It’s tempting to be sceptical about the Grand Bargain, but what can we learn?
The Cash Workstream is one of the Grand Bargain’s success stories. Photo credit: Andy Thrasher/Flickr
Grand Bargain Sherpas and invited guests meet today to discuss progress on and the future of the Grand Bargain. Despite the ‘participation revolution’ being a fundamental driver of the Grand Bargain in 2016 and its second iteration (Grand Bargain 2.0), the system-wide failure to increase participation and ‘local’ decision-making in humanitarian planning remains its weakness.
The continued lack of meaningful action on community engagement (in its many forms: inclusion, participation, localisation, accountability) has, in some ways, stunned its experts and principal activists into relative silence. ODI’s 2021 independent review of the Grand Bargain again scathes the Participation Revolution Workstream and signatories’ narrow focus on feedback mechanisms without follow-up and engagement. That there is ‘scant evidence on how aid organisations are using … feedback to inform programming decisions’ or that ‘views of affected populations are [not] factored in from the outset of a programme or project design phase’ will not – or certainly should not – surprise anyone.
Beyond the Participation Revolution Workstream, ODI’s report notes slow progress on localisation and inclusion more broadly, as well as a reduction in proportionate funding to national responders, despite an increase in financial assistance overall. These areas of slow, or worsening, progress share common themes of accountability, engagement, power-ceding – and generally areas of focus that may be difficult to measure and tricky to define.
At this year’s meeting, participants will need to refocus on the opportunity provided by the Grand Bargain to bring a wide range of actors together to identify and solve common barriers. It is tempting to view the prospect of yet another meeting in Geneva with a healthy dose of scepticism. But perhaps we should consider what can be learned from success stories in the Grand Bargain so far.
According to ODI, one success story is the Cash Workstream, which in 2021 determined its work under this forum to be complete. On the surface, comparisons between the two appear difficult: cash is tangible and attractive, while accountability and participation can be nebulous and hard to measure. Yet many of the same operational challenges exist, particularly when it comes to collaboration and partnership.
So, what can we learn from the cash success story to help deepen engagement of affected people and communities through the Grand Bargain?
Lessons from the Cash Workstream
1. Convene experts from across the sector
Rather than fragmenting the issue, cash-based programming has always had the advantage of uniting diverse expertise behind a common anticipated outcome. The workstream was no different: issues such as data security and safety, private sector partnerships, gender and disability inclusion were all discussed within the workstream, engaging multiple stakeholders from across humanitarian action.
2. Admit ‘we’ are the problem
Relieved of focusing on ‘trickier’ issues of inclusion and participation, the Cash Workstream focused almost exclusively on targeting and overcoming practical barriers within the sector preventing more successful collaboration, such as terminology, common budgeting and financial accounting, and monitoring and evaluation. This produced outputs that in turn improved inclusion, such as an agreed glossary of terms, common multi-sector indicators for measuring impact, data standards and a standard template for budgeting.
3. Provide sufficient funding to support collaboration
Success of the Cash Workstream was correctly attributed to the significant investment made by its participants and by networks such as the Cash Learning Partnership. Agencies, including donors and the UN, were willing to dedicate considerable time and financial resources to collaborative action. This is directly reflected in the speed and scale at which cash has grown in prevalence over the last two decades. A similar level of urgency to come together around barriers to participation and engagement could yield similar results.
4. High-level donor commitment
Donors were active participants in the Cash Workstream, driving progress towards principles determined in 2019 through the Common Donor Approach to humanitarian cash programming. This joint statement identified five common principles of cash programming, focusing on critical opportunities and decisions throughout the humanitarian programme cycle, including accountability, engagement, technology, needs analysis and evaluation. High-level donor engagement, under the auspices of the Grand Bargain, drove similar collaborative initiatives from UN agencies and INGOs.
5. Identify solutions to political blockages
Resist the sector-wide temptation to push political blockages ‘downstream’ and provide only working-level solutions to issues that are stuck in high-level decision-making. The Cash Workstream identified cash coordination as a critical political blockage. Instead of projectising a solution, the issue was framed, evidenced and presented for high-level resolution. Caucuses on quality funding and intermediaries will go some way to redressing power imbalances, which will somewhat improve the appropriateness of aid, but they remain steps removed from accountability to and participation of people at the centre of humanitarian responses.
If the Cash Workstream success is anything to draw from, the conversation on meaningful participation needs to be simplified, and not further fragmented by addressing different determinants under separate areas of action. It needs to attract expertise from across the sector to tackle both practical and political blockages to engagement, making strong links with quality funding and localisation goals. And it needs generous and sustained resourcing to maintain and uphold existing workplans and engagement of its participants.
Silos are ubiquitous in humanitarian action, but it is still surprising that there is not broader interest and participation when it comes to accountability and inclusion of communities in decision-making. It is worth noting that cash is not the only workstream to have relocated its core actions outside the Grand Bargain: needs assessment and nexus conversations have also wrapped up, for example. Though perhaps appropriate and even commendable, it seems reasonable to ask how any action areas have concluded when a ‘participation revolution’ has not yet been achieved. So, I conclude by inviting experts, activists and humanitarian revolutionaries from across the sector to join the discussion and accelerate progress in the coming years, inside and outside the Grand Bargain.
CDAC Network is the global alliance of more than 35 leading humanitarian agencies, including media development, social innovation, UN, Red Cross/Red Crescent and NGOs. We came together in 2009 and, as a network and as individual agencies, have since driven systems change in communication, community engagement and accountability. CDAC is an active participant in the Participation Revolution Workstream and we endorse and continue to contribute to the workplan for 2021/22.
About the author: Rosie Jackson is Director of Policy and Innovation at CDAC Network. She previously co-chaired the Grand Bargain Cash Workstream in her role with the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. Contact Rosie at rosie.jackson@cdacnetwork.org.
For more information about CDAC Network, or if you are interested in writing an opinion piece for us, contact our Senior Communications and Digital Manager, Hannah Bass: hannah.bass@cdacnetwork.org.