Enhancing Quality Funding: WFP Reflection Paper: As committed at the Grand Bargain Annual Meeting on 27 June 2019, WFP is pleased to share their management insights on quality funding. While their reflections and benchmarks are agency specific, they indicate a pathway that other agencies could consider recognising that the current impasse between donor and agency Grand Bargain Signatories needs a more nuanced understanding of the realities, barriers and opportunities to improve the funding of the humanitarian system. Click here to read the full paper.

“The Grand Bargain has to be seen as a long-term endeavor. Changes foreseen are very significant and require a lot of effort. We have to keep recognizing that those changes will take time – changes in transparency, administration, financial and accounting systems. It is difficult to assess the progress on an annual basis. A 5-year retrospective review in 2021 will probably give a better idea of where the progress has been made.”  

Quote of the week, 16 December 2019, Author: Victoria Metcalfe-Hough, Research Associate, Humanitarian Policy Group, Overseas Development Institute, at the Global Consultation on Gender and the Grand Bargain, 13 December 2019

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As part of the preparations for the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) in 2016, the High-Level Panel on Humanitarian Financing sought solutions to close the humanitarian financing gap. Their report made recommendations to shrink the needs, deepen and broaden the resource base for humanitarian action, and to improve delivery. In relation to the latter recommendation, the report suggested “a Grand Bargain between the big donors and humanitarian organisations in humanitarian aid”. The Grand Bargain, launched during the WHS in Istanbul in May 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. Currently 61 signatories (24 Member States, 21 NGOs, 12 UN agencies, two Red Cross movements, and two inter-governmental organisations) are working across nine workstreams to implement the commitments. 

Dutch Relief Alliance boosts support for local and national responders

Striving to implement their Grand Bargain commitment to provide more support and funding tools for local and national responders, the Dutch Relief Alliance members assisted local organizations in directly accessing funding for their programmes, and strengthening capacity in DR Congo, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia and Sudan.

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FAO's implementation at country level

The Grand Bargain is delivering positive change at both headquarters and country/field level, which is ultimately benefiting people affected by humanitarian crises. Examples of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) implementing their Grand Bargain commitments at country level in 2018 include a complementary approach that bridges humanitarian and development objectives, shrinking needs and reducing costs by early actions in agriculture, and providing more support to local partners in Afghanistan.

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Hover and click anywhere on the map to find out examples of the Grand Bargain implementation. This is not an exhaustive list of examples - for further information, please see the Grand Bargain Annual Independent Report 2019. 

The Grand Bargain Secretariat is supported by the governments of Sweden and the United States, and hosted by the Norwegian Refugee Council/NORCAP.