Practice English Speaking&Listening with: Humanitarian Financing: Pooled funding – how can NGOs engage?

So, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good very early morning I think to some of

you who I see joining us from the US very glad that all of you are able to be here with

us today.

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Angharad Laing, I’m the executive director

of PHAP, which is short for the International Association of Professionals in Humanitarian

Assistance and Protection.

I am very pleased, once again, to be serving as co-host together with Melissa Pitotti,

Head of Policy at ICVA, for this event which is third in the Learning Stream series on

humanitarian financing being jointly organized by ICVA and PHAP.

Today, we’ll be looking at the topic of pooled funding.

I’m very excited personally to see so many of you here for this discussion.

I see there are now well over a hundred people with us in this large virtual room and really

joining from all over the world.

I also noticed in the poll that we had open at the beginning of the event in the waiting

room, if you will, it looked like the majority of you do have some familiarity with the topic,

but are really eager to learn more.

So I’m pleased that all of you are able to join us and very much hope, and expect,

that we’ll be able to have a really practical and useful discussion here today for all of

you.

So I’d like to introduce Melissa, and invite her to say a few words here to start us off

and then we’ll move into a few technical points before starting the session.

Thank you, Angharad.

For those of who don’t know, ICVA is an international network of NGOs that are dedicated

to principled and effective humanitarian action.

Many of us are trying to learn more about humanitarian financing.

In our last two webinars, we focused on the overall humanitarian financing landscape and

then we also looked at humanitarian financing through partnerships UN agencies and NGOs.

Today’s live learning session will focus on pooled funding mechanisms, with a focus

on country-based pooled funds, which some of us call CBPFs, and pooled funds managed

by NGOs.

Okay great, thanks so much Melissa, and great to be co-hosting with you once again.

So then, without further ado, we’ll move into the topic for today’s session.

We are looking today at the topic of pooled funding, as mentioned.

Pooled funds have enabled more timely and flexible funding for responding to sudden

crises and have made it possible to operate in otherwise underfunded emergency settings.

Today we’re going to not only cover OCHA’s country-based pooled funds, which will be

referred to as the CBPFs, but also funds led by NGOs, such as the Start Fund, which is

providing a quick alternative avenue for NGOs to access timely humanitarian funding.

I’ll pass it over to Melissa if she’d like to add anything as we get going.

You might remember if you participated in our first webinar on the humanitarian financing

landscape that we talked about something called the CERF, which is the Central Emergency Response

Fund.

That fund is managed by OCHA; it’s a pooled funding mechanism that many NGOs can access

but only indirectly through partnerships with UN agencies.

Since the CERF is not directly accessible to NGOs, for this webinar we are focusing

specifically on pooled funding sources that can be accessed directly by NGOs.

Excellent.

Thanks, Melissa.

Very important point of clarification regarding the scope of the discussion today.

So now, we’ve identified four key learning objectives that we’re committed to trying

to cover with you today, so I’ll just quickly go over those.

First objective is to build awareness of the different existing pooled funds and familiarity

both with their purpose and their origins, which can be important also for understanding

the dynamics and the possibilities for access on the part of NGOs.

Second, building understanding of how NGOs can access the main pooled finance methods,

including the CBPFs, as mentioned, and NGO-led pooled funds.

Third, awareness of the main challenges and opportunities for NGOs to access pooled funding.

And finally, knowledge of the different sources of information that you can go to on an ongoing

basis regarding humanitarian pooled funding possibilities.

Melissa, if you wouldn’t mind perhaps introducing today’s speakers.

I’d be happy to.

First, we want to introduce Fernando Hesse.

Fernando is currently participating in a webinar and it’s very early in the morning for him,

so we really appreciate it.

He works with OCHA in New York, in partnership and policy matters related to the OCHA-managed

country-based pooled funds.

He’s worked with the UN since 1997.

He’s worked in context that are working humanitarian operations in Peru, Iraq, Sudan,

South Sudan, Chad, Indonesia, and Egypt, prior to transferring to the OCHA operations division

at the headquarters.

In 2014, he joined the funding coordination section, which oversees the global operations

and management of CBPFs.

He was instrumental in supporting the reconfiguration of the section following the introduction

of major oversight and accountability frameworks.

Currently, as the head of policy and partnerships unit in FCS, he has been working on the analysis

and development of humanitarian financing policy and at enhancing partnerships with

major CBPF stakeholders, including donors, but also NGOs, and that’s how we got to

know Fernando at the ICVA network.

I’d also like to introduce Ben Garbutt.

He’s the humanitarian funding advisor at Oxfam, an international NGO that is represented

at the country-led pooled fund working group and co-chairs the NGO dialogue platform on

country-based pooled funds.

Before that, he was a regional funding coordinator for Oxfam as well, and ICVA network is quite

grateful to Oxfam for playing such an active role in trying to promote NGO understanding

of country-based pooled funds.

I’d also like to introduce Deepak Sardiwal.

Deepak currently works as a Start Fund officer for the Start Network.

Deepak has been in this role since September, and he works with members on a daily basis

to provide a brokering service and drive the fund’s decision-making processes within

the 72-hour timeframe.

Previously, Deepak was a humanitarian analyst on the Global Humanitarian Assistance programme

and led data analysis for the GHA report in 2015.

For those of you who were in our webinar the first time, you heard a lot about the GHA

report.

I’d also like to introduce Rezaul Karim Chowdhury.

Rezaul is the executive director of the Coastal Association for Social Transformation Trust,

otherwise known as COAST.

He has expertise over many disciplines, such as promoting appropriate technology in the

coastal belt, sustainable microfinance, advocacy, policy influencing, policy research, and disaster

management.

He’s going to share with us today his experience in accessing pooled funding.

Due to his current attendance in the COP22 in Marrakech, we recorded his intervention

and we’ll be playing that together today with his presentation and if you have specific

questions directed for Rezaul, we will try to facilitate those answers after the webinar.

Great, thanks so much Melissa, and we will get started now by giving the floor to you

Fernando.

Great, thank you.

So country-based pooled funds are multi-donor humanitarian financing instruments established

by the Emergency Relief Coordinator which allow governments and private donors alike

to pool their contributions to support specific emergencies.

NGOs, UN agencies, and other humanitarian partners in the field have access to the pooled

funds in both sudden onset and prolonged humanitarian situations.

A unifying concept for country-based pooled funds is that centralizing the fund resources

and their allocation, and that the leadership of the humanitarian coordinator on the ground

brings the different aspects of the humanitarian response together in one channel.

With the name of CBPFs – I will try not to use acronyms as much.

But as mentioned before, we will also refer to country-based pooled funds as CBPFs.

So the main aim of them focus on three outcomes.

One is the strength and leadership of the humanitarian coordinator.

Two, more resources mobilized and better coordination of the use in support of the humanitarian

planning framework.

And three, funding priority humanitarian needs that are identified through an inclusive and

participatory process that also involves national nongovernmental organizations.

The overall impact of CBPFs is therefore improved effectiveness of the humanitarian response

the provision of timely, coordinated, and principled assistance to save lives, alleviate

suffering, and maintain human dignity.

Country-based pooled funds are guided by the fundamental humanitarian principles of humanity,

impartiality, neutrality, and independence.

Building on those pillars, the principles of inclusiveness, flexibility, timeliness,

and efficiency, underpin how CBPFs function and are demonstrated through the country-level

process.

On inclusiveness, the CBPFs have managed to include the national and international actors

in meaningful ways in governance and strategy, as well as possible funding.

Flexibility refers to the recognition that the programmatic focus and funding priorities

of CBPFs are set at the country level and may shift rapidly, especially in volatile

humanitarian contexts.

Timeliness of CBPFs as response mechanisms follow their ability to allocate funds and

save lives as humanitarian needs emerge or escalate.

And finally efficiency, by which CBPFs enable timely responses to prioritized humanitarian

needs.

Strategy and operation of country-based pooled funds have adapted to allow me the single

approach to all forms of emergency response in the Humanitarian Programme Cycle.

The Humanitarian Programme Cycle and the development of the country-specific Humanitarian Response

Plans, HRPs, and the leadership of the humanitarian coordinator on the ground, make it possible

to quantify the needs in a coordinated planning process.

The pooled funds operating within the coordination framework are now adaptable to meet changing

conditions on the ground.

And this slide represents just a summary of the main actions that OCHA is leading and

that are aligned with the World Humanitarian Summit and Grand Bargain commitments.

To promote a more predictable and accessible funding makes for the delivery of HRPs, Humanitarian

Response Plans, and leverages the comparative advantage of local and national responders.

A Secretary General’s Agenda for Humanity called for increasing the overall portion

of humanitarian pooled funding channeled through CBPFs to 15 percent.

OCHA is committed to optimize the nimbleness and speed of CBPFs to enable a more effective

humanitarian response and empower local and national NGO partners in the programming and

delivery of assistance.

These will require a concerted efforts to diversify the donor base and reach out to

new sources of funding.

That was a brief introduction to Country Based Pooled Funds, we come now to the process for

NGOs.

So which organizations are eligible to apply for country-based pooled funds?

National and international NGOs, as well as the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, and

UN agencies.

CBPFs are the largest source of direct funding for national and local NGOs.

In 2015, CBPFs received almost 600 million in contributions and 60 percent of the funding

was allocated to NGOs, of which almost 20 percent went directly to national NGOs—about

85 million dollars, we’re talking—and this is more than half of the total amount

globally provided directly to national NGOs.

These active country-based pooled funds are the mechanisms used to receive contributions

from multiple financial partners and allocate such resources to multiple implementing entities

to support specific priorities, as mentioned before, aligned with the Humanitarian Programme

Cycle.

In protracted crises, CBPFs can also tackle interventions with a resilience approach so

long as this has been prioritized at the country level.

Potential regional partners can become CBPF implementing partners in the countries where

CBPFs are in place, as you can see in this slide.

National NGOs and international NGOs can become implementing partners once they have been

assessed for capacity and risk by the OCHA Humanitarian Financing Unit and meet the criteria

assigned.

CBPFs require that NGOs go through a process to identify and analyze their capacity that

allows to make an assessment of particular grant modalities that may be possible for

the NGO.

Through the capacity assessment process, OCHA aims to expand access to CBPFs to a broader

variety partners, as well as a way to reward good performance and great management over

time.

Capacity assessments are carried out under the coordination of OCHA country offices and

should take place before an application for funding is submitted.

The assessment aims at determining whether an NGO has a sufficient level of capacity

in terms of institutional, managerial, financial, and technical expertise.

Regional partners are then graded as either: (1) high risk, (2) medium risk, or (3) low

risk.

The risk level determines the minimum control mechanisms applied throughout the grant management

cycle and this will determine the level of disbursements, maximum amount of project proposals,

project duration, reporting requirement, and the monitoring that will be in place.

CBPFs are the largest source of direct funding for national and local NGOs, as I mentioned

before, and this is the most recent data for allocations of this year as of November 8th,

so just from yesterday.

A total 18 member states had pledged or contributed 549 million to the country-based pooled funds

in 2016.

In terms of funds already disbursed 492 million to relief partners in 17 countries where they

are operational.

46 percent of the funds have been allocated to international NGOs and 18 percent to national

NGOs.

So now, for additional information —

Fernando, this is Melissa with ICVA.

We just got a really good question, so I hope you don’t mind if we can pause for a second.

With regard to your discussion on capacity assessments, which is a very important issue

that we’ve been talking about a variety of fora, James Davy is asking about the capacity

assessment; why is it done at a country level, when, for example, international NGOs that

have regional offices or headquarters offices outside of that particular country operation

might have some additional capacities elsewhere?

Do you mind answering that?

Yeah.

If I get that question correctly, it’s related to having in-country-specific capacity assessments

for those organizations that have already global presence or regional presence, is that

correct?

Right, they might have capacity elsewhere that’s supporting as you were talking about

institutional capacity, managerial capacity, technical capacity, they might have some of

that capacity outside of the country where the capacity is being assessed.

Yeah.

Right now we’re still doing it at the specific context or which capacity assessments are

on a country level?

Yes, so we had this discussion, for example, UN agencies are assessed at their organizational

level at an international level, but NGOs are assessed at the country level.

So could you explain why the score is only done at the country level for international

and national NGOs?

Yeah, we are aware of this difference and it’s because of being part of the UN system

and having their own internal control systems.

That’s where there is a difference in the way we deal with the capacity assessments

between UN agencies and NGOs.

For the time being, we are doing capacity assessment at the country level for all NGOs,

regardless if they have already a presence.

We’re trying to look into this and see how we move forward, but currently, yes, with

this part of the accountability framework that we have and it’s done this way yet.

Thank you, please proceed.

Okay, so just in terms of additional information available, one is related to the Grants Management

System, the GMS, which is a standard platform for the management of all country-based pooled

funds.

Implementing partners use this interface to submit project proposals and reports, and

OCHA coordinates project reviews and monitor partner performance.

The system captures evaluation results, tracks timelines, and promotes accountability in

humanitarian response.

OCHA maintains a system-wide overview of all funds enabling support and coordination, and

provides real-time fund information for stakeholders.

As part of the GMS the business intelligence is a tool that displays the data in a meaningful

and useful structure which helps users to analyze the ongoing business process with

a consolidated view.

I would invite you to go to the GMS and then go into the business intelligence section

and really see the latest data, it’s real-time data, that you will be able to see on the

overall country-based pooled funds.

Finally, just to touch upon the CBPF global guidelines, which are the set of documents

which outline the principles, objectives, and functioning of CBPFs, and which were approved

in January 2015, and since that that we’ve really been making great strides in improving

the operational flexibility worldwide.

These guidelines include on the one hand policy instruction, which provides an overview of

the principles, objectives, governance, and management arrangements for CBPFs.

And then also the operational handbook that provides a complete set of technical guidelines,

tools, and templates in the management of CBPFs.

The global guidelines are mandatory for all CBPFs.

The operational guidelines contained in the handbook represent minimum standards for management

arrangement that must apply to all CBPFs.

Each country-based pooled fund will develop country-specific operational manners based

on the operational handbook.

The minimum standard will be these guidelines which are used at the global level and you

can check them also on our website or we can send them to you if you require.

I will leave it there for the time being and look forward to the questions later.

That’s excellent.

Thank you so much, Fernando.

We do have several more questions coming in, but we’ll be better off saving them for

the end, as you say, and we’ll move now directly into the presentation from Ben Garbutt

coming to us from Oxfam.

Great to have you here, Ben.

We will have the floor over to you.

Thanks very much, Angharad, and thank you to Melissa, as well.

Thanks PHAP for the opportunity to speak.

I assume since no one is interruption me, you can all hear me loud and clear.

It’s great to be following Fernando, with whom we work so closely, so thanks for your

presentation Fernando.

And wonderful, as I might add, to see so many people here, some that I recognize, and more

than 140 participants which leaves me feeling slightly overawed, because I know that there’s

so much experience in the room, but also leaves me looking forward to a good interaction with

you as well.

I’ve only been given five to ten minutes on this, and I have a lot to run through,

and I’m already taking up my own time, so let’s skip on then.

I’ve been asked to speak to you about four things.

Firstly, the benefits of accessing CBPFs.

Secondly, the challenges to accessing and some of the recent improvements in accessing

CBPFs.

That’s where I’m going to spend most of my time [is] on that second aspect.

Thirdly, I’m going to give you just one or two very quick helpful tips in accessing

CBPFs.

Since I’m here, I’m taking advantage of squeezing in a short advert about the NGO

dialogue platform on pooled funds which is actually related to what I’m talking about

so don’t worry about that.

So let me move on quickly.

The benefits of accessing CBPFs.

I’m going to skip through this quite quickly because Fernando has already spoken quite

a lot about this.

I’ve got three areas.

Firstly, let’s remember that donor contributions to CBPFs are un-earmarked, which is of course

one of the commitments within the grand bargain for donors.

Local advisory boards and the whole of the CBPF framework and structure should ensure

that the funding is sent to the most under-resourced and priority areas in a response.

Of course, it’s related to the Humanitarian Response Plan as well, so it should be done

in that manner.

Leading to the second point, which is that the CBPFs should introduce an element of coordination

and efficiency.

The improved coordination should facilitate an inclusive and efficient humanitarian response

on the ground.

That’s the theory.

No one’s claiming that it happens systematically, of course, but I think that CBPFs and their

relationship to the HRPs does help the overall coordination and efficiency of the response.

Thirdly, and feel free if you have a different experience of this to shoot me down on this

one, but there is an element in which you could argue that CBPFs are administratively-light.

There’s these new global guidelines that were introduced last year and they aimed to

ensure that CBPFs are not as administratively-heavy as they might have been in the past, especially

in comparison with other donors perhaps.

Again, I’m not claiming in all cases CBPFs are administratively-light, but I think there

have been great steps taken through the introduction and following the global guidelines to ensure

that administration levels are reduced for those that are accessing CBPFs.

So here’s where I’m going to spend most of my time on challenges to accessing and

some of the recent improvements to CBPFs.

I’m going to start off with that comment, or that topic, of access.

Fernando has already had a question on this, but one topic that’s really dominated some

of the strategic discussions about CBPFs has been the partner capacity assessments.

Let me talk about some of the main challenges in bullet point form.

Some of the challenges that NGOs have faced include timing, deadline setting, short turnaround

times, and receipt of guidance on the PCA process.

There have been issues of engagement related to the sharing of results and at times NGOs

have felt the feedback on the process has been weak.

Sometimes there have been technical issues with the online system or language barriers,

but most importantly there’s also some frequent challenge that we face that’s a large volume

of documents and procedures that’s required during the PCA process.

Sometimes, although NGOs are producing this documentation, the usefulness of it is not

necessarily clear.

Those are some of the challenges.

What improvements have we seen?

Well, the approach to PCAs included in the new guidelines aims to minimize any unnecessary

burden.

Of course, there is an element of flexibility within the PCA process, so each country can

do it in a different way.

And I thought I would add a little color in terms of improvements [or] in terms of giving

you some experience and examples from the field.

So we had a program manager from Yemen praising OCHA for promoting an open-door strategy to

reach out to local and national partners.

In recognition, that some of the national partners might have difficulty in submitting

the PCA processing and passing that process.

In doing that, OCHA, well, we’re obviously looking for more national partners, we’re

able to discuss with local and international NGOs how to improve access for local and national

partners by ensuring that they can pass the PCA process.

There’s some proactive work being done by OCHA in countries to ensure that partners

can pass the PCA process.

We’ve also had experience from a Syrian civil society organization praising the process

in saying that it gave him an opportunity to gain knowledge on minimal standards and

regulations, human resource policies, financial systems, etc., especially given the fact that

some of the civil society organizations in that country are relatively new relative to

some other international NGOs, and therefore that PCA process gave them that knowledge

and understanding.

I’m not going to paint a rosy picture for you.

There are some difficulties with the process, there are some improvements, and clearly there

are improvements still to be made, as well.

The next issue I’d like to raise is about speed, and I’m going to rush on a little

bit because I’m taking up too much time—talking of speed—some of the challenges that NGOs

are faced in speed are mainly in two places: how quickly applications are processed and

how quickly funds are dispersed.

That’s not to say there aren’t speed issues elsewhere, in terms of how quickly a call

for proposals is put out, for example, just that those are the main two areas.

Now some of the improvements, OCHA have actually committed to some speed-related targets.

So there’s a target now of 50 days as the average number of days for processing applications

for sudden and unforeseen emergencies.

There’s also a target of 85 percent in terms of the percentage of disbursements from CBPFs

to implementing partners made within 10 days.

Whether you agree whether those targets are sufficient or not, there’s some definite

progress in introducing those targets.

I’m not entirely sure how well OCHA have attained those targets yet.

I don’t know if Fernando has those figures at his fingertips, but he might be able to

update us later, perhaps.

Moving on, flexibility of the country-based pooled funds.

We’ve had two types of challenges on this.

The first is in backdating.

This is because grant agreements couldn’t be backdated, there were delays in process

and often cited as being detrimental in reducing the time within which an NGO can implement

a project.

The new guidelines partly address this challenge.

For the time being, backdating still is not possible, but implementing partners can suggest

a project start date which is different from the agreement date just in case they need

to wait for the first disbursement to enable them to start a project.

So some progress, but we could make more progress, obviously.

The second challenge on flexibility has been in terms of changes to the project; changes

of more than 15 percent to a project budget require the HC’s approval.

That can take a little bit of time.

The new guidelines, again, partly address this challenge.

There’s a clearer budget structure and template which aims to ensure that implementing partners

reduce, in principle, the likeliness of variations.

Unfortunately, that requirement for HC’s approval still isn’t reduced, but [it’s]

minor progress within the new guidelines which we can seek to build on.

I’m whizzing through this.

I hope you’re all still with me.

Some quick top tips for you in accessing CBPFs and these are very quick, so bear with me.

The first is to engage.

It sounds very simple, I know, engage with your local audit team and with the cluster

mechanism, but you’d be very surprised at how often I find complaints at there being

something wrong with the CBPF mechanism without there having been a dialogue in country about

it.

I would say don’t limit yourself to simply trying to access the cash.

For example, what seats are available on the advisory board, at a local level, or what

access do you have to those who are on the advisory board?

Or how often are you communicating your program requirements to OCHA or others through the

cluster system?

The second is to empower yourself.

I’ve talked about it at several times and so has Fernando earlier, but you can empower

yourself by reading and understanding the global guidelines.

It’s the single most important document you can read to understand country-based pooled

funds.

If you’re seeking to engage, then why haven’t you read it and understood it?

The third is to elevate.

So if there is an issue or a problem that needs to be sorted that you’re finding isn’t

sorted at country level, there are options for you to elevate that issue to an above-country

level as well.

That brings me very neatly on to my quick advert about the NGO dialogue platform on

pooled funds.

I have a question, I think.

Yes, Ben.

We have some very relevant questions to your slide that you just had about engaging.

We have received some questions from people who have challenges in terms of access, for

example, with the partner capacity assessment, in terms of heavy administrative processes,

you had mentioned earlier to focus on getting light processes.

We also had questions, for example, from Omwenge in the DRC, and Anita in Uganda about to what

extent national and local NGOs can be involved in decision-making processes affecting allocation

decisions.

Where should these issues be taken up because you have just mentioned engaging at the country

level and you mentioned escalating or elevating, could you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, sure.

At a country level, there are NGO representatives on the advisory board.

You should be able to find out who they are, OCHA will be able to you tell you in-country,

and you can elevate your issue by going through them.

If you’re finding that, for example, you think the processes that are outlined in the

global guidelines aren’t being followed, or you’re finding some deviation, you can

go through the advisory board to do that.

Transparency, actually, is an issue that I didn’t raise: the transparency of process.

It’s often one that rears its head as well.

The global guidelines are very clear.

They lay out very clearly allocation mechanisms.

Actually you can see the word transparency literally written all over that section on

allocation mechanisms.

So, if you find that that isn’t being stuck to, you can seek recourse through the local

advisory board.

Or if you’re finding this a consistent problem that isn’t being addressed or a consistent

problem in more than one country, you can come through the NGO dialogue platform on

country-based pooled funds, which actually leads me into this section.

So if that’s okay, I’ll move on, Melissa.

Yes, please, it’s quite relevant.

Yup.

So the NGO dialogue platform on pooled funds.

I’m going to give you a what is it, who’s invited, and when does it happen.

It was essentially created so that OCHA can have an opportunity to connect and share feedback

about global-level changes and trends about country-based pooled funds, and so that NGOs

have the opportunity to offer feedback.

So you can see here it’s an internal forum for regular dialogue between OCHA and NGOs

about CBPFs.

This is a place to which you can go to elevate any issues or challenges; operational challenges,

policy-level challenges, that you have with country-based pooled funds.

So, who is it?

I mentioned that platform is open to all NGOs.

That includes international, local, and national, NGOs.

Obviously, the purpose is to have a meaningful dialogue so we ask that NGO representatives

have relevant expertise.

As you can see in the third bullet point there, national NGOs with direct experience in country-based

pooled funds are really encouraged and we can try to facilitate participation through

this platform.

When is it?

We have meetings twice a year, and we’ve now introduced webinars and learning events

as we go along as well on an ad hoc basis.

We’re really excited that the next meeting is the first time it’s going to be taken

at neither New York or Geneva as a location.

I think it’s about time we discussed operational and strategic issues of CBPFs in an area where

there are actually CBPFs.

So the next meeting, you’ll see there, it’s in Nairobi on the 2nd of December.

There’s a webinar—I’ve got this date wrong, I’ve got a week ahead of myself,

there’s a webinar actually today on the 10th of November, later on, on the financial

guidelines to CBPFs so an opportunity to educate yourselves about the financial guidelines.

If you want to join, and I can’t believe I didn’t put this on the slide, you can

actually write to an email address which I’m going to put in the chat box, or I think Maya

is probably online as well and she can write this in the chat box.

You can write to this email address and eventually you will join the email group and you’ll

be sent details of the next meetings, you’ll be asked for opportunities to input into the

agenda, and, of course, you’ll be given all the links and details about how to join

the webinars as well.

I can’t see my writing, so I’m going to write it in the chat box.

In fact, that’s the end of my presentation there and I’m going to give you the email

address to the country-based pooled fund NGO dialogue platform within the chat box.

So I’ll finish up there, Melissa.

Okay, great.

Thank you so much, Ben, for the presentation inspired a lot of discussion and, as you heard,

a lot of questions, so thanks so much for sharing with us.

We’re going to move right along now to welcome Deepak to the floor.

[[38:25 DS] Deepak here.

I’m from the Start Fund, an initiative under the Start Network, it’s an absolute pleasure

to be here presenting on the Start Fund at this webinar and great to see so many people

tuning in online.

Before I delve into the details of the Start Fund, I just wanted to provide some context

before doing that.

So we know that civil society is responsible for the majority of front-line work during

humanitarian emergencies.

However, NGOs are constrained by a funding model where it’s often difficult for them

to respond until an emergency has escalated and attracted media headlines.

So in this reactive model lives are lost, livelihoods are destroyed, and hard won development

gains are undermined even before pay response is launched.

So why does the Start Fund fit into this?

The Start Fund is a multi-donor-pooled rapid response fund that allocates pre-positioned

humanitarian funding within 72 hours and these are for 45-day projects.

We have currently four donors providing funding for this: DFID, Irish Aid, the Netherlands,

and most recently, ECHO, for an anticipation window, and I’ll talk a little bit more

about that later on.

These donors have delegated authority to the Start Network members to make decisions collectively

on how the fund is used.

A distinctive feature of the Start Fund is that it’s collectively owned and managed

by the 42 NGOs that make up the network.

You saw my first slide, those 42 NGOs, these are a mix of international and increasingly

national and regional NGOs.

The second part of my slide, please.

So, the Start Fund is designed to enable these NGOs and their partners to respond early and

fast to three types of emergencies that you see on your screen.

Underfunded small to medium-scale emergencies that often receive little funding, spikes

in chronic humanitarian emergencies; it’s all too often these situations do not receive

attention or funding until many lives have already been lost.

The third type of crisis, or area, is forecast of impending emergency, so this talks to the

anticipation window which aims to release funding in response to signals of a looming

emergency to allow agencies to prepare and respond before the emergency hits.

This is very much a change to the traditional model of humanitarian response which is reactive

rather than proactive, where something bad must happen before resources are mobilized.

This slide here just gives you a very quick overview of the history of the Start Fund,

which falls under the Start Network setup in 2010.

The network, for those of you who have followed our journey, you may remember that we were

previously called the Consortium of British Humanitarian Agencies and this was renamed

to the Start Network in 2012.

The Start Fund was officially launched in 2014.

By October 2015, 10 million pounds had been awarded through the Start Fund and then in

August in year, the Start Fund responded to its 100th emergency, and this month three

new members have joined, that’s 15 new members this year, taking the total membership to

42.

Next slide, please.

So how does it all work?

This slide tries to show you the different points Start Network members and their partners

anticipate in the Start Fund.

Any member of the network can alert the fund to an emergency, either a looming one or one

that is in motion.

This is to alert, that’s been highlighted for you there, thank you very much, and when

this happens and within 24 hours a decision is made by the Start Network on whether to

provide funds to the emergency, and if so, how much, that’s the allocation on number

three that you see on the slide.

If an emergency is to receive funding, members are given 24 hours to submit project proposals

and these are reviewed by members in-country and successful projects are awarded funds.

From a member alerting the network to an emergency to be awarded funds, this all happens in 72

hours.

That may explain some of the grey hair on me, which you can’t see right now, and then

after that the projects are implemented within 45 days and then afterwards members come together

to reflect on the response and identify actionable learning to take forwards.

It’s this ability of the fund to respond early and quickly to the three types of emergencies

I mentioned earlier that provides its niche.

While there are other funds available to NGOs, which are complementary of course, many of

these operate through longer time horizons.

Key facts and figures of the Start Fund so far.

Since April 2014, the Start Fund has responded to 128 alerts.

84 of those, or about two-thirds, have received funding, and this has reached nearly five

million people in 46 countries, and almost 19 million now has been disbursed from the

fund.

Just very quickly touching on some of the main Start Fund principles: collaboration,

decentralization, and diversity.

So I’ll start with collaboration on the next slide, please.

So we very much believe that as a network we can achieve more together; more together

than any single organization acting alone could accomplish.

We provide platforms to enable collaborative approached.

So collaboration in terms of making decisions, it’s the Start Network members that participate

in the allocation and project selection meetings to make joint decisions.

In those allocation meetings a decision is made on whether to provide funding to an emergency,

and in those project selection meetings decisions are taken on which projects to fund.

When the fund is alerted to an emergency, there is an online survey where every member

has the opportunity to indicate whether or not they support an allocation of funds to

an emergency and also the appropriate funding amount.

So they’re all contributing to the decisions that are made for each emergency.

Then very quickly on collaboration to share information, we have an opportunity for members

to discuss and share information over Skype about possible alerts to be alerted to the

fund.

In the interest of time, I’ll move on to the next slide and talk about diversity and

decentralization.

We recognize that organizations come in different sizes and types, and we very much view that

as an opportunity, not as a barrier.

We have a total now of 42 network members across five continents and that includes several

national NGOs working in countries where humanitarian emergencies take place, such as Palestine,

Bangladesh, Mexico, Jordan, and so forth.

The Start Fund is managed by a committee that provides strategic oversight to the fund and

we have a coarse representation from outside of Europe on that committee and I’ll speak

to that point a little bit later on in my presentation.

Moving on to decentralization, and our focus on shifting decision making to the places

where emergencies happen.

The decisions on which projects to fund are made in the affected country.

The Start Fund has also established standing decision-making groups, you saw that on the

timeline perhaps that I gave earlier, which is made up of members and partners in-country.

In-country is where we have a high number of alerts, or believe there should be a high

number of alerts, that have been trained on the Start Fund process and that can be quickly

mobilized to select projects if an emergency is raised in that country.

We currently have those groups in ten countries.

Looking then on some possible areas of improvement; some of the challenges that we have experienced.

First of all, most Start Network members are still based in Europe, despite that coarse

representation on the committee that I mentioned earlier, and we’re very much exploring ways

to involve local and national partners more in our process and we’re currently undertaking

a review on that to help us with it.

Second area of improvement I wanted to highlight, is that we’ve seen a huge increase in demand

for the Start Fund, so we’ve had as many emergencies and been alerted to fund this

year as 2014 and 2015 combined.

In 2016 so far, there has been an alert, an emergency, to the Start Fund every 4.9 days

on average.

The amount awarded per month, this year, is also up by over a quarter compared to last

year.

This, of course, requires additional mobilization, of not just financial resources, but also

human resources.

Great, so this slide here on how to access the Start Fund, I’m sure many of you are

keen on this particular slide, and I just wanted to highlight that NGOs don’t need

to be a member to access the Start Fund.

They can do this through any of the 42 members of the Start Network as a partner.

While the long-term ambition remains to grow the size of the network, we’re currently

holding off on increasing membership for now.

This year, we’ve seen the membership increase very rapidly from 27 members to 42, and we’re

at a point of consolidation and ensuring existing members are fully contributing to the network.

And also, trying to mobilize more resources which can then be spread over more members.

There are opportunities, there will be opportunities, so if you are interested in working with the

Start Network or applying for membership potentially in the future, my colleague Jem would be very

happy to hear from you and his email address is there.

Next slide— oh, question.

Yes, please.

Yes, Deepak.

Wanted to ask you some questions we heard, for example from Rima in Jordan.

We’ve just heard a presentation from Fernando and from Ben about country-based pooled funds

managed by UN OCHA, and then we’ve heard your presentation about the Start Network,

which is really driven by NGOs.

So Rima in Jordan is asking, could you identify some of the main differences between pooled

funds managed by the UN versus those led by the NGOs?

And secondly, Ian from the UK is asking, you mentioned a lot about emergency response,

is there an ability for NGOs to access funding to invest in organizational capacity or is

it more about the response?

Yes, fantastic questions, thank you very much for those.

The Start Fund— I’ll tackle the second one first, the Start fund is largely focused

on providing rapid and early financing to humanitarian emergencies, but we do have other

work streams within the Start Network, which I didn’t mention, including Start Response,

Start Labs, and particularly, Start Engage, which is a program that tries to unlock new

approaches to crisis preparedness and response.

That looks to build the capacity of members and partners to respond to humanitarian emergencies,

so it’s very much something that’s covered within the wider work of the network, but

perhaps not necessarily the Start Fund.

In terms of the first question, I think that’s not just a question to me, but for others

and members also who have experience perhaps working with both funds to come in here.

I would turn back to the key distinctions of the Start Fund and how it’s managed and

owned by the NGOs themselves.

So it’s them who are making the decisions collectively on whether an emergency should

be responded to by the Start Fund and which projects should be funded.

So that ownership is very much with the NGOs through a trust-based peer review system.

I would like to probably highlight that in the context of the Start Fund and perhaps

differences with other approaches.

Is that alright in terms of—

So this, if I remember correctly, might be the last slide.

So I just wanted to say that if you want any more information, the Start Network website

is a fantastic resource.

There you will have a Start Fund page with a Start Fund induction pack and a practical

guide, and also our annual report, as well.

Of course, I briefly touched upon our other work streams, Start Engage, Start Labs, Start

Response, more information on those work streams is available on the website.

Specifically on the Start Fund, you can contact us at that email address startfund@startnetwork.org,

and again, that’s the email address of Jem, my colleague, to discuss possibilities to

work with the network and to become a member in the future.

That I believe brings me to the end of my presentation.

So thank you very much for listening and I look forward to answering any questions people

may have.

Excellent, thank you so much for your presentation, Deepak, very much appreciated.

And indeed, we have a lot of questions and hope that we will have time at the end here

to address a few more of those.

I’ll also mention regarding the questions, since we know that there is a lot of interest,

there are a lot of pending, and in some cases very practical, questions for follow-up.

We will not, we already know, be able to get to all of them during the actual live section

today.

However, we will be doing our best together with the help and generosity of our speakers

and our experts who are with us today, to try and follow-up as much as possible on questions

in writing so that those can be available to you as a resource after this session, as

well.

So now for our final presentation, as Melissa had mentioned at the start, we have a presentation

from Rezaul Chowdhury.

He’s not able to be with us actually live in person, but we are fortunate to have had

a chance to record a presentation with him, so we’ll share that with you now and we

have both the audio and a few slides as well to go along with his presentation.

As Melissa mentioned, do feel free as well if you have questions that you would like

us to direct to Rezaul, we’ll be very happy to do that, and although he won’t be able

to answer those now because he’s in another meeting, we will follow-up with him and ask

him to respond in writing afterword.

So now we can cue that recording.

My name is Rezaul.

I’m working for COAST.

COAST is an organization working for coastal poor in Bangladesh.

In fact we are part of a pooled fund, which is managed by an intermediary organization.

Most of the funds are coming from the UK and a small portion from the World Bank, NORAD,

and SIDA.

This is related to governance, advocacy, raising voice, and organizing peoples.

Also, we are a part of pooled funds being managed by another intermediary organization

in respect of climate adaptation fund, we’ve been a part for the last 13 years.

In the beginning, [they] selected us in a participatory

way, in a rigorous process of assessment on accounts, number one, and the governance in

respective governance this is transparency, participation, no conflict of interests.

Even apart from the bi-monthly visits from the pooled fund mechanism management, there

is a rigorous assessment of accounting, standard maintenance, governance, also on a quarterly

basis you have monitoring of impact level, every six months there are external evaluations,

and annual external evaluations from the intermediary bodies.

Every two years, there are joint evaluations from donors and intermediary bodies.

So my experience with respect to pooled funding for local and national NGOs, is you have to

be acquainted to maintain the accounting standard in view of the international standard.

Number two, you have to integrate accountability, transparency, participation, no conflict of

interest in your governance.

Number three, you have to be very creative in the respect of showing impact in the beneficiary

level.

These are the three expertise or skill know-hows to be with the local NGOs if they want to

be a part of pooled funding.

Because, at the end of the day, who will give the money, whether it is UK Aid or DANIDA,

they have some accountability to their taxpayers and to their own government systems.

These are my experiences in respect to pooled funding in Bangladesh.

In my experience, it was a trial and error process of developing our accounting standard,

number one.

It was a trial and error process of developing a management standard, number two.

Sometime we feel that accounting and management is a static thing.

I don’t think so.

It’s very dynamic; it’s a matter of creativity especially in respect of governance, when

are you, how are you, reporting, and how you are accountable.

Nowadays accountability is not only to the upper level, it is also accountability to

your peer level, accountability to your beneficiaries; are you integrating the openings of the poor

people, beneficiaries, humanitarian victims in your decision-making, how you are shifting

powers.

So this we have learned from our pooled funding mechanism.

It’s a matter of how you are mitigating conflict of interest, and how you are transparent,

and how you are maintaining the international standard, and how you are keeping your things

free from fraudulence and others.

These we have learned, and are still learning, so now one of the tendencies among the NGOs

and donors, is they don’t pay the overhead cost.

We are maintaining around 20 projects, but I can tell you at least in 15 projects the

donor doesn’t give money for us overhead, for such a low fiscal expenditure.

But you can ask us, why do you do it?

Because this is a matter for our people in the coastal region in our area, we’ll do

it.

But maintaining, we are always in tensions.

Whether there are flaws in their accounting, whether there are flaws in their governance.

I’m part of a pooled funding mechanism where I’m getting funding, UK funding, for more

than 15 years in the sector of human rights and governance.

There is a separate staff for accounts for audit for monitoring, very capable staff,

highly paid staff, and it’s running well.

So for pooled funding there must be other organization.

On one side, I get that an organization has a proven track record of strong management

culture, number one, all you have to for is separate management.

Otherwise, you will face problem.

Because it’s true, even if I give money to my children they have to be accountable

to me; the donors who are giving money in pooled funding, they have their own accountability.

Okay, excellent, so we have just been hearing a recorded presentation from Rezaul Chowdhury,

who is the Executive Director of the Coastal Association for Social Transformation Trust,

known as COAST in Bangladesh.

So that brings us now to the end of our presentations for this learning session, so we’ll move

right ahead into the Q&A.

I’ll be giving the floor to Melissa to pose a number of the questions that have come through

during the presentations and also some in advance of the sessions, and before doing

that just wanted to note for our speakers who are with us live today, as we draw the

event to a close in about 20 minutes from now, I will go around one more time, if you

have any closing thoughts, advice, other points that you would like to leave with the group.

So just a heads up about that, but now I’ll give the floor over to Melissa for Q&A.

Thank you so much.

The first round of questions are for Fernando.

Fernando, are you ready?

First, Sebastian of Belgium is asking, what is the criteria used to establish a pooled

fund in a country location?

Second, Gohar in Pakistan asked whether the pooled funds are based on the Humanitarian

Response Plan or the humanitarian needs overview, so if you could elaborate on the connection

to the HRP and the HNOs that would be helpful.

And thirdly, Orla of Ireland was mentioning some experience that NGOs have had when looking

at different approaches used at the country levels for due diligence.

For example, in some locations it seems that organizations can apply for a CBPF and then

they complete the due diligence process, while in other locations it seems the due diligence

process has to happen first before you can apply, and I think that’s what you had mentioned

in the guidelines.

So the question asked is are the global guidelines supposed to be applied consistently across

all countries and how can we get some more information on the due diligence procedures

that are meant to be applied.

So those are the three first questions we will ask your advice on Fernando, thank you.

To first question you were, Melissa, is related the criteria used to establish a country-based

pooled fund in a specific location, indeed there are some criteria.

The most important one probably is that there is in fact donor interest to pool resources

into these kind of mechanisms.

So first, that’s a major issue.

And also that there has to be an OCHA presence on location of an OCHA office through which

we will be able to really manage the fund.

So those are the two main issues that really drive decisions on how we will be establishing

a new CBPF.

The other question that you were asking was related to, coming from Pakistan, I think,

the connection to the HRPs, and as part of the reform that we made with the guidelines

two years ago, at the beginning of 2015, was that the CBPFs are aligned to the HRPs in-country.

Ideally, the prioritization process is done in alignment with the HRP once the location

process is discussed and approved at the country level.

It’s very important to remember, I’ve seen a lot of questions coming also through

the window in the chat, that it’s a very decentralized process and all the decision-making

takes place at the country level.

Finally, the other question you were raising was related to some experiences of different

approaches to due diligence.

No, we have a standard approach to the due diligence and there’s no way that any NGO

can apply before the due diligence has taken place, even if you try to enter into the GMS,

that will not be allowed.

Indeed, the global guidelines are the minimal standards, as I was saying in the presentation,

that we have.

So there may be additional processes or requirements that are made at the country level, and this

is very context specific.

For even the capacity assessment it’s a standard procedure, what they will change

is usually very specific questions related to the context, but the categories that we

have included are the same everywhere.

We are really trying to keep a very standardized process altogether, but there may be slight

difference from one country to another, but these are the minimum standards in the guidelines,

so you can go through them.

One other thing I think I’ve heard, this is probably good news, is we will embark next

year into a process of revision of the guidelines.

For that we will of course be consulting all our stakeholders and NGOs, of course, are

very important for us to hear their concerns and their experiences so far, and seeing how

and what we need to really look into.

We will be engaging through the CBPF NGO dialogue platform to which Ben had referred before,

as well, to embark in that process by next year.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Fernando.

I’d like to turn now to Deepak from the Start Network perspective.

We’ve seen that one of the key comparative advantages of the pooled funding that Start

Network manages is the issue of speed, that you can quickly make decisions to allocate

in response to emergencies.

You even said that every four or so days you get a new alert.

Anita of Uganda was asking, have you done an analysis on whether the Start Fund has

demonstrated any improved response due to NGOs being able to access funding early in

the phase, thank you.

Great, fantastic.

Thank you for the question.

So as I mentioned in the presentation, after each Start Fund response there is a learning

exchange where agencies come together to reflect on the response.

What we’ve repeatedly seen in those meetings is agencies reflecting that they would not

have been able to respond when they did if it had not been for the Start Fund.

We know that the period immediately after an emergency has occurred is when most lives

are saved.

That reality does hit home in the conversations we have with members during those learning

exchange meetings and this was seen in particular for the Burundi regional crisis where that

came out.

Also, something that I did not mention in my presentation is that Start Fund projects

are meant to be flexible, so they can be adapted according to rapidly changing circumstance

and also in those learning meetings agencies have really valued that because it’s enabled

them to provide the most appropriate response according to the needs of the affected population

on the ground.

Just bringing that extra dimension there of the flexibility of Start Fund projects as

well as its timeliness, and that is leading to more effective humanitarian responses.

Thank you very much, Deepak.

The next batch of questions I’d like to hear from Ben and also Fernando and I’m

grouping them because they’re very connected to the grand bargain on humanitarian financing.

The grand bargain is trying to accomplish many things and the first is this issue of

trying to support national and local responders with more direct funding, but also capacity-strengthening.

So Mohammed who is writing us in from Somalia, he is asking are there measures being taken

to improve the share, or the proportion of pooled funding, that goes directly to local

and national NGOs, so that there is more of a balance between funding that goes directly

to UN agencies and INGOs?

And secondly, he asked about capacity assessments really locking out local NGOs and wanted to

hear more about what can be done to strengthen capacity?

This is one of the commitments in the grand bargain is to really invest in capacity of

national and local frontline responders.

The second part of the questions that we received that really relate to the grand bargain is

this whole notion of reducing burdensome donor conditions.

So Frederique of Care is asking about simplifying and harmonizing agreements.

So if the global guidelines on country-based pooled funds are to be streamlined simplified,

as per the grand bargain, so that they are more accessible, what is being done in that

regard?

Over to you, would you like to start, Ben?

Yeah, sure.

Support national and local responders first of all, I think I got the figures mixed up,

but off the top of my head I think OCHA have—I’m sure Fernando will be able to tell you—but

OCHA have a target of how much of the country-based pooled funds will be going directly to national

and local responders.

I get the numbers mixed up because they’re slightly different for the Charter for Change

and OCHA’s figure, somewhere between 20 and 25 percent.

The year on year increase has shown that it’s possible to reach that figure, because it

is increasing the proportion that goes to national and local responders.

Investing in the capacity of local partners.

Already in my presentation I gave you the examples of Yemen and Syria, where OCHA are

proactively going out and seeking to engage local and national partners and advise them

and support them in undertaking and passing the partner capacity assessment process.

As you can tell from example, Syria gave those local and national partners who perhaps did

not have the capacity in the first place an understanding of what was required and help

them build towards that.

I’m not saying that happens in every single OCHA country office, and actually, I’m not

a spokesperson for OCHA, but I’ve seen some poor examples of that in OCHA country offices

where the country office actually won’t support local or don’t encourage local or

national NGOs to apply.

There’s a mixed bag there, but I think if we follow the examples of Yemen and Syria

in particular, where OCHA is reaching out and trying to ensure that local and national

partners pass the capacity assessment process, then that’s the best way to go obviously.

What was the last one, Melissa?

I was also asking about reduced donor conditions.

Reduced donor conditions.

Gosh.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to answer that one, because that’s going to require

the donors to get together, not just…

OCHA are—well let’s put it this way.

The global guidelines, I think that I’ve been talking about and Fernando has been talking

about a lot, are a great framework, but there’s flexibility within that framework, which is

why we’ve seen some of the questions today and some of the examples that I’ve given

you show that there is a difference in how those guidelines are applied at country level.

Some people see that as inconsistency, but I think if you look at the guidelines you

have to understand that they must, they’re required, to offer a degree of flexibility

for the local context.

Each country office has that ability to change and alter slightly the processes which they

undertake.

So it’s a difficult juggling act, I think, to offer that degree of flexibility, but also

to harmonize and standardize in the first place.

So I don’t have an answer to that.

I want to make sure that everyone’s aware of the dilemma that is faced by OCHA and other

donors.

Thank you so much, Ben.

Over to you, Fernando, do you have thoughts you’d like to say in terms of supporting

local and national responders, capacity strengthening, and streamlining the global guidelines?

Right, I will begin actually with the last question and to follow what Ben was just saying,

I think we have the guidelines as the minimum standards, so the flexibility is there, but

at least we have to follow the global guidelines as the minimum.

It is indeed a very difficult balance we have to find here.

But part of these simplification and harmonization agreements are just to let you know—and

you might have heard if you participated in the previous webinar where WFP and UNHCR presented,

but they also talked about their simplification and harmonization process that they have begun,

and we’re also trying to get into that process as well and try to work together with these

three agencies, including also UNICEF, and see how we can really move forward in that.

That’s a start, because then, of course, we’ll have to look into broader issues,

and this also relates to the issue of reducing donor conditions, and that’s a discussion

that, yes, we will have to also embark as part of the commitments they made through

the grand bargain.

One of the mechanisms we have to engage very closely with our donors is through other governance

mechanisms that we have, which is the pooled fund working group, which includes all our

main donors, and also has the participation of some UN agencies and also local and international

NGOs representatives are in this group.

So it’s something that we will need to look into, and also see how we can move forward.

In terms of the capacity assessment and capacity strengthening, yes, we’re aware of that

and I also thank Ben for the examples he has shown.

We are trying to be proactive in trying to go out to reach out to more local NGOs and

to try to provide as much as possible; depending of course on the office and the context we

have where have more dedicated staff to do this kind of addition capacity strengthening

of building whenever possible.

Because it is our interest to really as get as many applications as possible from local

NGOs, whenever possible.

It is one of our commitments and we hope that we can really increase that percentage of

the amount of allocations that we have so far.

As I was mentioning during the presentation, right now we are at 18 percent that we have

allocated or have given directly to the national NGOs.

We strive to give to the best positioned partner on the ground to provide the funds.

So one very important concern is how we move forward in this capacity strengthening.

Some of the ways we have presented is examples like in Afghanistan’s training program that

Akbar was conducting and also probably shadowing staff properly to start, but it’s something

we are also looking at, we are aware, we have dedicated some resources this past year and

also last year, to try to go more into providing this support.

We have also raised this issues with donors; the importance really of getting funding for

this specific concern that’s there, and that’s one of the ways to how we can comply

with the grand bargain commitments of increasing access to local NGOs.

I think that was a great response.

Thank you so much.

We are now coming to the end of our session, so I will, as promised, ask each of our speakers,

so first Fernando, then Deepak, then Ben.

To go around the virtual room if you have any closing thoughts that you would like to

leave with us, please do.

Fernando, first, over to you.

Thank you, Angharad.

So I’ll just leave the key takeaways from this session.

For those who are not so familiar with country-based pooled funds, these are multi-donor plans

established by the emergency relief coordinator and they operate under the stewardship of

humanitarian coordinators on the ground to provide a timely, flexible, coordinated, and

principled funding to responses to humanitarian crisis.

And also that the CBPF funding is prioritized and directly allocated to the best positioned

partners on the ground through transparent and inclusive consultation processes, which

thereby supports the coordinated delivery of the humanitarian response plans.

Thank you.

Thank you and thanks so much for being with us, and over to you, Deepak.

Thanks.

I just want to quickly say thank you to ICVA and PHAP for organizing this excellent learning

stream on humanitarian financing and for inviting the Start Fund to this webinar.

And of course to the participants for the excellent questions and comments, and for

anyone who would like to learn more about how the Start Fund responds to fast and early

responses to humanitarian emergencies, please do get in touch on how you can be a part of

it, as well as the other initiatives of the Start Fund and the Start Network, more widely.

Excellent, thanks so much.

Incredibly helpful and thank you for being with us as well.

And now to you, Ben.

Yeah, thanks PHAP and ICVA for this opportunity.

My closing thoughts really are two things.

Firstly, country-based pooled funds are getting better, but we’re seeking your involvement

in global processes that will help them improve.

So why don’t you join the country-based pooled fund NGO dialogue platform, I’ve

put the email address in the chat box again.

If you do seek to include yourself, read through the guidelines.

So two things I already put in my presentation, but read through the guidelines and join the

NGO dialogue platform.

That would be my recommendations to you all.

Excellent.

Very concrete.

Thanks so much, Ben.

And thanks once again to all of our speakers.

A few closing notes then.

Go through a few items here.

First of all, we have been recording today’s session so that it can be available as an

ongoing resource for you and that recording will be available in the coming days on the

event webpage, you see the link right there.

I’ll also mention that we will be preparing a transcript and translating that so we can

have subtitles for the whole session in both French and Arabic to increase access further.

We have a number of resources from past events, I’ll pass the floor over the Melissa to

mention a few of those.

If you follow Ben’s advice and you read the global guidelines and you have any time

leftover for reading, you’ll notice that ICVA is going to put together a briefing paper

on the topic that was discussed today.

We also are pleased to announce that we’ve completed our reading package and learning

package for topic one, the humanitarian financing landscape, realities, and emerging trends

for NGOs.

This package includes not only the whiteboard explanatory video; it also has audio and video

recordings, with not only French, but also Arabic, subtitles; a compilation of answers

for those questions that we weren’t able to respond to in the webinar; a short informative

and easy to read briefing paper; and another supporting document showing you where you

can access further information.

Okay, excellent.

I’ll also mention another past event for which the recordings and some resources are

also available, and that was the session that took place on the 12th of October, looking

at UN humanitarian funding.

So that’s available to you as well.

Now if we turn to look ahead, we have two more events I’d like to announce that are

coming up in this series.

The next one taking place on the 6th of December.

That will be on the subject of bilateral funding.

Looking at trends, challenges, and opportunities for NGOs.

We hope you’ll consider joining us for that.

You can already register for the event by clicking right there on your screen.

And then we’re already moving into 2017—unbelieveable—the 27th of January, we have another session looking

at the topic of private funding.

So as seen as a potentially a growing source becoming a more and more significant source

of funding for humanitarian NGOs.

We’ll be exploring that topic on the 27th of January.

Again, registrations are already open, so feel free to register for that.

Do also, of course, feel free to share in your own networks if you believe there are

other peers who may be interested in joining the discussion on these topics.

So with that, we will bring things to a close.

I’d like to very much thank to the whole team here both at PHAP and at ICVA.

So thanks so much for all of your work, Liz Arnanz, Markus Forsberg at PHAP, also James

Shell with ICVA, and my co-host, Melissa Pitotti, I’ll give you the floor one more time in

case you have any closing thoughts you’d like to leave with us at this point.

Just want to say I’m really grateful to all of those who have contributed with their

knowledge and this is an issue that we are going to continue to follow, because we’re

all really grappling with the need to provide principled and resourced humanitarian action.

Thank you.

Excellent, thanks.

And last, but not least, thanks to our guest speakers today, and also to our participants.

As mentioned at the beginning, really inspiring to see so many of you here, and with really

practical problems and also suggestions for each other.

So great to see also some of that networking and exchange taking place in the chat.

So with that we’ll sign off from Geneva and look forward to connecting with you again

in a few weeks time.

This is Angharad Laing, over and out.