In 2005, a review was commissioned by the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) from a team of consultants to assess the humanitarian response capacities of the UN, NGO, Red Cross & other actors, given the general perception that humanitarian response didn't meet the requirements of affected population and the response provided varied considerably from crisis to crisis.

The review reached some findings: the UN, Red Cross & NGOs remained vertical to each other often resulting in poor coordination, lack of accountability of humanitarian actors, low level of preparedness of humanitarian organizations, gaps identified in many sectors and, finally, though the Inter-Agency Sttanding Committee (IASC) is the most representative humanitarian body, it does not represent all humanitarian actors.

The review also proposed recommendations which resulted in the Humanitarian Reform, which is based on three pillars (Cluster Approach, Humanitarian Coordinators and Humanitarian Financing) and strong humanitarian partnerships.