Helping humanitarian actors continually improve the quality of aid that they bring to populations

Since the Cold War, humanitarian contexts have been constantly changing. In an ever more uncertain and unstable world the emergency / development dichotomy has been called into question as has the idea that a crisis is a temporary phenomenon. Groupe URD (Urgence – Réhabilitation – Développement) was created in response to these changes. Its aim was to understand what was happening in order to bring support to humanitarian actors

Today Groupe URD defines itself as a ‘research and analysis laboratory’ serving the humanitarian community. It is at the cross-roads between emergency and development, between research and action, and between theoretical discussion and methodological development. It is Groupe URD’s role to constantly scrutinise the practices of all the actors involved in humanitarian aid (NGOs, International agencies, donor agencies, politicians, etc.), to look at operational methods and programme design, in order to learn lessons, to adapt practices and forms of aid if necessary. All these activities contribute to the management of knowledge and the sharing of experiences.

The quality of service provided to populations is improved using what we call the ‘collective learning cycle’, which is based on the population and their environment.
This cycle includes the following activities :
- Applied research projects (theme-based or cross-sector studies) ;
- Project/programme evaluations ;
- Capacity building through training ;
- The development of methodological tools ;
- Communication of findings through publications and events.

See the annual report since 1997