How can we better mitigate and share risk together? 

Since the first round of Grand Bargain negotiations in February 2016, NGOs have voiced that the Grand Bargain does not adequately address the issues of risk. 

Without addressing the underlying issues, Grand Bargain commitments made to localization, reduced burdensome donor conditions, and other elements cannot be achieved.

In the current context of high scrutiny over fraud, safeguarding and counter-terrorism, the systems have a low tolerance for risk.  Donors are under increasing domestic pressure to justify the use of humanitarian funds and, as a consequence, programming becomes more risk-averse and donors’ reporting requirements tend to limit the availability and quality of funding.

Risks are not borne equitably between donors and NGOs in their joint work to meet the needs of affected populations.

Donors and NGOs are at the centre of the solution. They have the ability to mitigate and share the risk by engaging on partnership agreements, partner capacity assessments, and discussions over allegations and investigations. Only with closer collaboration and increasing levels of trust can donors and NGOs make a difference.

The recent Grand Bargain high level meeting emphasized that “donors and aid organizations should commit to cascading efficient funding conditions equally throughout the transaction chain”. 

We believe it can and should also bring together donors, UN agencies and NGOs to find creative ways to collectively tackle risk and better serve the people.

1. Save the date: ICVA Asia Regional Members and NGO Fora Meeting 11-14 December, Bangkok: This year's event is organised in partnership with ADRRN, UNOCHA, CWSA and Sphere. The agenda will include: ICVA Dialogue on ‘Localizing the Nexus’, the ADRRN AGM, Regional Innovation Forum, plus the Regional Launch of the Sphere Handbook Revision and the ALNAP State of the Humanitarian System Report.  For more information, contact Jeremy.wellard@icvanetwork.org.

2. Save the date: The 2019 ICVA Annual Conference 26 March, Geneva: The 2019 theme is  “Translating commitments to Actions”. We will look at how the following commitments are translated into action: the UN reform processes, localization, the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, and the Global compacts on refugees and migrants. There will be additional meetings on the 27 and 28 March - more information to follow.

4. Prevention of Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (PSEA): ICVA is working to collect input from members on current issues and concerns with PSEA in the lead up to the October 18 Safeguarding Summit hosted by DFID in the UK. A preparatory meeting for members takes place 16 October. For more information contact Secretariat@icvanetwork.org

5. ICVA Member update:  

We are pleased to welcome Mudem-RSC, Turkey to the ICVA network.

Please note that ICVA member International Islamic Relief Organization or International Islamic Relief Organization of Saudi Arabia (IIROSA) has changed their name to The International Organization for Relief, Welfare and Development. 

6. NGO Statements delivered  at UNHCR Standing Committee (19-20 September): ICVA facilitated the drafting and delivery of two NGO statements for the 73rd Meeting of the Executive Committee of the High Commissioner's Programme Standing Committee. The Statements focused on the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework and the Grand Bargain.

7. IOM-NGO Humanitarian Consultations (25 September): This year’s Consultation brought together 90 participants, including 61 NGO representatives from 39 NGOs in 20 countries around the overarching theme of internal displacement. Participants discussed ways to leverage NGO and IOM complementarities to respond to internal displacement challenges. There was widespread consensus that humanitarian and development actors need to go beyond siloed approaches to programming and focus on joint outcomes. A specific session on protection considered the need for NGOs and IOM to improve protection outcomes. Panellists from Colombia, Iraq and Bosnia underlined the importance of transitional justice in resolving internal displacement. The UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons made the first public presentation of her forthcoming report on transitional justice. Supporting local capacities, facilitating IDP participation including through using accessible language and the importance of data on internal displacement were other themes that cut across the discussions. For more information, please contact Jerome.elie@icvanetwork.org.

8. Global Compact on Refugees: The GCR text has been annexed to the High Commissioner’s Annual Report, and is available in all UN official languages on the United Nations Official Document System (search with symbol: A/73/12). On 26 September, ICVA convened and facilitated a meeting between UNHCR and NGOs to take stock of the GCR Formal Consultations process and discuss the way forward in the implementation of the Global Compact on Refugees once it is adopted. ICVA remains willing to support NGOs engagement in the process. For more information, please contact Jerome.elie@icvanetwork.org.

9. 2018 High Commissioner’s Dialogue on Protection Challenges:  takes place in Geneva on 19 and 20 December, and will focus on “Protection and solutions in urban settings: engaging with cities”. As each year, ICVA will work to facilitate NGOs engagement with the High Commissioner’s Dialogue through convening an informal group of ‘Friends of the Dialogue’. To join the group, NGOs can contact Jerome.elie@icvanetwork.org.

10. Nansen Refugee Award: ICVA warmly congratulates this year’s winner of the prestigious UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award: Dr. Evan Atar Adaha, who runs the only working hospital in South Sudan’s Upper Nile State and treats people forced to flee conflict and persecution. ICVA serves on the Nansen Refugee Award Committee and received the Award in 1963. We are proud of counting Dr. Atar among the list of awardees.

11. The Grand Bargain: On 14 September, Grand Bargain co-conveners met in Geneva to discuss implementation of recommendations coming out of the June Grand Bargain Annual Meeting. Co-conveners agreed to prioritize 11 core commitments to help focus implementation of the Grand Bargain. Workstreams covering multi-year funding and reducing earmarking agreed to reorganize into a single workstream moving forward. ICVA, as co-convener of the reporting workstream with Germany, also agreed to collaborate on joint planning between the transparency, reducing duplication and management costs, and reporting workstreams moving forward.

On 23 September, in New York, Kristalina Georgieva, Grand Bargain Eminent Person, convened a meeting of high-level political representatives of Grand Bargain stakeholders with the intent to reinvigorate political commitment to the Grand Bargain. This group affirmed the decisions made at the 14 September meeting, worked on improving political commitment to resolve blockages in the needs assessment workstream, and initiated a discussion on developing a common understanding of risk in donor-NGO relations within the Grand Bargain.

12.  Harmonized Narrative Reporting Pilot: On 13 September, ICVA and Germany co-hosted a workshop in Geneva for current and prospective participants in the current Harmonized Narrative Reporting Pilot in Iraq, Myanmar, and Somalia. GPPi shared the results of the recently completed pilot mid-term review. The pilot will continue through May of 2019, with an increasing focus over the next few months on expanding participation and working toward scaleup and rollout. NGO partners interested in joining the pilot can contact Jeremy.Rempel@icvanetwork.org.

13. Learning Lab on Innovative Humanitarian Financing: Islamic Social Financing: 28-29 November in Malaysia: With support from Mercy Malaysia, ICVA, and an Expert Steering Committee, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Humanitarian Financing Task Team (IASC HFTT) is launching its inter-agency Learning Lab on Innovative Humanitarian Financing. The first module Islamic Social Financing will take place at the end of November in Kuala Lumpur. This learning lab was triggered by the 2016 high-level panel report “Too important to fail – addressing the humanitarian financing gap” which noted that “Islamic social finance is an under-explored territory” that has “potential to provide solutions” to the funding gap. Agenda and speakers are under development. For more information contact Alon.Plato@icvanetwork.org

14.     Progress on SEA – UNICEF contracts: Over the past month, a number of members have been following the implementation of the new UN Protocol on SEA Allegations Involving Implementing Partners. UNICEF, in particular, has taken a strong lead in rolling out new terms and conditions for partnership agreements aligned to the protocol. As of 26 September ICVA has helped to negotiate a postponement of the requirement to sign revised terms and conditions with UNICEF pending further dialogue with NGO partners on how to move forward. For more information on the UN protocol or the dialogue with UNICEF, contact Jeremy.Rempel@icvanetwork.org.

15.     Inter-Agency Standing Commitee (IASC) Update:

a.     Update on the Ebola Situation in DRC:  In early September, a follow-up meeting between NGOs in the DRC, in Kinshasa and Geneva and the Deputy Humanitarian Coordination and WHO in Geneva was organised to enable a discussion about the financing of the Ebola response and the perception of the use of armed escorts in some areas with challenging access. In subsequent meetings with DERC Ursula Mueller in Nairobi and Regional IASC members in Dakar, ICVA has advocated to parties to maintain NGOs involved in the planning phases.  
  
On 21 September, the EDG discussed about the Ebola situation in DRC and the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Yemen and the collective efforts undertaken by the humanitarian community to respond to the needs and face the different challenges. In collaboration with partners, ICVA has raised to the EDG elements worth further analysis in the Ebola response in Eastern DRC and consequently facilitated the discussion at the field level with the involvement of the DHC (contact marco.rotelli@icvanetwork.org  for more information, and on Yemen contact Eman.Moankar@icvanetwork.org)

This meeting was the last one chaired by John Ging. We thank him for his support on providing qualitative space to NGOs to share their perspectives during these meetings. We also welcome Ms. Reena Ghelani, his successor.   

b.     Meeting with leadership: on 4 September ICVA organised a meeting between Martin Griffith, the UN Special Envoy for Yemen and on 14 September a meeting with Ute Kollies, Head of OCHA in Mali. Meeting with DERC Ursula Mueller in Nairobi for a debriefing on her recent visit in Mali, an information exchange ahead of her visit in Burundi and an overall overview of the humanitarian situation in the East Africa Region.

For more information, please contact: Emmanuelle.Osmond@icvanetwork.org

16.      Supporting NGO networks: ICVA Supported the South Asia Together for Humanitarian Imperatives (SATHI) Network and Oxfam to present a Good practices learning day and SATHI Networks strategic planning on 25-26 September. The focus of the event on 26 September was on learning exchange through presentation of top 12 winning good practices shortlisted from 145 received from 18 countries. The presentations were followed by a detailed workshop for planning of SATHI ahead of their AGM coming up in December. SATHI Network brings together national-level NGO networks from South Asia to form a collective group for operational and advocacy support. For more information contact Jeremy.Wellard@icvantwork.org

17.  The learning stream on the Humanitarian-development-peace-nexus has come to an end. You can hear all the recordings of the webinars and read additional information on topics:

   - Topic 1: The “nexus” explained: How and when do humanitarian, development and peace action come together?

  - Topic 2: The World Bank and the humanitarian-development-peace nexus

   - Topic 3: UN Reform: The link to the "nexus" and what it means for non-UN actors

   - Topic 4: Perspectives of peacebuilding actors in the humanitarian-development-peace nexus

   - Topic 5: Donor perspectives on the Humanitarian-development-peace-nexus

For more information contact Nishanie.Jayamaha@icvanetwork.org

17.     New online introductory course on humanitarian access, organised by ICVA member Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). This online course takes approximately 60 minutes to complete and is open to everyone, so please do share it with your colleagues. After successful completion of the course, you will be equipped with basic tools that will enable you to carry out an analysis of the access context, as well identify which actors and factors affect access. For further information, please contact nrcgeneva.policy@nrc.no

18.     Investing in Integrity: UNHCR has published its Investing in Integrity package which outlines the activities across UNHCR related to the prevention and response to fraud, corruption, SEA, SH and other forms of misconduct grouped into several broad thematic areas: risk management, investigation and enforcement; systems and tools; cultural change and capacity building; support to staff; and coordination and framework.

ICVA Meetings and Events

2019

March 26 ICVA Annual Conference, Geneva

Other Meetings and Events: