Launch of a caucus on funding for localisation - July 2022

Published Date

caucus funding localiastionOn the margins of the Grand Bargain Annual Meeting on 1 July 2022, EP Egeland and NEAR’s Executive Director Hibak Kalfan successfully launched a caucus on funding for localisation, with members from the following organisations: USAID, Denmark, UNHCR, OCHA, IFRC, Save the Children, A4EP and the NW Syria NGO forum.

The original Grand Bargain framework included a commitment to achieve by 2020 a global, aggregated target of at least 25% of humanitarian funding to local and national actors (L/NAs) as directly as possible to improve outcomes for affected people and reduce transactional costs. To date, GB signatories have made progress in some aspects of localization, however, the commitments to delivering 25% of funding to L/NAs, including WROs/WLOs, is proving challenging to meet.  Moreover, L/NAs are not always granted overhead costs in their partnerships with international humanitarian agencies and organizations, which hinders their ability to maintain institutional capacity to operate effectively. 

The caucus’ objectives are:

  • To establish a political agreement between donors, UN agencies, and international NGOs on how to increase direct and “as direct as possible” investment in L/NAs, by the end of the year.
  • Subsequently, to elevate the GB discussions on overheads and institutional capacity strengthening from technical conversations to a high-level dialogue among top decisionmakers, with the goal of reaching an agreement on a common minimum overhead figure for L/NAs.

The caucus will build on efforts undertaken by other fora, including the previous IASC Results Group 5 on Humanitarian Financing, the Workstream 7&8, as well as the ongoing GB caucuses on quality funding and the role of intermediaries.

More details can be found in the caucus strategy here