Resources

Following the HPC Steering Group strategic discussion in early June, ICVA members and partners have worked together to elaborate a set of key requirements for a future collective, principled and lightened humanitarian planning process. The paper outlines NGO perspectives on what a credible, inclusive, and efficient humanitarian planning process must look like in today’s constrained and complex operational environment.

ICVA hopes this document will help to prompt further discussion with donors and IASC members, including at the HPC Steering Group when the conversation there continues.

Download the paper using the link here below.

À propos de l’adhésion à l’ICVA 

L’adhésion à l’ICVA est ouverte aux organisations à but non lucratif enregistrées et alignées sur notre mission d’amélioration des politiques et pratiques humanitaires. Notre stratégie ICVA 2030 met l’accent sur des domaines clés tels que la migration forcée, le financement, la coordination et les enjeux transversaux de transformation. 

Détails de l’adhésion 

• Frais d’adhésion : Entre 500 et 12 000 CHF par an, selon les revenus de votre organisation.
• Engagement des membres : Nous encourageons nos membres à participer activement à la gouvernance et aux groupes de travail de l’ICVA, tout en respectant leurs obligations en matière de cotisation annuelle.
• Veuillez noter que l’ICVA ne fournit aucun soutien financier à ses membres.

Pour plus d’informations, veuillez consulter le document « Comment rejoindre l’ICVA » ainsi que les statuts  disponibles sur notre site web. 

Comment postuler 

Nous accueillons les candidatures d’organisations éligibles. Pour postuler : 

1. Remplissez le formulaire de candidature trouver ici –
2. Envoyez-le avec tous les documents justificatifs requis à : membership@icvanetwork.org

Dates limites de dépôt des candidatures : 

• 30 avril pour une évaluation lors du cycle de mai
• 31 octobre pour une évaluation lors du cycle de novembre

This ICVA paper explores how humanitarian pooled funds manage and share risk across delivery chains and how these practices impact localisation and response effectiveness. Drawing on research from Sudan, Myanmar, Syria, and Ukraine, the report identifies barriers faced by local actors, highlights scalable good practices in risk-sharing, and offers actionable recommendations for donors, fund managers, intermediaries, and local partners. It calls for more equitable, codified risk-sharing approaches to ensure quality funding reaches local actors and strengthen partnerships across the humanitarian system.

Download the report by clicking on the link below.

UNHCR and ICVA have launched the 2025 round of the Interagency Community Outreach and Communication Fund on Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA). The Fund will provide rapid, targeted financial support to national and local NGOs to develop and disseminate PSEA outreach and communication materials, and to make these available to all IASC members and the wider sector on the PSEA database.

Geographic Focus

Due to the limited available funding, this year’s round is only open to projects implemented in humanitarian or displacement contexts in the following countries:

Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Madagascar, Mali, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Türkiye, Ukraine, Yemen and Zimbabwe.

Application

• Application Deadline for English applications – 17.00 CET 11 July 2025
• Application Deadline for Spanish applications – 17.00 CET 16 July 2025
• Application Deadline for French applications – 17.00 CET 17 July 2025

Only applications made using the online form will be accepted.

English, French, and Spanish applications can be made here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PSEAFund2025_Eng 

On the top righthand corner of the form’s landing page, you have the option to select English, French or Spanish.

Please read the Call for Applications and access the preview of the online application form questions here:

Collective NGO Statements delivered at the 93rd meeting of UNHCR’s Standing Committee, 17-19 June 2025

As the humanitarian sector grapples with escalating crises, deep funding cuts and growing political pressure, bold reforms such as those proposed by the Humanitarian Reset are urgently needed. Yet, these proposals also demand rigorous scrutiny. One of the most significant among them is the call to channel 33% of global humanitarian funding through Country-Based Pooled Funds (CBPFs), which would see a potential increase in CBPF funding from USD 1 billion to USD 6 billion.

This proposal goes beyond a financial shift. It signals a major reconfiguration of how humanitarian financing is prioritised, governed, delivered, and made accountable. While CBPFs offer recognised strengths—including alignment with Humanitarian Response Plans, support to local actors, and risk sharing—scaling them to manage a third of all humanitarian funding will have far-reaching implications.

This paper presents the collective reflections from ICVA, in consultation with its members, on the practical implications of the CBPF proposal. While recognising the advantages of CBPFs, it calls for further collective reflection and analysis before targets are adopted. It offers constructive recommendations to ensure that any expansion of CBPFs enhances—not replaces—the broader system of pooled funding, direct donor partnerships, and local initiatives.

Recommendations

As the humanitarian sector faces unprecedented levels of need, funding models must evolve to be more inclusive, balanced and responsive. CBPFs offer a valuable tool for aligning funding with strategic priorities at the country level. However, scale alone will not deliver the transformation envisioned by the Humanitarian Reset.

Many NGOs fully support a responsible increase in funding volumes to CBPFs and critically an increase in direct financing to local and national actors best placed to reach people in need.

Our call is for:

1. A rebalanced, inclusive, and diverse pooled funding landscape, one where CBPFs, NGO-led funds, regional mechanisms, thematic pools work together and complement each other to serve communities in crisis. Only by embracing this diversity can we build a more effective, equitable, and resilient humanitarian system for the future
2. If an international target is placed on CBPFs it should remain at the current 15% funding levels and informed by the Guidance note for donors: Promoting inclusive and locally-led action through humanitarian pooled funds (November 2024).
3. Both in their roles as governance members and funders, donors should work with the funds and their grantees, in particular local national NGOs to achieve the objectives set out in the Guidance Note.
4. The priority of CBPFs should remain focused on increasing direct quality financing to the diversity of local and national NGOs, including WLOs/WROs, RLOs, and CBOs. Measurable action plans with clear timelines should be adopted to raise the percentages of funding to 70 or 100% as the operational contexts allow. Increase funding to local and national actors should be prioritised over increasing amounts of CBPF funding.
5. National and international intermediaries that actively promote and have a proven track record of equitable partnerships should be recognised and supported as strategic enablers. Their experience and expertise leveraged and their role in risk-sharing supported.
6. While funding to CBPFs should be increased, this increase must be responsible and go hand in hand with continuous fund improvement. The 11-point plan agreed with OCHA must be implemented and funding increases tied to progress made.
7. Ensure CBPFs set ambitious context specific and measurable targets for funding to WLOs / WROs and for gender specific interventions.
8. The increase in CBPF funding should not be at the cost of the operational capacity of key actors nor should it substitute for direct bilateral funding, when the latter is more efficient.

Download the Briefing Paper

Transparency in humanitarian and development financing remains a persistent challenge. While international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) publish data, they do so primarily to meet donor compliance requirements rather than as a strategic tool for accountability or coordination. The result is a fragmented information system where data is published inconsistently, often in inaccessible formats, and rarely used by those who need it most.

Local and national actors (LNAs), who are central to delivering aid and development programs, remain largely excluded from these reporting processes. Many lack access to INGO-published data, making it difficult for them to track funding flows, engage in decision-making, or advocate for resources. At the same time, their own activities remain largely invisible, as existing reporting platforms and processes are designed for larger organisations with greater technical capacity.

As discussions around localisation and equitable partnerships continue, the need for a more inclusive, accessible, and meaningful data-sharing ecosystem is becoming increasingly urgent. The current global uncertainty and turbulence – with a marked political and financial shift away from international solidarity – reaffirms the importance of making the most effective and efficient use of scarce resources. Data transparency, in the end, is simply a way of sharing information, which is a crucial foundation of any effective decision-making.

Purpose

The paper seeks to develop an approach to improving the transparency of funding transferred by ICVA members to humanitarian actors, in particular local and national NGOs. It has two main objectives:

1. To analyse the key challenges to data reporting experienced by first line funding recipients and outline proposed solutions to inform an action plan for uptake by key stakeholders.
2. To review the feasibility of wide-scale reporting by local and national NGOs on their international humanitarian funding in consultation with data reporting systems (FTS, IATI and NGO Networks).

Key findings

• Many INGOs struggle with publishing data, and those that do publish often fail to see its value beyond meeting donor requirements.
• There is a largely unrealised potential to use published data for allocation, coordination or decision-making.
• Data publication remains highly manual for most INGOs, preventing scalability and efficiency. However, a few INGOs have successfully automated their reporting through financial and project management systems, demonstrating that streamlined reporting is possible.
• Local and national actors urgently need access to INGO data to engage effectively in development processes, track funding flows, and hold INGOs, governments, and development partners accountable. However, data accessibility remains a major barrier, with reporting platforms often being too complex and available only in dominant global languages.
• Governments need better data to coordinate humanitarian and development efforts, yet data-sharing between INGOs, donors, and national governments remains inconsistent.

Recommendations

1. Improve data quality among INGOs: INGOs should publish a broader range of activities, taking advantage of functionality which automates publication in an increasing number of project and financial management systems.
2. Integrate IATI and FTS: Take forward the work of IATI and FTS to allow INGOs to “Publish Once, Use Often”, fulfilling their FTS reporting through their IATI publication without additional effort.
3. Reward publication: Donors should shift from compliance to incentives, encouraging INGOs to publish substantially all activities, and not only those with direct contractual requirements.
4. Support Local and National Actors in data publication: The IATI Secretariat should improve the accessibility and language of IATI tools, particularly by ensuring that IATI Publisher prioritises and meets the needs of local and national actors.
5. Make data useful: Support country-level actors with capacity building, and develop specific tools that increase the use of data by donors, INGOs and local and national actors to strengthen allocation, effectiveness and accountability.
6. Sustain engagement and build a community: Improve the accessibility of IATI community platforms and engage more proactively with regional and national NGO umbrella bodies.

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Download the report on the link below

For over forty years, Iraq has been a focal point for international humanitarian response, driven by recurring cycles of war, displacement, and political instability. From the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s to the US-led invasion in 2003 and the rise of Daesh in 2014, Iraq has endured continuous emergencies. These crises have triggered multiple waves of displacement, most notably between 2014 and 2017, when nearly six million Iraqis — around 16% of the population — were uprooted by the conflict with Daesh.

In response, the humanitarian infrastructure in Iraq has expanded significantly. International NGOs, UN agencies, and donors have poured into the country, often partnering with Iraqi actors but rarely placing them in positions of real leadership or decision-making. Despite decades of external aid and a vibrant local civil society — including a surge in local NGO activity post-2003 — progress toward localisation has been limited. The humanitarian system in Iraq remains largely internationally driven.

Purpose of the report

This report shows the status of localisation in Iraq across the seven domains of localisation. It uses the Localisation Measurement Framework and Tools developed by HAG and PIANGO. The tools have been adapted to Iraq’s unique context. The study provides benchmarks for tracking progress and identifies challenges and opportunities.

Key Findings

Despite decades of humanitarian response in Iraq, the report finds that overall progress towards localisation is low, as summarised below:

Partnerships: Some evidence

• Partnerships between international actors and local/national organisations have been crucial to Iraq’s humanitarian response, especially during emergencies.
• International actors depended on local and national organisations for cultural insights and access to communities.
• Local and national organisations relied on international partners for resources, learning, and support to meet challenges.
• Partnerships usually reflect long-standing relationships and a track record of meeting donor requirements.
• While international actors are still the primary decision-makers, local perspectives are being acknowledged.

Leadership: Limited Evidence

• In emergencies, international actors are still viewed as the key decision-makers.
• Local and national organisations, along with governments, are seen to have a supporting role.
• While international organisations are increasingly appointing Iraqis to key positions, many local actors do not see this as genuine localisation.
• They argue that placing Iraqis within international structures often limits them to implementation roles rather than making decisions and setting the direction.

Coordination: Limited Evidence

• The 2023 closure of key structures like the NGO Coordination Committee for Iraq (NCCI) and the deactivation of the cluster system have weakened these efforts.
• While local networks continue to function, they tend to involve only a limited number of NGOs, and coordination remains dominated by international actors.
• The dominance of English in coordination meetings also presents a barrier to full integration of local actors.

Participation: Limited Evidence

• Organisations report relatively high levels of community involvement through consultations, needs assessments, and the formation of community committees.
• Study participants suggest that the engagement is often weak and ineffective, with many organisations more focused on meeting donor expectations than genuinely engaging with local communities.
• Smaller organisations tend to have stronger community ties, while larger organisations often rely on less effective, sporadic mechanisms for participation.

Policy influence: Limited Evidence

• Local actors are seen as key stakeholders. However, they still find it hard to influence donor agendas and national policies effectively.
• Some organisations raise important issues with the government, but turning this influence into real change is difficult.
• Most local and national organisations provide some inputs into policy development, but few significantly shape humanitarian and development strategies.

Capacity: Limited Evidence

• Both international and local partners define capacity needs, but internationals mainly drive the process.
• Progress is limited to a small number of organisations.
• Ensuring long-term sustainability remains a key challenge.
• Local and national organisations often find it hard to keep services running when international support stops. This happens because they rely on project-based approaches for capacity building.
• While the legislation for NGOs remains stable, NGOs face access restrictions and a shrinking space to discuss key issues, particularly gender.

Funding: Limited Evidence

• Local/national organisations struggle to directly access international funding. This restricts their ability to lead long-term recovery and development efforts.
• As Iraq transitions from emergency response to development, the reduction in humanitarian funding creates challenges.
• Recovery and peacebuilding initiatives need ongoing financial support. They are especially at risk as there are few other funding sources available.
• Study participants stressed the need for a legal framework for local funding and a National Peace & Recovery Fund.

Download the report on the link below

Developed by ICVA, this resource aims to support NGOs in understanding and engaging with the ongoing IASC Humanitarian Reset, a reform initiative intended to help reshape the humanitarian system.

This strategic guide is tailored for NGO practitioners, coordination leads, and policy staff to:
✔ Understand the scope and intent of the Reset
✔ Explore links to other reform initiatives
✔ Stay informed about key workstreams and timelines
✔ Reflect on NGO perspectives and concerns

The resource is also available as webpage.

Click the link below to read the paper in English. 

This paper is a practical guide for NGO Country Directors on how to effectively engage with Humanitarian Country Teams (HCTs)—the top inter-agency leadership body coordinating humanitarian response in a country. Drawing on ICVA’s experience across more than 30 countries, the paper explains the HCT’s roles and responsibilities, highlights key requirements for NGO participation, and offers commentary on standard HCT Terms of Reference

Click on the links below to read the paper in English, French, Spanish, and Arabic. 

This report provides an overview of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) coordination system at the country level, focusing on how NGOs can engage effectively. Coordination is essential in humanitarian responses to avoid duplication, fill gaps, and improve overall efficiency and accountability. The IASC system, while led by the UN, is intended to be inclusive of NGOs and structured around three core mechanisms: the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT), Inter-Cluster Coordination Group (ICCG), and clusters.

The report offers several recommendations:

• Organizations should strengthen their commitment to coordination and ensure staff are trained and knowledgeable.
• Coordination structures should reflect shared leadership and apply the Principles of Partnership.
• The in-country coordination architecture should be transparent, updated, and regularly reviewed.
• NGOs should actively participate in NGO fora and coordination platforms to enhance their influence at national and subnational levels.

Click on the below links to read the paper in English (French, Spanish and Arabic will be published soon).

We are pleased to share with you the final drafts of the NGO statements to be delivered at the 93rd UNHCR Standing Committee meeting will take place in Geneva on 17-19 June 2025. Many thanks to all our lead drafters for incorporating the initial feedback from NGOs. 

The NGO community is invited to provide red line comments only on the draft statements relevant to your expertise. Please:

• review the statement (links below)
• download the statement and flag any red lines directly onto the document using comments or track changes
• send to the e-mail address indicated at the head of each document. Deadline for inputs: Monday 9th June COB.

If you have any questions or concerns on any of the above, please don’t hesitate to reach out to ICVA Forced Displacement Officer, Issie Basile (issie.basile@icvanetwork.org).  

This guidance helps NGO leaders and frontline staff apply humanitarian principles during negotiations in complex settings. It offers practical tools to navigate difficult requests while protecting humanitarian access and integrity. The guide supports the development of a Principled Engagement Policy and Framework grounded in operational realities.

Key features:

• Step-by-step guidance to define principled humanitarian action in practice
• Sample Policy and Framework for leaders and field teams
• Example of a Principled Engagement Framework highlighting common issues and thresholds of engagement
• Designed to reduce operational delays and reinforce consistent decision-making

Download the guidance on the link below:

The paper highlights best practices from selected pooled funds, focusing on approaches that may be
useful for the Aid Fund for Syria (AFS) in three key areas:

• Complementarity and coordination with other pooled funding mechanisms
• Localisation and accountability
• Expanding beyond emergency response

This is not a full review of pooled fund best practices or AFS’s strategic needs. However, the findings aim to be relevant in the fast-changing context of northern Syria and AFS’s funding goals.

Click on the link below to read the paper.

This impact study evaluates the first three-year cycle of ICVA’s 2030 strategy, and the performance against the strategic priorities set for 2022-2024.

Authored by Adrio Bacchetta from Sandstone Consulting, its key findings include:

• ICVA is a key interlocutor in the highly complex ecosystem that is humanitarian action today.
• ICVA’s impacts can be connected to these ways of working. They include community building within the humanitarian system, policy change, strengthened knowledge and capacity, improved access to quality funding, equitable partnership agreements, more inclusive, fit-for-purpose coordination structures, among other things.
• Considering ICVA’s reach, convening power, access to all levels of the system, together with the calibre of their team, while direct attribution may be difficult, it is clear that a humanitarian system without ICVA would be much the poorer and the community more fragmented and less inclusive.
• ICVA has and continues to champion principled humanitarian action. A lot has been done, but these principles are under fire.
• ICVA has advanced climate change issues, related on one level to the Climate and Environment Charter for Humanitarian Organisations and establishment of the secretariat ICVA is hosting; on another level there has been deep engagement on the impact of climate change on humanitarian crises in regions most impacted (Africa and Asia-Pacific (AP)).

ICVA’s Forced migration work has:

• Interfaced with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Office for Migration (IOM), the World Bank (WB) Group and others to influence policy and practice using mechanisms that both address common areas of concern and build communities in the process.
• Created alliances with concrete initiatives such as the Global Refugee Forum (GRF) such as the multistakeholder pledge for locally led action linked to the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR). This global work has been complemented by regional and country work on mobility issues including in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA, e.g. Gaza, Syria, Yemen) in Asia (e.g. Afghanistan and Myanmar) and Africa (South Sudan) and Latin America (Cartagena +40 process).

ICVA’s Humanitarian Coordination work has:

• Delivered through multiple dimensions (hands-on, policy advocacy, training) to enhance principled and coordinated NGO interventions, with particular investments in negotiating access.
• The work on humanitarian principles has been extensive but the reality of some of the most politicised conflicts has exposed cracks in terms of adherence of warring parties to the humanitarian principles and law and the preparedness of the sector to speak out against it. ICVA can do a lot, but only as far as the members allow it.
• The team invested regionally and particularly at country fora level to improve the inclusivity and capacity of coordination. Compared to the last strategic period the number of surge interventions or hands on support increased which speaks to the trust the humanitarian community has in ICVA, though such interventions have tested ICVA’s capacity.

ICVA’s humanitarian financing work has: 

• Invested heavily in improving access to quality funding, particularly (but not only) in the area of pooled funding with one initiative leading to another in a positive flow. This work has contributed to a recognition of the positive impact of pooled fund mechanisms on localisation objectives, the potential for increased learning and innovation among Funds, as well as required areas for further improvement, including increasing access for local and national actors and more effective risk sharing.
• Delivered with regards to effective partnerships and risk management between UN actors, INGOs and local and national NGOs.
• Partnership terms and conditions have been adapted, and local and national actors in particular have been empowered through greater understanding of what equitable partnership terms and conditions are and what they are entitled to be demanding.

ICVA Statutes revised at the 20th General Assembly, March 2025.  They are available in English and French.