Multi-year
Cases
Humanitarian
Lessons Review
01 May 2014 to 26 February 2015
CHASE
26 February 2015
Business
Executive Summary
The Humanitarian Emergency Response Review (HERR) of 2010 noted that
DFID can use the way it funds to change the incentives facing players in the
global humanitarian system. It recommended a “step change” in greater
predictability of funding, particularly through multi-year arrangements, to
create an incentive to tackle protracted crises. Following this, several DFID
country offices (as well as two regional programmes managed from London)
began to test multi-year humanitarian funding arrangements. CHASE carried
out a review to identify the lessons learned from these early experiences of
designing and implementing multi-year humanitarian programming. The main
lessons identified are below; the lessons can be used as links to the relevant
discussion on them in the text.
Lessons identified
1. Multi-year arrangements save time on ‘process’ over their full life (see 2.
below though). Staff report using this time for strategic thinking, support to
more complex partner arrangements (e.g. consortia or more strategic
relationships), and enhanced monitoring & evaluation.
2. A multi-year arrangement is more time intensive in the design phase with
more DFID and partner resources needed at this stage.
3. Alignment of relevant cycles – DFID’s planning and reporting cycle, partners’
planning and reporting cycle, and relevant seasonal cycles – should be
factored in from the outset; mis-timing in business case approval can
undermine longer-term programmes’ chances of demonstrating success.
4. Extra DFID efforts will be needed to communicate to partners and other
donors that a multi-year arrangement is in place /possible, and to continually
advocate for higher-order (resilience) results on that basis.
5. Providing multi-year funding does not automatically lead to multi-year
programmes; the ‘cascading’ of funds from DFID to ‘downstream’ partners
may continue to be handled on an annual basis.
6. Partners need time to make organisational adjustments to reflect the ambition
and innovation proposed in multi-year business cases. This should be taken
into account, with options for a ‘transition period’ or bridge between activities
to maximise the use of DFID funds.
7. Multi-year arrangements can facilitate programmes that deliver ‘system
strengthening’ for the humanitarian system in-country more easily than annual
approaches.
8. Existing standard monitoring tools – designed on an implicit assumption of
annual programming – are flexible enough to monitor multi-year funding as
long as the supporting documents explicitly determine multiyear targets, and
review teams address multi-year issues in the process.
9. Flexibility in multi-year design is essential. Although the optimal level of
contingency funds is unclear, they are considered essential to respond to
unexpected humanitarian need and unexpected humanitarian response
system faults alike.
2
Contents
Executive Summary ......................................................................................... 2
A.
The Theory of multi-year humanitarian funding ...................................... 6
B.
Practice of multi-year humanitarian funding ........................................... 7
C.
Lessons Identified .................................................................................. 9
i.
Time saving and timing .......................................................................... 9
ii.
‘Cascading’ funds ................................................................................. 13
iii.
Partner and government relationships .............................................. 15
iv.
Types of programmes ....................................................................... 16
v. Monitoring, evaluation, and learning .................................................... 17
vi.
Contingency and preparedness ........................................................ 19
D.
Annex 1: Grid of approaches to multi-year arrangements .................... 21
E.
Annex 2: Methodology ......................................................................... 22
F. References .............................................................................................. 23
Figure 1: Map of countries where multi-year humanitarian programmes are
running ............................................................................................................. 4
Figure 2: Generic Theory of Change for multi-year humanitarian funding ....... 5
Figure 3: Indicative timelines for developing the multi-year business case .... 12
Figure 4: Bottlenecks in funds transfer? ......................................................... 14
3
Figure 1: Map of countries where multi-year humanitarian programmes are running (click to edit)
Multi-year humanitarian business cases
Syria region (Syria, Lebanon,
Jordan, Turkey): £700m over
approx. 2 years
Pakistan: £100m over 4 years
Bangladesh: £20m over 5 years
Sahel (Mauritania, Niger, Mali,
Chad, Burkina Faso): £139m over
3.25 years
Sudan: £109m over 3 years
Burma: £40.7m (27.2+13.5) over
2.5/3 years
DR Congo: £135m over 4 years
Mozambique: £4.89m over 5 years
Yemen: £55.5m (38+12.6+4.9) over
2 years
Ethiopia: £115m (75+25+22) over 3
years
Key
Umbrella approach
Thematic approach
Partner-specific approach
Kenya: £60.8m (44+16.8) over 3
years
Somalia: £145m over 4 years
Total: £1.7 billion
Total ex. Syria: £947 million
4
Figure 2: Generic Theory of Change for multi-year humanitarian funding
Can’t tackle
root causes
Can't measure
long-term
success
Projects
needing high
trust excluded
Gains reversed
by
(foreseeable)
spikes in need
Funding cycles
are linked to
systemic shorttermist
features e.g.
short contracts
Annualised
funding cycle
constitutional
for many
donors
Make multi-year funding available
to: INGOs; Multilateral agencies
High
(recurring)
costs
Build contingency funds into multiyear business cases
Problems
DFID
Actions
Assuming
Outcomes
Outputs
1. MY
approval
passed
through to end
implementers
2. Funds used
for long-term
activities, not
urgent gapfilling
3.
Implementers
invest in longterm
relationships
4. Partners
can set up
adequate
finance/admin
support for MY
5. Early
warning data
sufficient to
support
contingency
triggers
Reduced admin &
operational costs
for DFID & partners
Mid-term aims to: Build
assets; Address structural
challenges; Reduce
extreme vulnerability;
Build resilience;
become more common
Fuller, sustained dialogue
with national & local
authorities
Better access to
beneficiaries & better
beneficiary feedback
mechanisms
Partners tailor admin
processes to MY
Greater partner flexibility
to changing conditions
e.g. scale-up
Partners increase
investment in long-term
(national) staff capacity
Trigger indicators preagreed
6. Cost
savings
go to
improving
quality of
programm
-ing
7.
Implemen
ters and
authorities
learn &
adapt
8.
Oversight
of triggers
does not
slow
action
More resources
to learning ‘what
works’
Longer-term,
tailored, strategic
programmes
emerge
Smoother
transition to
development
More skilled
implementing
staff
Greater partner
confidence in
advocacy
Improved DFID
financial
management
9. Learning
& VFM raise
quality
10. Review
frequency,
optimism
bias &
remedial
action are
the same (or
higher) as
for annual
funds
Impact:
Humanitarian
programming
manages risk,
addresses root
causes, and
ultimately
shortens suffering
More timely
interventions
based on
triggers
5
A. The Theory of multi-year humanitarian funding
The theory behind multi-year humanitarian funding for protracted
humanitarian settings is that a multi-year approach will “improve cost and
administrative efficiency [and] improve the effectiveness [and] the timeliness
of interventions”. These improvements will come through administrative and
operational cost savings (e.g. through advance procurement), through
creating time and space for trying and learning from new programmes, and
through making investments in relationships and capacity to be able to
implement more strategic long-term programmes.1
Many of the foreseen benefits of multi-year approaches are simply the
removal of some of the absurdities of annualised (or even shorter) funding
cycles in years/decades long humanitarian settings – yearly preparation of
new proposals for similar activities, short and unpredictable contracts that
lead to high staff turnover, procurement at short notice and high cost, etc..
There are also higher order potential benefits, related to strengthening the
skills, relationships, and systems that are used to respond to humanitarian
needs and so changing the nature of possible interventions.
There are several types of multi-year funding solutions within DFID. Some
arrangements are managed centrally, such as Programme Partnership
Arrangements (PPAs) with NGO partners or multilateral partnerships in
disaster preparedness and climate adaptation. But much of the investment in
multi-year funding has been at country and regional level, and this is what the
practice discussed here focuses on.
The theory of this kind of country level multi-year humanitarian financing has
been outlined in many places. The ‘generic’ Theory of Change in Figure 2
tries to unify these sources. It draws mostly on the Humanitarian Emergency
Response Review (HERR), the Guidance on Multi-year Humanitarian funding,
a study on the value for money of multi-year humanitarian funding, and from
insights from interviews done for this review (you can see all the document
sources in the References section).
1
DFID CHASE, 2013, Responding to chronic crises, vulnerability and predictable spikes in need: the
design of effective humanitarian and development financing instruments
6
B. Practice of multi-year humanitarian funding
Multi-year humanitarian funding was stepped up in DFID from 2011 on,
although some multi-year funding (e.g. through pooled fund mechanisms) had
been done before that. There are now ten country offices running 15 multiyear humanitarian programmes – Bangladesh, Burma, Democratic Republic
of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, and
Yemen. There are also two regions covered from London – the Sahel, and
Syria region – with another three multi-year business cases active for a total
of 18.2 A multi-year business case is being developed for Afghanistan.
The business cases range from two to five years, although the most common
length is three years. The total amount programmed is almost £1.7 billion, or
£947 million if Syria is excluded, with an average size of £63 million
(excluding Syria). During the 2012-2013 DFID financial year, multi-year
humanitarian funding made up an estimated 12 percent of all bilateral
humanitarian funding.
A majority of the business cases are written for contexts that face both natural
and conflict hazards. These range from conflicts that are very dynamic (Syria)
to currently less visible (Burma), and from highly predictable natural hazards
(monsoon in Bangladesh) to chronic underlying natural risks that are less
easily predicted (drought risk in Horn of Africa).
DFID has partnered with a wide range of organisations to implement the
overall design of each business case. The most frequent partners are ICRC,
UNICEF, WFP, and UNHCR from the multilateral side; a wide range of NGOs
are partners with Save the Children, CARE, and Oxfam most frequent. This
range of partners expands when downstream partners are considered though
it hasn’t been possible to map these in the context of this review.
In practice, three ways of doing multi-year funding have emerged in DFID.
The first is a kind of ‘umbrella’ arrangement, that covers many sectors and
many partners, and in the case of regional approaches, many countries. A
second is a ‘thematic’ arrangement that covers many partners, but a single,
often cross-sectoral, ‘theme’. Finally, there are ‘partner-specific’ arrangements
where a single partner may cover one or many sectors. For example, both
DFID Ethiopia and DFID Kenya fund nutrition-focused multi-year
programmes. DFID Ethiopia has a single partner (WFP), DFID Kenya works
through both UNICEF and NGOs; the first is a partner-specific approach, the
second ‘thematic’. This paper tries to separate lessons related to each of
these specific arrangements, though this isn’t often possible. A grid showing
suggested advantages and disadvantages of each approach is at Annex 1.
2
Some of these have ‘sister’ business cases designed to work on institutional capacity for disaster risk
reduction, climate change adaptation, social protection etc. The ‘BRACED’ business case for the Sahel,
a disaster resilience business case for Pakistan, and separate programmes such as the Productive
Safety Nets Programme in Ethiopia are closely connected to the business cases discussed here.
7
This is a snapshot of where multi-year humanitarian programming is at the
end of 2014; the next section goes into more detail on the process of
developing the business cases, their content and the programming that’s
come from them, and the lessons learned from the early experiences of
implementation. The methodology used to identify lessons is at Annex 2.
8
C. Lessons Identified
i. Time saving and timing
One of the major anticipated benefits of multi-year funding was that it would
shift time and money away from the ‘transaction costs’ of requesting,
approving, and managing funds to implementation tasks such as planning,
monitoring, and learning. This benefit was widely, though not universally
reported among DFID advisers. Feedback was that the "admin burden is a lot
less" with multi-year arrangements.
Part of this is attributable to a business case process that was considered
“onerous” anyway, and that may improve with introduction of the ‘Smart
Rules’. However, the multi-year nature of the business case itself was
reported by most to still save time just from “not having to do same thing
every year”. One adviser estimated the time saving was equivalent to about
two months in each year subsequent to approval. There was a strong feeling
that these admin time-savings alone meant that multi-year funding “just
makes sense" and that cutting down business case writing time has “got to be
a good benefit”. Expected time savings weren’t always realised – the
complexity of some business cases, with many partners, sectors, and areas to
cover (‘umbrella’ business cases) resulted in heavier design and, later, review
processes than normal. For the Syria business case, the largest that DFID
has worked with, this was a considerable challenge.
What did advisers do with the time saved in subsequent years? It was
reported that this went into planning (including strategic planning) and
monitoring. It also seems that a lot of saved time was diverted to partner
relationships.3 Many countries have quarterly meetings with partners,
additional to the agreed reporting as a kind of governance forum and to
discuss progress (see below under Partner and Government relationships). In
these, Advisers reported the feeling that they are still ‘selling’ the multi-year
approach to some partners.
1) Multi-year arrangements save time on ‘process’ over their full life
(see 2) below though). Staff report using this time for strategic
thinking, support to more complex partner arrangements (e.g.
consortia or more strategic relationships), and enhanced monitoring
& evaluation.
That said, it was clear that multi-year funding was found to become timesaving only after the first year. Doing the business cases in the first place was
at least as, but often more time consuming than for an annual programme.
3
This may be linked to consortia arrangements. Many countries opted to work with consortia of
NGOs, including Yemen, DRC, and Somalia. Yemen produced a list of their lessons learned from
releasing the call for proposals for this arrangement.
9
This extra time mostly came from more complex design. Deeper analysis for
complex design means “slowing [the] whole process down”, new
arrangements with partners such as consortia added complexity, and it was
pointed out that as multi-year business cases are also likely to be larger in
funding they will meet with more compulsory scrutiny processes such as
needing review by the Quality Assurance Unit. For this reason, some Advisers
felt that requesting a longer timeframe – or an option to easily extend the
business case for more years – would have been a good idea.
UN agencies have fed back that multi-year commitments are felt to bring more
flexibility overall, even if monies are still programmed on an annual basis
UNHCR HQ). Further than that, the confidence of having multi-year funding
allows an increased risk-appetite for and confidence in working in some
difficult contexts (ICRC HQ).4
Not just time, but cost savings are part of the rationale for many multi-year
arrangements. Efficiency savings, security to negotiate longer-term
agreements, and greater flexibility in procurement are the main anticipated
drivers of such savings. A general calculation of the rate of cost savings
realised couldn’t be made in the course of this lessons review, although there
is a long-term evaluation that will be able to look into more detail on ‘value for
money’ questions. Early indications from the Ethiopia multi-year programme
with WFP however, are that savings of up to a third of the standard cost have
been possible through advance planning for local procurement of food relief at
the lowest prices (immediately after local harvests). This saving has been
translated not just into more of the same general relief, but was also used to
flexibly target specific groups such as pregnant and lactating women.5
2) A multi-year arrangement is more time intensive in the design phase
with more DFID and partner resources needed at this stage.
There are other interesting aspects of timing distinct from time-saving that
affect multi-year business cases. The actual date of the launch of the
business case, the inception phase, and the start of full implementation
emerged as an important element in interviews. Many Advisers reported that
one of the things they would do differently in the business case was to time it
better in relation to three other cycles – DFID’s planning and reporting cycle;
partners’ planning and reporting cycle; and to a lesser extent the seasonal
cycle (some countries don’t have strong seasonal effects).
For some, misalignment with these cycles caused minor “awkwardness” e.g.
necessitating an ‘extra’ Annual Review to make sure future Annual Reviews
could be done once partner reporting had been received and yearly from then
on. In other cases, having a number of activities under a single business case
4
This effect was noted in an evaluation of the Swedish Development Authority’s multi-year
frameworks for humanitarian assistance. See Mowjee and Randel, 2010, ‘Evaluation of Sida’s
Humanitarian Assistance: Final Synthesis Report’.
5
Ethiopia WFP 2014 Annual Review
10
led to a heavy process to complete many Annual Reviews simultaneously. But
it might have larger effects. One Adviser mentioned that a late release of
funds “undermined [the] evidence base from the outset” because a baseline
survey could not be carried out at the appropriate time. Unlike with annual
funding, this second example could have knock-on effects for the life of the
business case and make some work – multi-year livelihoods work is a good
example – harder to achieve or to demonstrate achievement even with
multiple years to invest in working on it.
The inception phase of multi-year business cases has varied though it’s
reported that the inception period is often hurried with agreements partfinished before it closes. This is not least because the multi-year funding is in
contexts where agencies typically have established systems, and to some
extent a mind-set, for delivering response programming. For example, it is
clear By the nature and ambition of multi-year financing, the inception phase
may need to include an emphasis on DFID joint policy planning. This would
facilitate more of a common vision on the aims of the business case and
policy collaboration.
A single appropriate timeframe for developing a business case can’t be
identified but Figure 3 below contains some examples that might provide
orientation for time management.
3) Alignment of cycles – DFID’s planning and reporting cycle, partners’
planning and reporting cycle, and relevant seasonal cycles – should
be factored in from the outset; mis-timing in business case approval,
for example, can undermine longer-term programmes’ chances of
demonstrating success.
11
Figure 3: Indicative timelines for developing the multi-year business case
June
Somalia
Start writing
Business case
August
Strategic case
approved
February
April
October
QAU and
other vetting
Approval of
Business Case
Start of
implementation
March/April
January
Framework
approved
Publication of
strategy and
call for
proposals
July
August
December
Approval of
Business Case
Evacuation of
Yemen office!
Start of
Implementation
Yemen
November
May
July
September
January
First
discussion of
ideas with
NGOs
Business case
submitted for
quality
assurance
Cleared through
Quality
Assurance Unit
Approval of
Business Case
Projected
start of
implementation
Sahel
12
ii. ‘Cascading’ funds
One lesson was neatly summed up by an Adviser as “just because you give
people multi-year money doesn’t mean you get multi-year strategies”. It might
be expected that there will be a certain lag-time between the approval of
multi-year funds and adaptation of strategies and programmes to take full
advantage of it. However, the feedback from advisers is that the rate of
adaptation is slower than expected and needed.
This was attributed partly to just being something that needs more time to
emerge as “It’s very new, a learning process”. Some partners may even have
overlooked that there wouldn’t be an annual chance to apply for funding in the
same way as with repeated annual processes. Even in the earlier business
cases approved in 2011 which are now nearing the end of their term, Advisers
reported that some partners have still not “got it”. A Bangladesh partner
reported that there is a “shift in the mindset” involved. In one case, a partner
returned funds when the humanitarian space contracted and they were unable
to utilise it – this was a large amount of funding as it was intended for multiyear use, and caused “a heap of headaches internally”. However, feedback
from this partner was that the flexibility to use funding as needed rather than
multi-year funding per se was required (see more on the need for flexibility
under Monitoring, evaluation, and learning below).
This review did not include discussions with funded agencies at the country
level, though feedback from DFID country offices suggests that agencies have
a stronger opportunity to reap benefits from multi-year funds if it is well
communicated, jointly planned, and comes with sufficient pre-agreed
contingency measures should the operational situation deteriorate.
There is still a sense in which "it's not clear what [implementers] are going to
do differently". Many Advisers stressed that the ‘big wins’ of multi-year funding
in terms of changed, resilient programming are not demonstrated (although
uncertainty about what resilience means in a given context confuses this).
Nevertheless, this applies very unevenly across partners, with some
responding well to the multi-year arrangement. At least in some cases there
have been proposals that are “a lot smarter, a lot more ambitious”.
One of the clearest possible benefits of moving to a multi-year arrangement is
to allow for programmes that seek to build resilience – that tackle underlying
vulnerabilities to prevent crises having repeated severe consequences for
affected people. Resilience-building programmes were probably the most
common kind that was mentioned by Advisers. However, it’s clear that since
resilience as a policy position and the multi-year funding that seeks to support
it are relatively new, there is still debate on resilience programmes. What
constitutes a good resilience programme, how does it differ to similar past
programmes, how do development actors fit in, and what resilience could
multi-year funding enable in contexts where wider aid machinery remains
geared towards response to shocks? As one Adviser said "you know that's
13
the right answer [resilience]... [but] no one really knows what that really
means".
4) Extra DFID efforts will be needed to communicate to partners and
other donors that a multi-year arrangement is in place /possible, and
to continually advocate for higher-order (resilience) results on that
basis.
As well as a sense that not all partners have grasped the opportunity
presented by multi-year funding, there is a large practical obstacle. Multi-year
funds approved in business cases are not ‘cascading’ through relevant
managing and implementing partners. This was found particularly in Kenya
and Ethiopia (two of the ‘oldest’ multi-year arrangements having started in
2011).
Kenya found that “one of the disadvantages of funding directly to the UN is
the lack of flexibility in passing on multi-year funding grants (and the potential
subsequent benefits) to operational partners”6 and Ethiopia that “[t]he major
issues with the [refugee support] programme during year one have derived
from delays within UNHCR’s sub-granting systems”.7 In the case of Ethiopia,
some downstream partners required two agreements in a single year (rather
than one that might cover several years) as their administrative year covered
part of two UNHCR administrative years.
DFID (HQ
or CO)
Multilateral
Agency
INGO
Local
implementer
Figure 4: Bottlenecks in
funds transfer?
This seems a much more durable
obstacle than the ‘lag-time’ needed for
partners to ‘bed in’ the idea of multi-year
funding. It relates to internal processes
(e.g UNHCR sub-granting) which DFID
has no direct influence on, and would
require an organisational change for
each relevant partner to alter, with all
the attendant difficulties of that. There is
only the most tenuous suggestion that
multi-year funding might act as an
incentive to such a change, e.g. it was
reported that UNHCR and WFP Ethiopia
offices managed to negotiate higher
levels of delegated authority for the
multi-year funds.8
6
DFID Kenya, 2014, Support for Refugees in Kenya 2012-2014: Annual Review 2
DFID Ethiopia, 2013, Medium Term Assistance to Refugees in Ethiopia Annual Review
8
DFID Kenya, 2014, Support for Refugees in Kenya 2012-2014: Annual Review 2, p. 11.
7
14
The consequences are potentially significant as it leaves the advantages of
multi-year funding restricted to the time and cost-saving benefits for DFID and
perhaps the immediate partner. “[A] lot of these benefits don’t make it down to
implementers” so changes in programming can’t be made even if a
downstream partner does ‘get it’. More than that, it may mean that the ‘big
wins’ of multi-year funding are not just delayed but fully out of reach wherever
a chain of partners is needed to implement programmes.
Where a UN agency partner is directly operational, for example like WFP in
Ethiopia, multi-year funding has significantly cut down on operational costs –
making an already efficient procurement process more so and preventing
gaps in the pipeline for food items. Several countries have opted to support
implementing partners directly through a consortium of INGOs9 – Yemen,
Somalia, Mozambique, Sudan, and Kenya have done this. The consortia
programming is not far enough advanced to comment on how the proposals
are being realised.
The ultimate lesson that should be taken from this situation is unclear, since
multilateral agencies will continue to play a role. Avoiding ‘intermediate’
partners would likely leave DFID’s administration capacity overburdened by a
higher number of smaller partners. Devoting effort to improving the ‘cascade’
of funds would likely reap some rewards but as above it’s unsure due to the
partner-specific internal processes involved. Spreading our bets by funding
some large intermediary partners, while also directly funding implementing
partners might offset some of the risks of funds getting ‘stuck’ within one
partner; but this could also represent the worst of both worlds by increasing
DFID’s admin burden but retaining the cascade problem. However, the
cascade problem and the need to allow for a period to make any possible
organisational adjustments are clear.
5) Providing multi-year funding does not automatically lead to multiyear programmes; the ‘cascading’ of funds from DFID to some or all
funded partners may continue to be handled as annual funding.
6) Partners need time to make organisational adjustments to reflect the
ambition and innovation proposed in multiyear business cases. This
should be taken into account, possibly with options for a ‘transition
period’ from annual activities to maximise the use of DFID funds.
iii. Partner and government relationships
Advisers generally reported some changes in their relationships with partners
as a result of moving to a multi-year arrangement, although this wasn’t
particularly emphasised. There is much that is the same across multi-year and
annual arrangements including type of partners, reports generated etc. A
9
However, there is also a blind spot on how funds supplied to a directly operational partner (most
likely to be an INGO) are then passed on to, say, local organisations for some of the implementation.
It’s been argued that such local actors are key in protracted crises, GSDRC (2011), p.9.
15
possible difference is that multi-year may favour established partners where
there is already a relationship of trust as a number of Advisers said they
looked for a ‘track record’ of performance when deciding on a longer-term
funding relationship.
Some changes in the relationship came in the form of governance
arrangements, especially quarterly meetings that covered horizon scanning or
‘mini annual reviews’. There may be more face to face meeting to discuss the
less conventional aspects of a programme, or to discuss “mid to longer-term
strategy”. In general, changes in partnership relationships seem to converge
around having a more strategic and less ‘transactional’ conversation as the
multi-year arrangement frees up time on both sides. A partner in Bangladesh
confirmed that the “relationship…is very different” under a multi-year
arrangement – suggesting the long-term investment gives DFID itself
incentive to support activities in other ways, such as attending meetings, or
liaising with government. However, as most offices worked with the same
partners on an annual funding basis as well as a multi-year basis, these
changes to relationships weren’t particularly striking.
Changes in relations to government were also mentioned. In stable
environments like Kenya multi-year funding enabled a closer cooperation with
government. This was partly attributed to multi-year commitments giving DFID
greater credibility, and partly as the multi-year approach allowed advisers to
adapt to government planning cycles even where they were different to
DFID’s or partners’. Contexts that are less stable or where the statehumanitarian relationship is antagonistic are more problematic. However, the
same effect was also noted at least in the early part of the multi-year
arrangement in Yemen, as DFID’s credibility as a partner was boosted
through its multi-year commitment. However, it’s not clear how this has
evolved with the deterioration in security and DFID evacuation.
Other donors seem to have reacted with interest to DFID’s adoption of multiyear financing at country level, but this hasn’t created any notable momentum
towards changing approaches (although the Sahel seems an exception to
this, as most donors and partners are moving to at least stronger multi-year
planning). While humanitarian country programmes are pushing ahead with
multi-year programming, DFID as a whole is generally reducing multi-year
commitments to partners – the percentage of funds provided by DFID to
partners as “3-year forward stipulations” has fallen from 90% in 2008 to 54%
in 2012 (a trend noted in other donors also).10 This is partly explained by the
shift in funding to fewer, generally poorer countries, and an increase in the
proportion of DFID priority countries that are classed as ‘fragile’ (20 out of 28
countries), where the risks of long-term development (not humanitarian)
funding are higher.
iv. Types of programmes
10
National Audit Office, ‘The performance of the Department for International Development 2013-14’, p. 33.
16
When asked about changes to programmes under multi-year arrangements
many of the examples mentioned seem to fit into the category of ‘system
strengthening’ programmes.
These programmes are aimed at building useful information banks and
processes across the country humanitarian system – bio-metric registration of
refugees in Kenya, beneficiary information management in Somalia, health
surveillance systems in DRC, and support to predictable flights and (possibly)
better needs assessments in Bangladesh.11 Under an annualised model, it
wasn’t considered impossible that these kinds of programmes could be done
– but certainly a lot more difficult. It would have made it difficult for the partner
to justify even starting this kind of programme, quite apart from the need to
have more than a year to set them up and start to see returns. Since many of
these programmes operate at a ‘system’ level, they seem less dependent on
multi-year funding being passed to downstream partners (the cascade
problem, above). A single large partner can steward the programme even if
there are several downstream partners, or in other cases the system support
is delivered by a single specialised organisation.
There was some suggestion that working on this system level also makes the
performance of such programmes vulnerable to systemic barriers – for
example, slow government approval processes that eat into even multi-year
timeframes.
7) Multi-year arrangements can facilitate programmes that deliver
‘system strengthening’ for the humanitarian system in-country more
easily than annual approaches.
The longer programmes also mean that it’s unlikely an Adviser will have
experience of the full programme life cycle. At some point, an Adviser will
probably either leave a multi-year programme that they’ve designed, or step in
to one that is mid-implementation. This seems likely to throw even more
weight on to the importance of handovers between staff.
v. Monitoring, evaluation, and learning
It came across very strongly from interviews that one of the major benefits
that a multi-year business case can deliver is flexibility. Advisers felt that there
is nothing that makes multi-year arrangements inherently more flexible than
annual ones, so the need to consciously design for flexibility was mentioned
again and again. Although multi-year arrangements intended for relatively
predictable risks and crises, it is naturally only possible to reliably predict that
the situation will continue not exactly how it will develop – "we don't know
11
Through Mission Aviation Fellowship and ACAPS respectively. The needs assessment work is still in
the planning stage due to
17
what the needs will be in year 2". Related to this, the need for more focused
risk analysis was highlighted.
This flexibility can be designed for in measures such as contingency funds
(see below), adjustable targeting, etc. It also has a lot of implications for how
monitoring, evaluation, and learning are approached. Some of the
suggestions made are:





A separate overarching logframe is preferable to a complex aggregate
of ‘nested’ logframes [Kenya, Yemen]
Targets should be adjustable for ‘spikes’ but the core indicators should
be the same in and out of ‘spikes’ in need [Kenya]
Logframe indicators should be identified very early on as a main output
of the inception phase [Ethiopia]
‘System strengthening’ indicators should be included in logframes
[Bangladesh]
Work in multiyear indicators to the annual review processes – building
a consensus on which level of information should be collected [DRC].
It was also asked whether Advisers found existing monitoring processes,
especially the Annual Review process, adequate to monitor multi-year
programmes. This was asked because of the output-based nature of the
Annual Review and the scoring of programmes on the basis of outputs.
Where programmes were designed towards longer-term outcomes, an output
scoring might not reflect the performance of the programme. Although some
Advisers noted that this emphasis wasn’t helpful, it was felt that the Annual
Review could still be made to do what’s needed. The way the Review process
is approached, and the qualitative information that can be included alongside
the scoring element, make a big difference.
8) Existing standard monitoring tools – designed on an implicit
assumption of annual programming – are flexible enough to monitor
multi-year funding as long as the supporting documents explicitly
determine multiyear targets, and review teams address multi-year
issues in the process.
Although the Annual Review and other monitoring processes such as
logframe targets were felt to be usable for multi-year programmes, some
countries have also made an unusually large investment in monitoring and
evaluation.12 Somalia is devoting 3% of the value of the business case to
evaluation. Many of the business cases have a separate output on ‘building
the evidence base’ for the multi-year programmes specifically.
In terms of monitoring performance within DFID’s existing systems, the
example of Syria is instructive. The two Syria business cases are both
‘umbrella’ designs, and cover a wide range of partners and several countries.
12
The median value of programmes devoted to evaluation in DFID is 1.9%, ‘Rapid Review of
Embedding Evaluation in UK Department for International Development’, p. 49.
18
Since DFID systems (ARIES) can only enter a single ‘component’ per country,
it was not possible to track both which country and which partner funding was
allocated to, only one or the other. This led to a blind spot on the level of
inputs that were going to each affected country in the region. To overcome
this, the Syria team will switch to several partner-specific business cases
instead. There are relatively few partner-specific business cases so far so it’s
not clear how this will go, but it is an example of where DFID systems
necessitated a design change, rather than showing the flexibility that was
possible in the case of Annual Reviews.
vi. Contingency and preparedness
Humanitarian programmes still have to be ready to provide urgent assistance
to people affected by crises even if aiming for longer-term gains in resilience.
Paying for both is something that Advisers acknowledge could be hard when
faced with the “brutal reality of budgeting”. This is why some kind of
‘contingency’13 is built in to many but not all [9/18] of the multi-year business
cases.14
The total contingency in the business cases varies widely – from three per
cent of the business case value to 30% (the average contingency size is
14%). The typical size of contingency is probably not enough to respond to a
serious crisis; indeed in DRC, the contingency was found to be inadequate
when humanitarian needs spiked and instead it was agreed that the life of the
programme would be reduced from five to four years to meet the needs that
had arisen in between. The planned and ‘ad hoc’ contingency arrangements
have in common that they both aim towards smoothing ‘spikes’ in need by
intervening early. Some of the programme elements that are being delivered
through the main (not contingency) funding of multi-year programmes have a
similar effect. For example, advance funding that allows WFP to forwardpurchase and position food relief stocks for preparedness has some of the
same effects as cash contingency. Much of the Mozambique multi-year
arrangement is built around this pre-positioning, with a preparedness rather
than contingency focus.
Six of the eight countries with contingency (Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan,
Syria, Burma) have drawn on it so far (Yemen, Sahel, Pakistan have not yet).
Examples include use of contingency to respond to resurgence of conflict in
Sudan and Burma, and response to seasonal malnutrition spikes in southcentral Somalia, and refugee influxes in Ethiopia. In several cases the
contingency was used more to smooth bumps in the humanitarian system
than to respond to a change in humanitarian needs e.g. the Ethiopia
contingency was used to ensure the WFP pipeline was not interrupted; Syria
used contingency funding to ‘bridge’ a period when a new business case was
13
Contingency measures are sometimes referred to as reserves, risk financing mechanisms, or other
terms. Contingency is used as an umbrella term here.
14
Country offices still have access to the Africa Regional Division humanitarian reserve and the
Conflict, Humanitarian, and Security Division reserve in the event of crisis. A given tranche of
contingency may be a mix of country and central reserve funding.
19
being designed. The end goal of the use of contingency was the same
however, to intervene early to prevent escalating needs.
Advisers repeatedly emphasised the contingency measure as a design
options for ensuring that multi-year commitments retain flexibility. This was
considered vital when working in even relatively predictable humanitarian
situations; experience of the use of contingency so far also suggests that it is
as important in responding to sudden gaps within the country humanitarian
response system itself.
9) Flexibility in multi-year design is essential. Although the optimal level
of contingency funds is unclear, they are considered essential to
respond to unexpected humanitarian need and unexpected
humanitarian response system faults alike.
20
D. Annex 1: Grid of approaches to multi-year
arrangements
Design
Time
savings
Partners
Strategy
Monitoring
and
Learning
Umbrella
9 business cases
£958,000,000
82%
Bangladesh, Burma, DRC,
Pakistan, Sahel, Somalia,
Sudan, Syria, Yemen
Thematic
6 business cases
£110,700,000
9%
Partner-specific
3 business cases
£102,600,000
9%
Burma, Ethiopia, Kenya,
Mozambique
Ethiopia, Yemen (soon to
be Syria region)
-Time consuming design
phase for DFID and
partners
/Relatively time consuming
design phase (depends on
range of partners)
-Many individual partnerspecific agreements time
consuming to design, with
repetition
+Later time savings greater
+Later time savings greater
-Later time savings present
but smaller (e.g. need to
manage separate
agreements/relationships)
-Not possible to space
effort, e.g. a single large
business case will result in
a single large discrete
review processes
/Problematic to space
effort, e.g. a few large
business cases will result in
a few large discrete review
processes
+Possible to space effort, if
original commencement of
business cases was spaced
+Incentive to consortia or
other collaborative
arrangements
+Incentive to consortia or
other collaborative
arrangements
-No incentive to consortia
or other collaborative
arrangements
+Can include
‘intermediate’ partners
(e.g. UN agency with its
own downstream partners)
and direct implementing
partners (e.g. INGOs)
+Can include
‘intermediate’ partners
(e.g. UN agency with its
own downstream partners)
and direct implementing
partners (e.g. INGOs)
-Single partner means full
dependence on whether
they cascade multi-year
funding to downstream
partners
+Can function as the
country humanitarian
strategy rather than being
'just' a set of programmes
/Can slot in to existing
country strategy
/Can slot in to existing
country strategy
-Complex and/or multiple
logframes
+Relatively straightforward
logframes
+Relatively straightforward
logframes
+Incentive to impact-level
measurement
-Individual partner
performance tracking
difficult (esp. for regional
approaches, see Syria)
+Incentive to impact-level
measurement
/no evident (dis)incentive
to impact measurement
-Individual partner
performance tracking
difficult
+Performance tracking and
management simpler
21
E. Annex 2: Methodology
The lessons review focused mostly on operational lessons identified rather
than results or impacts. This was due to timing (it was too early to recognise
impacts) and to avoid duplication with the planned multi-country thematic
evaluation that was commencing at the same time.
The review started with a document review that incorporated the 17 business
cases that were complete at the time (i.e. all except Pakistan), and the Annual
Reviews of two programmes that had already been reviewed (refugee
programmes in Ethiopia and Kenya). These reviews are used for more
detailed case examples throughout the report. Other documents reviewed can
be seen in the References section.
Primary information was collected through semi-structured interviews with key
staff in country offices and in London teams, and supplemented with feedback
from partners collected through meetings and phone interviews. Eighteen
interviews with key DFID staff from ten country offices/regional team, eight by
phone and ten in person were conducted (again, all except Pakistan). The
interview questions were analysed for common themes, and only recurring
points have been used to draw lessons – although interesting single cases
have been highlighted in the body of the report. Feedback from partners was
collected through a modified version of the semi-structured interview
questions over phone interview (Bangladesh), and through a request for open
feedback at a set of HQ level meetings in Geneva.
The findings of the review were validated through a video conference with a
small number of the interviewees, and through comments on the draft
materials for those not able to make the video conference date. All comments
are reflected in this version of the report.
22
F. References
Ashdown, 2011, Humanitarian Emergency Response Review (HERR)
Cabot-Venton, 2013, Value for Money of Multi-year Approaches to
Humanitarian Funding
DFID, 2014, Rapid Review of Embedding Evaluation in UK Department for
International Development
DFID CHASE, 2013, Responding to chronic crises, vulnerability and
predictable spikes in need: the design of effective humanitarian and
development financing instruments
DFID Ethiopia, 2013, Medium Term Assistance to Refugees in Ethiopia
Annual Review
DFID Kenya, 2014, Support for Refugees in Kenya 2012-2014: Annual
Review 2
DFID Mozambique, 2014, Annual Review- Disaster Risk Reduction- 12
November 2014
DFID Yemen, 2013, Lessons Learned for Call for Proposals
GSDRC, 2011, Multi-Year Funding to Humanitarian Organisations in
Protracted Crises
Mowjee and Randel, 2010, Evaluation of Sida’s Humanitarian Assistance
Final Synthesis Report
National Audit Office, 2014, The performance of the Department for
International Development 2013-14
23