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Today: What’s next for the humanitarian reset and Grand Bargain, who’s fundraising off Gaza, and why bureaucracy is “suffocating” aid in Sudan.
On the radar |
What’s going on with the Grand Bargain: The humanitarian sector’s ageing reform pact will live to fight another day, but in what shape? Signatories to the Grand Bargain met in Geneva this month to weigh the future of a pact that produced 51 promises on everything from local leadership to cash aid, but decidedly fewer results over the past decade. The broad consensus – with a sprinkle of reluctance in some corners – is that the Grand Bargain should evolve and continue past its 2026 expiry date. But what that looks like in practice is TBD. “Something will continue,” said one attendee at the annual meeting. “Whether we call it the Grand Bargain, and what it looks like, is relatively open.”
- What people want: At least five signatories (out of 70-ish) wanted the Grand Bargain to end outright after 2026, an attendee said: This included a UN agency, three international NGOs, and a donor government (not everyone we spoke to was certain about who stood where). Among international organisations, some believe the Grand Bargain should reduce its scope and become more of a dialogue platform. One donor country suggested it become more “political” – a collective voice of reform. Many local organisations present believed that shutting down the Grand Bargain would be irresponsible. In what other global forum can grassroots responders table ideas and be heard? Still, after years of incremental change and fudged numbers on localisation, the frustration is also clear: “Is the Grand Bargain worth our time?” members of the local civil society network NEAR wrote in a statement.
- Levers: One unique selling point of today’s version of the Grand Bargain is that it brings together humanitarian power-holders and frontline responders on a nominally equal footing: It’s rare to have UN agencies, international NGOs, local organisations, and donors around the same table. But the Grand Bargain itself isn’t a decision-making body: It lacks levers or the mandate to do much if its members don’t keep their own promises on localising aid, for example.
- Next steps: Three Grand Bargain ambassadors and a facilitation group – essentially appointees meant to provide guidance, and a committee to steer its work – will draft a proposal for what the next bargain could be. The aim is for consultations over the next year, and the “future platform” to be agreed on at the next annual meeting in October 2026. Initial indications include moving into more of an accountability role, or becoming “an accelerator for broader system transformation”, according to a summary note published after the meeting.
- From bargains to resets: The fate of the Grand Bargain itself is a sign of how the humanitarian sector deals with reform. Born amid glitz and optimism at 2016’s World Humanitarian Summit, the pact had ambitions to close a growing funding gap and spark donor buy-in by making aid more efficient, effective, accountable, inclusive, and locally led. Sound familiar? Today, the Grand Bargain has been whittled down to a gathering that can cram its annual meeting into an albeit flashy room at the Geneva headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross. One frequent point raised at this year’s annual meeting: The Grand Bargain should be leaner. This prompted more than one attendee to ask: How much more skinny can it get? The Grand Bargain infrastructure amounts mostly to a couple of staff positions hosted by a member organisation. Its output is fuelled by a phalanx of volunteer labour and brainpower, and the time and resources organisations choose to set aside.
- Aidspeak: The Grand Bargain process mirrors the wider systems that birthed it. It’s opaque, with little publicity or public engagement beyond what individual attendees make time for. It loves “workstreams” and quaint titles like sherpas and eminent persons. And it speaks in the same blurry sociolect. Attendees were given this discussion prompt before one session: “Can we re-conceptualise humanitarian aid as an ecosystem which enables interoperability among frameworks and protocols?”
Remember the humanitarian reset? Speaking of closed doors: Senior leaders representing the dominant parts of the humanitarian system gather in New York on 28 October. Among other things, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee principals are tasked with staking a path forward on the “humanitarian reset” – the collage of cost-cutting and coordination changes meant to close a growing funding gap and spark donor buy-in by making aid more efficient, effective, accountable, inclusive, and locally led.
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Roadmaps: There’s an hour blocked off to discuss next steps for the reset. The meeting agenda describes the purpose: “Shift from commitments to delivery, defining 2026 priorities, and clarifying where principals’ collective leadership is most needed.” A rather broad reset roadmap has been floating around since September. One of two points listed as being “delivered”: “Streamline IASC structures by reducing layers and meetings”.
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Lowered expectations: If you feel underwhelmed, you’re not alone. The reset is not a reform agenda: It was born as a delayed response to the Trump-worsened aid cuts that overwhelmed the sector this year. Deep cuts, previously planned efficiency changes, and a dash of reform aspirations were mixed with a liberal dose of rhetorical flourish. Moving forward with the reset now means “managing expectations”, said a senior humanitarian leader familiar with the reset discussions.
Money matters |
The international humanitarian system is attempting to scale up in Gaza, amid a ceasefire in which Israel has reportedly killed dozens of Palestinians and continued to block aid.
Will that mean a return to blustery, full-throated fundraising? A few NGOs and at least one UN agency have boosted Gaza-related appeals to the top of their homepages:
Acronymage |
NRC: Will the humanitarian reset grow its own mini-ecosystem? Earlier this month, the Norwegian Refugee Council posted an ad for a consultant “reset advisor” to help the INGO Forum in Myanmar to, in part, navigate and influence “the reset” as well as broader reforms. An ad for a coordinator for the INGO Forum in Mozambique, where reset-related changes and poor consultation sparked confusion, lists engagement with the reset as one of several responsibilities.
HAC: The Sudanese government’s Humanitarian Aid Commission is ”slowly suffocating relief efforts and turning vital lifelines into trickles of delayed aid”, according to reporting by Ayin Media, a Sudanese news service. The reporting describes moves to control aid through bureaucracy, bribe demands, and attempts to sideline community emergency response rooms in favour of government-picked groups.
End quote |
“Why don’t you meet in Bangkok? The food is fabulous.”
For all of its reformist energy and (relative) inclusivity, the Grand Bargain is still a product of a global system.
“It was your bargain, not my bargain,” Puji Pujiono, a humanitarian leader and reform advocate from Indonesia, said on stage during a panel at last week’s AidEx trade show in Geneva (which appeared to feature fewer bullet-ridden vehicles and all-Global North panels than usual).
Grassroots humanitarians organise, change, and get to work regardless of what happens in international hubs, he said. The question is whether the global system continues on its path, or meets the change where it’s happening.
And on that, Puji had other questions. Why do humanitarians always insist on meeting in places like Geneva, he asked: “Why don’t you meet in Bangkok? The food is fabulous.”
Have any tips, recommendations, or indecipherable acronyms to share with the Inklings newsletter? Get in touch: [email protected]
