Number of organisations founded per year since 1945, per region of headquarters

By Clara Egger

This graph displays the number of creation of humanitarian organizations per region. Regions were defined based on the United Nations classification of world regions. 

Contrary to prevalent narratives, we see that humanitarian organizations in the Global South are not newcomers in humanitarianism: African, Asian and other organisations from the Global South have contributed to all recorded peaks, particularly since the 1960s.

• Overall, the creation of humanitarian organisations after World War Two has been driven by European and North American organisations.
• After 1965: the birth of the “French doctors” movement only partly accounts for the increasing number of organisations created in this period. This period is also characterised by a considerable rise in the creation of African and Asian organisations.
• After 1992: the creation of humanitarian organisations worldwide is almost due to creations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

This Expertise Note was contributed by Dr Clara Egger in collaboration with the Humanitarian Encyclopedia team, based on analysis of the Humanitarian Organisation Database (HOD).