Grand Bargain Quality Funding Caucus – Work to Date – May/June 2022 Update
Following our April update, the Quality Funding Caucus has had three additional Sherpa meetings on 6 and 24 May, and 7 June. In addition, there has been a successful launch of the Informal Advisory Group on 12 April. The Group is made up of key stakeholders such A4EP, Denmark, Global Affairs Canada, FCDO, Norway, UNRWA and WHO. The Group has been feeding into the caucus discussions by providing recommendations on some of the challenges that have been raised and by also having a representative share their insights with caucus members.
In line with our approach of gathering the challenges, solutions, and expectations of each constituency of the caucus, we have continued to pose the following reflection questions for each entity to respond to:
- What is your number one challenge in providing and/or receiving more multi-year flexible funding?
- What are the next steps you think are essential to overcome this barrier? What could be your main contribution to overcoming this barrier?
- What is your main expectation of other Grand Bargain constituencies in providing and/or receiving more multi-year flexible funding? What exactly do you want other constituencies to do?
Some of the challenges we have heard so far include the legal and political constraints around providing multi-year flexible funding, the challenges of reporting and on cascading of funds. The solutions we have heard are recurring, including higher transparency, and improving accountability and, ensuring common minimum definitions to successfully track quality funding.
During our last meeting, IRC’s Senior Vice President, Harlem Désir, presented a Chair’s summary which consolidates all the challenges that have been highlighted by caucus members so far. For each issue, IRC proposed a concrete way forward and organised a technical workshop on multi-year funding in protracted crisis, which was facilitated by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) on 1st June. A second technical workshop will be organized on 24 June to discuss donor visibility in detail. A zero draft of an outcome document has been circulated to caucus members, with the aim of securing commitments on quality funding from all constituents. These efforts aim to ensure members can reach an agreed outcome by the end of the discussions in July.