Humanitarian IOs' Resistance to System-Wide Alignment of Funding Reporting

• In Event: Dynamics of International Organizations

Abstract

Within the humanitarian system, there has long been an acknowledgment of how varying definitions of funding modalities can adversely affect the ability to measure and track funding flows and disbursements by International Organizations (IOs) and donor states. Since the establishment of the Grand Bargain in 2016, the international community has made multiple attempts to establish a universal classification for different earmarking modalities, to be adopted by humanitarian organizations and donors. In 2021, a group of states and IOs outlined a set of criteria for classifying different levels of earmarking, but some UN IOs have not yet incorporated this classification into their reporting of budgets and funding levels. This raises questions about the inconsistencies within the UN system and why some UN agencies and programs are more resistant to aligning their reporting practices compared to other organizations in the humanitarian field. This paper explores how UN organizations with a dual humanitarian and development mandate tend to resist aligning their reporting practices, as this could limit their ability to redirect funding from long-term development programs to humanitarian response.

Author

• Cecilia Corsini