Humanitarian Emergency Fund: annual report 2023-2024

Annex 1: Peer Review Process

SG approved activations will be communicated immediately to HEF Panel members along with a call for Project Proposals. Agencies will have up to five working days to submit their proposals to the HEF Administration Coordinator via two Integrated Proposal and Report Forms

1) Project Narrative

2) Project Objectives and Budget

3) Proposal and Report Forms should also be uploaded to individual agencies’ folder in the ‘Box’ shared information system.

Agencies can, and are encouraged to, apply jointly for funds, although proposals must clearly indicate the lead organisation and any joint submission must not exceed the maximum value of the individual proposals. A lead agency will need to be appointed and will be responsible and accountable for the finances of sub-grantees. The lead agencies will submit one application, although they may participate as an implementing agency in other submissions.

Only proposals from agencies that that have the ability to respond within a suitable timeframe to the emergency will be accepted. All projects must be able to start providing services to project participants within ten days of signing their grant letter of agreement if a response is already underway, or within 30 days if the agency needs to build suitable/specialist capacity in the area.

Further, only proposals from agencies that are able to dedicate communications resource within the project period will be accepted. Therefore, agencies must provide a communications plan at this stage, indicating clearly how they will communicate the crisis and the funded project to the public; proposals should not be submitted if the applicant agency is unable to dedicate communications resource within the project period.

HEF Members are strongly encouraged to find ways to coordinate and, where possible collaborate with other HEF agencies as well as other humanitarian actors on joint needs assessments, complaints response mechanisms, sharing of materials, offices etc. Where this has taken or will take place should be detailed in the project proposal. Projects are reviewed by members of the Project Review Committee within up to 72 hours in advance of a Project Selection. Meeting of the full HEF Panel to be arranged as soon as possible, ideally within a further day. Each member of the project review committee will assess each proposal^[16], using the Project Review Form, sent to them by the HEF Secretariat for each response. They may not assess a project where their organisation is project lead.

Once the Project Review Forms have been returned, the HEF Administration Coordinator will convene a short meeting to discuss the assessments. Once the markings have been confirmed, the HEF Administration Coordinator will collate the information into one combined document of recommendations for the HEF Panel to review. The final document presents the average scores for each proposal, as well as a summary of the written recommendations by the reviewers. Both the comments and the individual scores are given to each agency, but the reviewers are kept confidential.

Along with the average marks for each sector, the HEF Panel will also be informed of the scoring variance for the overall project i.e. the difference between the lowest and highest score of the reviewers. If the variance is particularly high, the HEF Secretariat may ask for Project Review Committee members to review a project again, if there is time before the Project Selection Meeting.

At the Project Selection Meeting, the Chair informs the Panel of the outcome of the Review and the recommendations from the Secretariat, then leads the Panel in a discussion of the recommendations, before calling a vote on the recommendations. If approved, recommendations are then sent by the Secretariat to the SG for review and approval. All required documentation will be submitted as part of the recommendations. The SG has five working days to consider the recommendations before the Panel can expect a decision. Stream 2 Fund activation from request to confirmation of project selection should take no longer than 20 days.