A Bridge Between Humanitarian Actors

ICVA’s Humanitarian Financing Working Group is a forum for ICVA members to discuss humanitarian financing developments, exchange information, understand NGOs views and concerns, and identify opportunities for collective advocacy.

Less paper more aid is an initiative carried out by NGOs to reduce the burden of donor conditions on aid agencies and thereby improve the efficiency of humanitarian action.

The Grand Bargain, launched during the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016, is a unique agreement between some of the largest donors and humanitarian organisations who have committed to get more means into the hands of people in need and to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the humanitarian action.

As of February 2021, the signatories of the Grand Bargain endorsed a framework on the future of the Grand Bargain – known as the Grand Bargain 2.0.

The Grand Bargain 2.0 reframes the overall objective to achieving “Better humanitarian outcomes for affected populations through enhanced efficiency, effectiveness, and greater accountability” .

ICVA is currently co-chair of the IASC results group 5 on humanitarian financing.

This group is focused on two strategic priorities:

• deepening and widening the resource base to reduce the humanitarian funding gap;
• and supporting the implementation of more flexible and simplified funding models, including multiyear funding, reduced earmarking, and harmonised UN systems.

More information about the Results Group 5 can be found on the IASC website

Humanitarians inherently work in places of high fragility, conflict, or instability. These characteristics both define where humanitarian action is needed and impact the ability of humanitarian actors to accomplish their mission of reducing human suffering.

The humanitarian imperative requires humanitarian organisations to accept a culture of risk in order to operate effectively in such environments. While a hight level of risk acceptance is embedded in the culture of humanitarian work, corresponding use of risk management tools is not yet embedded in the culture of many humanitarian NGOs. It is critical for NGOs to understand how to better identify and manage risk to improve their ability to respond effectively in humanitarian crises.

To work toward this objective, ICVA’s e-learning stream on  “Risk” (2019-2021) facilitates dialogue among humanitarian stakeholders on how to improve application of risk management approaches and tools. The series includes a number of briefing papers and webinars focused on a range of topics: risk and organisational culture, risk appetite and tolerance, security risk management, and staff well-being, among others.

The theme of ICVA’s Annual Conference 2020 was “Protecting principled humanitarian action: An honest conversion on risk” . Check out the recording and conference report.

The CBPF-NGO Dialogue Platform has been an important forum to improve NGO engagement with OCHA on Pooled Funds.

Country Based Pooled Funds (CBPFs) are a valuable mechanism used by donors to pool their contributions to support country specific humanitarian efforts. These funds can be allocated directly to local NGOs, to support donor’s localisation objectives. ICVA aims to develop a more systematic approach to identify how to improve participation of national NGO partners, and how to improve NGO access to and use of pooled funds.