This is Will, covering for Irwin for another edition of Inklings, where we explore all things aid and aid-adjacent unfolding in humanitarian hubs, on the front lines of emergency response, or in the dark corners of online aid punditry.
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Today: Aid workers infuriated by the non response of the UK’s most powerful fundraising tool to the Gaza crisis, and FFS on localisation.
On the radar|
Unpopular DECision
The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) – the largest funding mechanism for NGOs in the UK – has decided not to launch an appeal for Gaza amid Israel’s assault on the embattled territory, sparking fury among aid workers.
“The DEC is deeply concerned about the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza,” a spokesperson told The New Humanitarian. “The board met on 20 August 2024 and agreed that at this time, an appeal launch in the absence of a ceasefire would face too many risks and challenges to be a successful appeal.” Critics of the statement reminded The New Humanitarian that this seems to ignore the fact that numerous humanitarian operations are already ongoing in Gaza, including by DEC members.
Israel’s military campaign on Gaza following a raid by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on 7 October 2023 has caused a massive humanitarian crisis, killing more than 40,000 Palestinians, wounding many more, and destroying much of the infrastructure in the small territory. It has also sent shockwaves around the world, sparking massive protests in many countries, including in the UK, where it quickly became a divisive political issue. Many observers believe those sensitivities have played into the DEC’s decision, with one aid worker responding to the Gaza crisis describing the rows over it as “very acrimonious”.
The DEC is a grouping of 15 INGOs, which work together with the UK’s major broadcasters for rapid, pooled fundraising in response to international humanitarian crises. Appeals can go ahead without some broadcasters, as in 2009 when the BBC and Sky refused to air an appeal for Gaza.
DEC appeals – which provide greater visibility to humanitarian response and further fundraising opportunities – have raised huge sums for relief efforts, a prospect all the more valuable amid the worsening humanitarian finance gap.
“The UK public has given an astounding £2.4 billion to 77 national appeals, responding every time we have called upon them to help, showing great empathy and generosity,” says the DEC’s website. Given the scale of death and destruction in Gaza, and difficulties funding the response, many British aid workers have felt a DEC appeal is long overdue.
Not amused: “It has become a running joke – they'll get it [the appeal] over the line once everyone is dead in Gaza,” said the aid worker.
Serious cash: Previous DEC appeals have regularly raised huge sums. Some examples:
The Ukraine appeal raised £426 million
The Türkiye-Syria Earthquake Appeal raised £159 million
The 2022-2024 Pakistan Floods Appeal raised £50 million
The Coronavirus appeal raised £62 million
FFS, take the leap!
Fair Funding Solutions (FFS) has a homonymic acronym, jokes Tim Boyes-Watson, co-founder of the consultancy, which works to make aid funding equitable and locally led: “We've been talking about change forever, why isn’t it happening?”
He highlights one of the biggest barriers to equitable development: Built into the whole aid system is that “INGOs earn their overhead as a percentage on the total cost of projects, including partners… That completely disincentivises moving to a facilitator-type role where money doesn't flow through INGOs, but flows direct to local organisations.”
While many people want to do that, “a common characteristic is they can't figure out how to financially make this jump”, said Boyes-Watson. “The only way to do it is to get unrestricted money – and there are still not enough donors out there providing that.”
Funding challenges are a constant difficulty for local civil society organisations of different stripes, with many onerous requirements demanded by donors or contracting INGOs that require substantial resources to fulfil.
Along with campaigning for a Global Compact for Fair Funding, Boyes-Watson’s outfit aims to help NGOs ready to take the plunge to reshape their business models from implementers to being more like facilitators.
His work is informed by his experience at disability charity ADD International, which he said is overhauling from a traditional INGO to a participatory grant-maker for disability justice. “Now I'm advising other people on similar journeys,” he said.
So what do the organisations coming to him for help have in common?
Buy in: “The board has to get it. The board and leadership need to be pretty aligned on what that vision looks like,” said Boyes-Watson. “If there’s even just some non-alignment within that group, everything gets stuck, the change doesn't happen. They just spin around, talking about change for ages and ages.”
Don’t ride two horses: “If you want to ride the old model of funding or business model, it's tough to do that well, so you have to do that and be focused on it,” said Boyes-Watson. “If you try to ride both horses at once – then you are just going to run the organisation into trouble, financial difficulty.” What usually happens next is “people snap back to the old model, because that's the way they knew how to survive”, he added.
Omelettes break eggs: “We can’t downsize the INGO sector without losing cost and therefore people,” said Boyes-Watson. He acknowledged losing staff is “not easy” but said staff often want change too – they just “don't want it to have negative consequences for them”. Understandably.
No silver bullet: “The solutions are already here. It's just about management and leadership,” he said. “We need to get aligned and get on with implementing them.”
Data points|
Monday marked World Humanitarian Day, a bleak milestone as data revealed at least 176 humanitarian workers have been killed in 2024 so far, a rate that is set to match 2023’s record numbers of deaths, according to research by Humanitarian Outcomes.
But the data also revealed a sliver of good news: Kidnappings of aid workers are at their lowest level since 2017, with 91 people taken hostage in 2023 compared to more than twice that number (195) in 2022. “The largest drop was seen in Ukraine, where battle lines have stabilised, and the number of kidnapped aid workers fell to zero after a total of 39 in 2022,” wrote the researchers. But the biggest declines were observed in Mali and Burkina Faso, where researchers said changing conflict dynamics had “temporarily created more secure conditions in some areas”.
52 (and counting): The number of days the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has been without a leader. Grumbles are growing among humanitarians about the lack of a replacement for former head of OCHA, Martin Griffiths, who stepped down on 30 June but has not yet been replaced. An email from TNH to an OCHA spokesman asking for a steer on who the new leader is was met with “you don’t really expect us to comment on that?” Better than completely stonewalling, I guess?
Acronymage|
EW4A: Early Warnings for All. An initiative led by UN Secretary-General António Guterres that aims to ensure global coverage of natural disaster warning systems by 2027.
CREWS: Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems. A funding mechanism to help pay for weather alerts in low-income countries and small island states.
NMHSs: National Meteorological and Hydrological Services, the organisations who provide citizens forecasts, warning of natural disasters ahead.
End quote|
“This is just the beginning of the unravelling. In the meantime those relying on IRC support and resources are left behind.” – Moses Isooba, Executive Director of the Uganda National NGO Forum, responds to news of cutbacks at the International Rescue Committee.
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