The IASC's approach to improved Humanitarian Financing focuses on addressing funding gaps including through innovative funding approaches and more transparent collective funding. Under its Strategic Priorities for 2018-2020, the IASC's humanitarian financing work is targeted towards closing the funding gap: the difference between needs and available funding to address them, developing links with the World Bank in fragile contexts, and furthering dialogue with donor countries including the Good Humanitarian Donorship initiative.
Results Group 5 on Humanitarian Financing works towards reducing humanitarian funding gaps, the difference between the financial resources available and those required to meet humanitarian needs, through advocating for strengthening the provision of quality financing, innovative funding approaches and strengthening aid effectiveness through simplifying and harmonizing financing system. In pursuit of this, Results Group 5 is delivering against four priority workstreams:
- Mapping and promoting financing instruments supporting humanitarian interventions with development co-benefits
- Facilitating the development of innovative approaches to humanitarian financing that deepen and widen the resource base.
- Producing a business case showing the contribution of multi-year humanitarian planning and unearmarked funding to more cost-effective humanitarian assistance.
- Facilitating simplification and harmonization of financing systems to reduce burdens and free additional resources for humanitarian operations.
Results Group 5 has published several products, developed in support of its priority workstream of building a business case to demonstrate the contribution of quality (multi-year, flexible and unearmarked) funding as a key enabler of more efficient and cost-effective humanitarian response. These have been compiled as a quality funding package for your reference. The work contributed to and was developed in collaboration with the Grand Bargain workstreams 7 (Increase collaborative humanitarian multi-year planning and funding) and 8 (Reduce the earmarking of donor contributions).
Financing the Nexus: Gaps and Opportunities
With the objective to strengthen aid effectiveness through more effective humanitarian development funding flows and mechanisms, Results Group 5 has mapped and promoted financing instruments supporting humanitarian interventions with development co-benefits in the study ‘Financing the Nexus: Gaps and Opportunities from a Field Perspective’. This publication maps financing instruments in Cameroon, the Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Ukraine.
Simplifying and Harmonizing Systems
NGO members of Results Group 5 have presented a protocol ‘Money Where It Counts’ that aims to harmonize cost classifications and financial reporting across humanitarian donors. The core objective of this workstream is to increase efficiency in humanitarian aid by reducing the burden placed on field staff by existing systems for funding (agreements) and management of financial resources. Following the roll-out of draft technical tools for implementing the protocol, Results Group 5 now advocates with agencies to adopt the protocol, and with donors and implementing organisations to establish a pilot project testing implementation in the field.
- Develop a best practices and lessons learned guidance on how to utilize Islamic Social Financing (ISF) tools and provide practical recommendations for collaborative approaches to scale up access to ISF.
- Multi-year study on benefits of multi-year and unearmarked funding drawing on multiple country contexts.
- In 2020, Results Group 5 plans to identify funding and financing instruments in select countries for joint humanitarian development programming and to advocate with key donors on bringing them up to scale.
- Convene a crisis financing round table to promote financing instruments supporting humanitarian interventions with development co-benefits.
- Map donor funding practices with respect to multi-year and unearmarked financing and advocate for strengthening the provision of quality funding.
- Convene donor/UN agencies/INGO regulators around compliance and risk issues with the objective to identify and overcome barriers to quality funding.
Note: This group builds on the valuable outputs of the IASC Task Team on Humanitarian Financing, which has completed its work in January 2019.