July 20, 2022 —  On Tuesday, 12 July 2022, several of the largest humanitarian agencies globally made new commitments to improve the quality and amount of humanitarian funding. These build upon prior commitments made with the establishment of the Grand Bargain - an international agreement reached in 2016 to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of humanitarian aid.

In March 2022, International Rescue Committee (IRC) President and CEO David Miliband co-launched the Grand Bargain Quality Funding Caucus in partnership with European Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic. That caucus has now concluded, with major bilateral donors, UN agencies, NGOs and local actors coalescing around a final Outcome Document that details commitments around increases in multi-year funding, transparency in data reporting, and accountability to donors and populations affected by crisis.

Over the years, the Grand Bargain has produced a growing body of research and evidence demonstrating the critical efficiency gains multi-year and flexible funding can bring, particularly to frontline implementers. The aim is to realize these gains, particularly at a time when humanitarian need is at a historic high.

Signatories have committed to:

  1. Recognize multi-year funding as a preferred funding modality, especially in protracted crises;
  2. Agree that multi-year funding should have at least some flexible arrangements to enable recipient organizations to respond efficiently and effectively;
  3. Recognize that multi-year funding should be channeled as close to the frontline as possible, and that key intermediaries like UN agencies play a central role in cascading that funding.

“We know firsthand that when funding is predictable, flexible and transparent, it delivers better results to communities facing conflict and crisis. And in a world where protracted crises have become the norm, the global humanitarian appeal is at a record-high and the gap between humanitarian resources and needs keeps getting wider, the need for longer-term humanitarian funding has never been greater. It is encouraging to see the humanitarian community come together to effect long-overdue aid reform, and hold ourselves as a collective accountable,” says David Miliband, President and CEO of IRC

“We have never ever faced so many in desperate need and never ever had such a shortfall in available resources for saving lives. The scarce available aid money must therefore be predictable and with a multiyear commitment to make our work effective in the many protracted emergencies. Equally there must be flexibility so that we can quickly respond to new emergencies from the war in Ukraine to the drought in Somalia. Thanks to efforts by the IRC and the other members of this caucus, we are closer to making aid more effective. We now have strong commitments to increase levels of multiannual funding and make sure it reaches the frontlines," says Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council and Eminent Person of the Grand Bargain.

Caucus participants were a subset of donors and funding recipients, including intermediaries, who have engaged in a series of rigorous high-level political dialogues. Organizations represented in the caucus included the Directorate-General of ECHO, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the US State Department Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM), Sida and the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, UNICEF, WFP, UNHCR, OCHA, ICRC, international NGOs represented by InterAction, and local actors represented by the NEAR Network. 

The International Rescue Committee, through the caucus, aimed to secure consensus around a quantifiable increase in current levels of multi-year funding passed to frontline implementers. In addition, the caucus sought out commitments around introducing more flexible funding arrangements, mechanisms for greater accountability to frontline actors and affected populations, and best practices for greater transparency and visibility for donors and local partners alike.

The final Outcome Document can be found here.