Grand Bargain Caucus on Quality Funding: Work to date - April 2022 Update
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) launched the Grand Bargain Caucus on Quality Funding on 11 March 2022. Co-hosted by IRC President and CEO David Miliband and European Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič, the caucus launch convened some of the largest humanitarian donors, including the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance at USAID, the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration at the US Department of State and DG ECHO, as well as major UN agencies (UNICEF, UN OCHA, UNHCR and WFP), local NGO network NEAR, InterAction and ICRC.
This caucus has the explicit goal of seeking commitments to increase the volume of multiyear flexible funding to frontline implementers – local, national and international NGOs – by June 2023. While these implementers have already called for more quality funding to cascade down the transaction chain, donors have spoken about the need to demonstrate the added value of multi-year flexible funding. IRC and other NGOs have also built an evidence base that clearly shows the gains in efficiency and effectiveness of programming through this kind of funding.
There was a follow-up meeting at Sherpa/senior-level on 24 March 2022, which continued the discussion around data and definitions of quality funding. Discrepancies in both came to the forefront, underscoring the need to further disseminate the preliminary work and common language developed by Grand Bargain workstreams in recent years. Further, all entities agreed upon the need for better financial reporting and tracking to ensure higher accountability.
Three key questions were posed to the group, for each entity to think on and 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?
A second Sherpa-level meeting is to reconvene on 13 April, at which point source donors will present their feedback on these questions. Meetings in May are expected to focus on UN agencies and the Red Cross movement, meetings in June on NGOs and local actors, and then the caucus participants will be invited to reach an agreed outcome by the end of the discussion in July. An informal advisory group is being established to gather best practices and lessons learned by other donors, which will inform the work of the caucus. The first meeting of the advisory group will take place on 12 April.