Humanitarian emergency fund: independent review

Footnotes

1. The Corra Foundation undertook the review of eight applications in May 2017.

2. 'Scottish Government Humanitarian Emergency Fund Agreed Proposal', document from HEF archive (un-dated but appears to be mid 2017), p1.

3. 'Scottish Government Humanitarian Emergency Fund Agreed Proposal', p2.

4. Humanitarian Emergency Fund Operations Manual, March 2019, p2.

5. In this case for the Indonesian Earthquake and Tsunami, to which DEC members the British Red Cross, Christian Aid, Oxfam, Save the Children and Tearfund responded.

6. "At the HEF Panel meeting (Quarterly and Emergency), members are expected to have reviewed the Activation Request(s) and, where possible, triangulated the information with their field offices or other sources. The Chair will invite each agency at the Quarterly meeting (or the lead agency at the Emergency meeting) to provide a short presentation (maximum five minutes) to the Panel, articulating how the request(s) meets the HEF Stream 2 criteria. The HEF Chair then facilitates the discussion amongst members before calling a vote on whether the Panel should recommend the activation of HEF Stream 2 to the SG." HEF Operations Manual, p8.

7. HEF Operations Manual, March 2019, p8.

8. HEF Operations Manual, March 2019, p3.

9. On one occasion, for the DRC Activation in January 2018, one reviewer (from one of the applying organisations) scored significantly differently to other reviewers and a variance adjustment was used.

10. HEF Operations Manual, March 2019, p9.

11. Oxfam noted during group interview discussions that it has 'self-excluded' itself from applying for project funding through the HEF over recent months as it continues to work internally to address concerns over its internal policies and processes; this was an organisational decision and did not follow any HEF panel discussion.

12. The State of the Humanitarian System: 2018 Edition, ALNAP, p21.

13. Sector expert interviews.

14. Towards Better Humanitarian Donorship: 12 lessons from DAC Peer Reviews, OECD 2012

15. "In 2018, international humanitarian assistance continued a five-year trend of growth; while the pace of growth slowed, rising by just 1% from 2017 to an estimated US$28.9 billion, there has been an estimated increase of 30% (US$6.7 billion) since 2014." 4 trends in global humanitarian aid, BOND, 6 Aug 2019, Angus Urquhart of Development Initiatives.

16. The State of the Humanitarian System: 2018 Edition, ALNAP, p18.

17. Global Humanitarian Overview 2019, UNOCHA 2019.

18. BOND Article: 4 trends in global humanitarian aid, 6 Aug 2019, Angus Urquhart of Development Initiatives.

19. An end in sight: Multi-year planning to meet and reduce humanitarian needs in protracted crises, OCHA Think Brief, July 2015, p4.

20. "Humanitarian aid is largely concentrated in crises that are protracted or recurrent… In many of these countries, …crises have endured for decades but humanitarian aid has remained annualised and short term. Despite multiple commitments, development assistance has not filled this gap, remaining largely absent from the most intractable and difficult crises. DFID introduced multi-year humanitarian funding (MYHF) in 2014 in acknowledgement of these facts". Multi-year humanitarian funding: a thematic evaluation, HPG ODI, July 2019, p1.

21. Key trends in Global Humanitarian Assistance 2019, Development Initiatives.

22. Multi-year humanitarian funding, OECD Commitments into Action Series into policy brief, 2017, p1, p21.

23. Casement Lecture: Towards a Better System for Humanitarian Financing, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, Mark Lowcock, March 2018. Additional input from interviews with sector experts.

24. Grand Bargain - 2018, ODI 3rd independent report, 2019.

25. The State of the Humanitarian System: 2018 Edition, ALNAP, p18.

26. A report from Local to Global Partnership looking at funding flows for Syria estimated: "While Syrian humanitarian actors were responsible for delivering 75% of the humanitarian assistance in 2014, they received only 0.3% of the direct and 9.3% of the indirect cash funding available for the overall Syria response. Despite their crucial role, Syrian NGOs struggled to get their most basic costs covered in the sub-contracting and partnership agreements they have with international agencies. While international actors are all committed to transparency, 30% of the known funding remains unknown in terms of which humanitarian actor actually received the funding. Private remittances and assistance from diaspora groups were found to play a crucial role in day-to-day survival but it remained impossible to estimate their exact volume." Funding to national and local humanitarian actors in Syria: Between sub-contracting and partnerships, L2GP, 2016

27. Localization Examined: An ICVA Briefing Paper, ICVA Sept 2018, p2.

28. The OECD has produced guidelines for donors on localisation, highlighting challenges and benefits and discussing the use of 'crisis modifiers' in development programmes as one of its recommendations: "Use development partners and crisis modifiers. The introduction of crisis modifiers into grant agreements with local development partners ensures sufficient programme flexibility for those partners to rapidly shift from development activities to emergency response in case of a sudden emergency… The combination of emergency response capacity building, and new or modified funding to quickly scale up or scale down the response to crises and shocks, can allow local organisations to respond rapidly, using some of the funds initially allocated for development projects." Localising the Response, OECD 2017, p10.

29. The Principles of Partnership are "an attempt to acknowledge some gaps within the humanitarian reform process, which included neglecting the role of local and national humanitarian response capacity".

30. An eight-point commitment and policy initiative led by both national and international NGOs "to practically implement changes to the way the Humanitarian System operates to enable more locally-led response". Charter for Change website.

31. The State of the Humanitarian System: 2018 Edition, ALNAP, pp20-21. Additional commentary during sector expert interviews.

32. Global Humanitarian Overview 2019, UNOCHA 2019

33. Disability in Humanitarian Contexts, Handicap international, 2016

34. The OECD DAC's good practice report for humanitarian donorship from 2012 underlines the need to link humanitarian assistance to long term recovery, highlighting the need to "improve co-ordination between humanitarian and development instruments; review the sometimes cumbersome procedures… and short funding timeframes that restrict holistic responses in protracted crisis situations; systematically integrate the humanitarian context and programming objectives into their country strategies; and support innovative approaches, such as cash-based programming, to rebuild livelihoods and repair small-scale infrastructure". Towards Better Humanitarian Donorship: 12 lessons from DAC Peer Reviews, OECD, 2012.

35. The New Way of Working Examined: An ICVA Briefing paper, Sept 2017, p4.

36. Stockholm Declaration: Addressing Fragility and Building Peace in a Changing World, International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding, 5th Global meeting, April 2016 Stockholm.

37. UN discussions on financing "stressed that the challenge for donors is not necessarily to provide more money, but how existing financing flows from both humanitarian, development, climate and peace streams can be better aligned and provided in a sequential way towards the achievement of collective outcomes. This would contribute to overcoming fragmentation and demonstrate that humanitarian financing can have a catalytic effective for sustainable solutions if allocated in connection with other financing streams." Summary of High-Level WG on Operationalizing and Financing Collective Outcomes, International Network on Conflict and Fragility, OECD-UN-WB, March 2018.

38. Linked to the 2016 WHS, the New Way of Working (NWOW) is a UN and World Bank initiative with a wide range of NGO supporters. In brief, the NWOW can be described "as working over multiple years, based on the comparative advantage of a diverse range of actors, including those outside the UN system, towards collective outcomes" with a heavy emphasis on strengthening national capacities"; New Way of Working website. NWOW country-based pooled fund updates highlight progress and achievements, for example: Ethiopia New Way of Working Progress Update, UN, May 2018.

39. DAC Recommendation on the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus, OECD, 2019.

40. "Donors should create incentives for teams to work together towards collective outcomes. Donors' humanitarian and development teams can learn from each other and every occasion for synergies should be seized. These can take the form of shared country or thematic analysis, shared risk mapping, or exchange of information on partners, for example." Humanitarian Development Coherence, OECD Commitments into Action policy brief, 2017, p17.

41. "The CHS offers a suitable framework for organisations to put in place adequate safeguarding mechanism and for auditors to assess if these are functional. What's lacking though, is the unquestionable application of the Standard and its related policies across the sector. The CHS Verification Scheme, particularly its independent quality assurance component, can have a strong impact here." Open Letter: Using the CHS to strengthen safeguarding mechanisms, 5 March 2018, Judith Greenwood, Executive Director, CHS Alliance, and, Pierre Hauselmann, Executive Director, HQAI.

42. The Recommendation is "the first international instrument on sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) and sexual harassment (SH) that applies to development co-operation and humanitarian assistance". DAC Recommendation on Ending Sexual Exploitation, Harassment and Abuse in Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Assistance: Key Pillars of Prevention and Response, OECD, 2019, p1.

43. Donors should for example "Include standards, procedures, requirements, and/or binding commitments in all cooperative agreements and funding instruments (for example, contracts, grants, memoranda of understanding) alongside remedies for breaches and reporting requirements", develop survivor-centred response mechanisms, integrate safeguarding into reporting systems, conduct training and awareness raising, and develop mechanisms for monitoring, evaluation and reporting on SEA and SH prevention and response. DAC Recommendation on Ending Sexual Exploitation, Harassment and Abuse in Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Assistance: Key Pillars of Prevention and Response, OECD, pp5-10.

44. Sector expert interview.

45. Towards Better Humanitarian Donorship: 12 lessons from DAC Peer Reviews, OECD, 2012.

46. Humanitarian Policy Group Annual Report 2018-19, ODI, 2019, p11.

47. Greater than the Sum of its Parts: Blended Finance Roadmap for Global Health, USAID Feb 2019, p6.

48. New financing partnerships for humanitarian impact, HPG commissioned report, ODI, Jan 2019, p8.

49. Casement Lecture: Towards a Better System for Humanitarian Financing, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, Mark Lowcock, March 2018.

50. New financing partnerships for humanitarian impact, HPG commissioned report, ODI, Jan 2019, pp1-2.

51. New financing partnerships for humanitarian impact, HPG commissioned report, ODI, Jan 2019, p1, p33.

52. Cash-based Response, WHS Policy in Practice series, OECD, 2017, p8.

53. An estimated US$ 22.6 billion p.a. is provided by governments, and US$ 6.3 billion from private donors, p3. Key trends in Global Humanitarian Assistance 2019, Development Initiatives.

54. The State of the Humanitarian System: 2018 Edition, ALNAP, p144.

55. Recognising that SMEs generate half of worldwide employment and need to be involved in sustainable solutions, a new private sector-led initiative 'SMEs for Humanity' (SME4H) was launched at WHS 2016. How small business can play a big role in in humanitarian crises, 13 Jan 2017, Badr Jafar, Chief Executive Officer, Crescent Enterprises, World Economic Forum.

56. The Minimum Economic Recovery Standards are part of SPHERE core standards, 2017 3rd edition.

57. The Education in Emergencies Fund website text. "Gordon Brown has launched an International Finance Facility for Education in Emergencies, as a partnership between developing countries, international finance institutions and public and private donors to mobilize additional financial resources. Donors would provide guarantees to allow the World Bank and regional banks to borrow money for education, which is then turned into loans and grants to finance educational activities. This is particularly attractive as a way of ensuring that generations of children whose countries are caught up in conflict do not forever lose the chance of an education. That would not just be an unacceptable tragedy for them, but also a social, economic and political disaster for their countries." Casement Lecture: Towards a Better System for Humanitarian Financing, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, Mark Lowcock, March 2018.

58. How small business can play a big role in in humanitarian crises, 13 Jan 2017, Badr Jafar, Chief Executive Officer, Crescent Enterprises, World Economic Forum; Humanitarian crises cost more than ever. But businesses can help, 12 Jan 2018, Sara Pantuliano, Acting Executive Director, ODI.

59. Global Ethical Finance Initiative, https://www.globalethicalfinance.org/.

60. Blog: To solve the World's Problems, the global development community turns towards the private sector, 16 July 2019, Joan M. Larrea, Justice Johnston.

61. The State of the Humanitarian System: 2018 Edition, ALNAP, p19.

62. The tasks of "developing and maintaining a website for the Fund" and "press and external affairs related to the Fund" are listed in the section "Outside of the scope of HEF Secretariat" on p4 of the document titled 'The Scottish Government's Humanitarian Emergency Fund - HEF Secretariat responsibilities' (filename: 'DEC HEF Secretariat - DEC responsibilities and budget - sent SG 10032017') shared by DEC.

63. Sources could include: Scottish corporates or high net worth individuals; other public sector; other donors (e.g. Comic Relief/Lottery).