Inklings | What new jobs say about NGO expansion and local aid

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Today: OCHA enters its donor era, and are big aid groups using pooled funds to grow?

Pooled fun |

Pooled funds should be a niche humanitarian topic, even in a sector built on niches. But when the system paddles a fifth of its cash through UN pooled funds, you strap on the inflatable armbands and hop in as the world burns. UN agencies and big NGOs certainly have.

The money from that $2 billion in US cash is now heading out the door, mostly through international aid groups. Quick recap: the UN’s humanitarian coordination arm, OCHA, touted its pooled funds as a localisation lever, signed a deal to exclusively handle US humanitarian money, then set aside an overwhelming share of it for pre-selected international groups. A few more observations, questions, and tidbits found floating by the skimmer…

OCHA is entering its donor era: OCHA’s much-interrogated decision to court US cash has given it a new side hustle as a grant administrator for American funding. Recent job postings show how other aid groups see OCHA not only as a coordinator, but as a donor alongside governments and institutions.

• ‘The OCHA project’: Some of the language is striking. For example, INTERSOS, the all-caps Italian NGO, recently posted this ad for a ”USG finance manager (OCHA)” in Nigeria. The role will presumably exclusively handle US government funding sent through what’s repeatedly called “the OCHA project” or “the OCHA grant”. The role ensures compliance “while strictly adhering to OCHA-specific donor protocols”, the ad states. INTERSOS, which is not shouting at you, has been given $6.9 million from the OCHA-run pooled fund for Nigeria, according to UN stats.
• Der geber: Or there’s Germany’s Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe, which is looking for a Dakar-based programme manager who will be “approaching and maintaining relationships with regional donors such as ECHO and OCHA”.
• Prosper: Or Mercy Corps, which is looking for an emergency programme manager in Haiti. The ideal candidate, the soon-to-be Prosper Global says, will have “solid experience in maintaining relationships with donors and partners of DOS and UN funds (Pooled Funds).” DOS = the US State Department, which inked the deal to pour all US humanitarian funding into the OCHA pool. Similarly, Irish NGO GOAL is looking for a country director with a record of tapping funds from “donors such as USG, DOS, OCHA, ECHO, and Irish Aid”.
  • FYI: The proper demonym for a GOAL employee is “GOALie”.
• ‘Funded by OCHA’: But OCHA may not want to be seen as a donor. Branding guidelines (aka “visibility requirements”) shared with US grant recipients state that the money should be attributed to individual pooled funds – not OCHA. The list of language no-nos include “funded by OCHA” and “OCHA funding”. Then again, spelling out visibility requirements is a real donor move, no?
  • Impact: Those guidelines, BTW, demand a stream of publicity deliverables, including a minimum of two social media posts, six high-quality photos, and at least one “impact story” of up to 700 words per project. So, expect your timelines to be firehosed with impact in the coming weeks.

Local aid |

Do you even lift, bro: Astute readers may recall that Save the Children announced it would stop seeking UN country-based pooled funding in 2026, used it to promote its own emergency fund, highlighted it as proof of its localisation commitment in its 2026 humanitarian plan, then stood in line to receive millions in pooled funding. Worry not: It most definitely has not in any way changed its policy. 

The various Save the Childrens (or is it Saves the Children?) may well reach their caveat-tinged goal to partially withdraw. What about their NGO counterparts? For now, an entirely unscientific scan of recent postings suggests a modest bump in humanitarian job ads for roles in countries that have seen an injection of some of that $2 billion in US cash. Some international groups are explicitly targeting pooled funds for revenue and growth.

• Expansion: The International Rescue Committee recently had 24(!) Bangladesh job ads posted on its website, mainly in Cox’s Bazar – where the sprawling Rohingya camps have long been a circus of competing UN and NGO logos. Seeing dwindling global interest and donor funding, local aid groups have for nearly a decade urged their international counterparts to plan a transition to local leadership. The IRC job description for a country director suggests some NGOs are planning the opposite: expansion and growth. The IRC, for example, wants its country director to actively “expand” programming: “They will focus on growing the portfolio of the country program to maximise scale, reach, and impact.” The IRC was pre-allocated $2 million from the UN pooled fund covering Bangladesh. Local organisations appear to have received $0 in direct funding.
• Growth: In South Sudan, the Danish Refugee Council is searching for a country director to ”ensure financial stability and growth, enabling the expansion and continuity of mission-critical programs”. When the Trump administration cut US aid funding overnight last year, humanitarian leaders in South Sudan said international agencies seemed to disappear just as quickly. DRC was awarded $1.79 million from the UN pooled fund for South Sudan.
• ‘Increase the population’: Catholic Relief Services, which was awarded $4 million from the pooled fund covering Chad, is looking for an emergency coordinator who should “always [be] seeking opportunities to diversify CRS’ offering and to increase the population that CRS is able to serve” – which is really odd wording, if you think about it, for a sector that should be aiming to decrease people in need. Familiarity with OCHA and State Department priorities, the ad notes, is preferred.
• Local aid: Few humanitarians we’ve chatted with over the past month or more are surprised by how international agencies dominated pooled fund allocations. Among local humanitarian leaders: Some haven’t spent much more time thinking about money they knew they weren’t getting; some are still bothered in ways their international counterparts may be unwise to ignore. On a related note: INTERSOS is hiring a manager overseeing partnerships and localisation in Chad – where the international NGO received $4.5 million in direct pooled fund grants, and where local NGOs got $0.
• Help wanted: OCHA, meanwhile, is hiring an intern to focus on its flagship pooled fund, the Central Emergency Response Fund. Fittingly, the role is unpaid.

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