Grand Bargain annual independent report 2019

Published Date

The present report is the third annual independent review of the collective progress made by the Signatories to the Grand Bargain against their commitments. Three years into the process, the Grand Bargain continues to attract substantial institutional investments from most Signatories, many of whom have dedicated staff/staff time, integrated the concept and the commitments into corporate strategies and policies and used the framework to shape institutional practice. Signatories continue to see the potential of the Grand Bargain as a lever for change, to resolve or successfully navigate longstanding challenges and to increase system-wide efficiency and effectiveness. The sense of pessimism evident during the consultations in 2017 seems to have abated, at least to some extent.

Commissioned by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) on behalf of the Facilitation Group (FG), the report covers the period January to December 2018. The primary data source for this review were the self-reports submitted by 52 of the 59 Signatories in 2018, and bilateral, semistructured interviews with 50 of these signatories. Additional data was collated through narrative reports submitted by the Co-conveners of six workstreams, bilateral research interviews with at least one co-Convener for each of the eight remaining workstreams, semi-structured research interviews with 38 individuals from non-signatory organisations and a comprehensive review of relevant grey and published literature.