or transition planning. Where it has been applied, recurring challenges appear: short funding cycles hinder long-term planning and uptake in government systems. Political sensitivities, and data, institutional and legal barriers can delay integration of displaced people and slow efforts to link humanitarian response to national systems.
The DAC Recommendation on the Humanitarian Development Peace nexus, emphasises that sustainability considerations should be integrated from the outset rather than treated as a late exit strategy. Depending on context, early engagement with local actors, including government counterparts, local leaders, or CSOs, is essential for fostering ownership. Investing not only in delivery capacities but also in systems and governance for service provision increases the likelihood that results will persist when financial and political conditions allow. Adaptive frameworks are needed to reflect political volatility, recognising that continuity may take different forms across contexts.
Applying the criterion thoughtfully
Considering local realities remains a key factor for evaluators. Rigid benchmarks rarely capture the complexity of humanitarian response. The criterion works best as a guide for asking the right questions and answering them using methods adapted to what is feasible on the ground.
The practices of the Afghan Evaluation Society offer an example. Their work emphasises that the criteria are broad enough to be shaped to context, particularly when paired with indigenous knowledge and local evaluation traditions. Based on their experience, consulting with the evaluand early in the process helped define a shared understanding of sustainability and integrate it effectively into the evaluation by developing questions that are context sensitive and informed by existing data and local ways of knowing. This blending of global frameworks with local practice has proved valuable in ensuring that sustainability is not overlooked, even when immediate priorities dominate.
Such flexibility keeps sustainability in view. In rapid-onset emergencies, relevance, coherence, and effectiveness understandably take precedence, but sustainability should not disappear. Even in humanitarian contexts, evaluators can identify early signs of institutional uptake or capacity-building that might strengthen systems over time. Sustainability needs to be thought of in adaptive terms: not as a guarantee that benefits will last indefinitely, but as an assessment of whether interventions build resilience and foster ownership under uncertainty.
Keeping sustainability on the agenda
As the humanitarian sector debates how to redefine its model and scope, there is a risk that sustainability will be treated as dispensable. It may be seen as something to consider only once life-saving needs are met, or dismissed altogether by evaluators as inapplicable. Yet evaluations show the opposite: sustainability is integral to ensuring that humanitarian investments do not evaporate once the spotlight moves on.
In the present climate, evaluators have a vital role in ensuring that sustainability is not sidelined. By asking the right questions, grounding their analysis in local realities, and communicating findings clearly, evaluations can influence how humanitarian response is conceived and conducted informing the current debate on the sector. This is not about diluting life-saving action, but about recognising that immediate relief and longer-term resilience are not competing priorities. When used thoughtfully, the criteria help bridge this divide and provide evidence on humanitarian interventions’ lasting contributions. In a moment when the sector is rethinking its model, this perspective is more necessary than ever.