COVID's impact on humanitarian response

COVID is the most significant global pandemic most of us have ever seen. The initial donor responses to the COVID pandemic were rapid and substantial, both in support of efforts to address to the health and humanitarian impacts, as well as to support government initiatives to mitigate its economic and fiscal effects. COVID has tested the international crisis response and financing system in novel ways, aggravating well-known challenges and casting light on other unanticipated shortcomings. COVID has helped expose fundamental weaknesses in global preparedness, including substantial under-investment, a tendency to adopt narrow thematic approaches and a widespread failure to prepare for secondary socioeconomic impacts. The global COVID response has exposed critical dependencies in humanitarian response systems, including the risks that major disruptions of transport and key commodity markets pose to program continuity. The pandemic demonstrates that the international humanitarian response system needs to be better prepared and our contingency planning more robust.

Impact on Humanitarian Funding

The global economy is forecast to shrink by 4.9 per cent in 2020, and recoveries are likely to be slower than previously anticipated. International trade, investment and remittances have all contracted sharply. The impacts are expected to be particularly acute for those already on the margins, including low-income households, those employed in informal sectors and migrant workers.   The pandemic has already highlighted constraints in accommodating peaks in demand for crisis financing, and its worst humanitarian impacts - notably pushing an estimated 270 million people into acute food insecurity - are yet to come. Additional humanitarian funding flattened off after April while requirements were being revised upwards, and the outlook is for a tight fiscal environment in which aid budgets are reduced and reprioritised and private donations may also decline.  The donor and financing architecture struggles to move money quickly to where it is needed most.

Flexible and predictable funding has led to the quickest and most frictionless responses, but commitments to this way of working are increasingly at odds with political realities. The pandemic response clearly demonstrates the added value of flexible funding in enabling rapid, needs-based interventions with very low transaction costs. There are powerful disincentives, however, and donors providing predictable and front-loaded contributions have been less visible and received less recognition for following good practice than those who retained and allocated funds to later indicators of needs.

Preparedness and prevention continue to be key

The ability to navigate a world of largescale systemic risk relies on adequate prevention and preparedness. The pandemic has highlighted the importance of effective public health and welfare systems and the ability to access financing rapidly to pay for immediate responses and manage secondary social and economic impacts. While the crisis remains high on the global agenda, there is opportunity to advocate for a significant shift in development investments toward public service provision, risk surveillance and preparedness, including financial preparedness against risks and shocks.

Has the Grand Bargain better positioned us to respond to COVID

Globally, levels of awareness and understanding of the Grand Bargain remain low and are inconsistent across countries and amongst humanitarian and development actors. Despite every signatory having a presence in multiple countries and there being high expectations for local and national actor engagement, sensitisation efforts amongst partners and members to the commitments made by the international humanitarian and development community remain inadequate. The impact is that for some organisations, the Grand Bargain remains irrelevant, and for most, there is no tangible change to the situation on the ground.

There is lack of clarity about ownership of the Grand Bargain. There is a sense amongst most local and national actors that it is not their role to engage with the Grand Bargain at the national level; assuming that this role resides with INGOs and the United Nations. Deep and wide Grand Bargain sensitisation efforts have not gone far enough, therefore ownership remains at the top. The Grand Bargain is largely understood as part of the relationship with an INGO and donors. There is significant interest in engaging with the Grand Bargain framework, however, only a small number of respondents are using the Grand Bargain as an accountability and advocacy tool, and the impact on COVID responses and funding mechanisms have thus far remained limited.