The Value for Money of Multi-Year Humanitarian Funding: Emerging Findings
This study is collecting data on Multi-Year Humanitarian Funding and what it means for changes in programming and outcomes
Abstract
The last decade has seen major growth in humanitarian need, putting the international humanitarian system under pressure and stretching donor resources. Within this context, the Department for International Development (DFID) introduced multi-year humanitarian funding (MYHF) for protracted conflicts in 2014. This recognised the long-term nature of many of the top recipients of humanitarian aid. Multi-year humanitarian financing has moved from being an esoteric instrument to an increasingly mainstream part of protracted crisis financing.
This study is still collecting data on what this means in terms of changes in programming and ultimately outcomes. There is a definite benefit in terms of planning, programme design and a change in approach that this can bring about. These benefits remain tentative in the programmes under examination (DRC, Ethiopia, Sudan and Pakistan) and a lot more work will need to be done to ensure such gains become routine. There are also many hurdles still to overcome.
Systems have been built over many years to deliver short term programming, and these cannot be unravelled overnight. In fact, the very word humanitarian has become synonymous with short term intervention, a significant philosophical and psychological barrier to implementing longer term approaches. And yet complex problems like chronic and acute malnutrition have proven stubbornly resistant to quick fixes. There is a major gap in terms of data to prove the value case, meaning the hypothesis that MYHF can lead to more efficient aid is only partly proven. Once more, systems design within agencies may be a large part of the issue.
This report is part of ‘Building resilience and responding to crises in fragile and conflict-affected states: A thematic evaluation of DFID’s multi-year approaches to chronic/protracted humanitarian crises in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Sudan and Pakistan’
Citation
Cabot Venton, C., Sida, L. (2017) The Value for Money of Multi-Year Humanitarian Funding: Emerging Findings Valid International, Oxford, 44p
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