Methodology

The quantitative research consisted of two surveys designed to collect structured data from two categories of Grand Bargain signatories: donors and aid organisations (including UN agencies, NGOs and the Red Cross/Red Crescent movement). Respondents were asked to report humanitarian funding provided and received respectively. However, they reported according to their own definitions of what constitutes humanitarian funding, and there might exist internal overlaps between humanitarian and development funding streams.

For member states, the survey requested financial figures on total institutional humanitarian funding provided and the amount of multi-year humanitarian contributions in 2016, 2017 and 2018. Member states were also asked to provide a breakdown of the multi-year contributions by contract flows, comprising information on recipient type, contract start and end dates, duration of contract, total value contracted, end date of contract extension, total value of extended contract, earmarking modalities and project locations. There was an additional field to capture comments on contractual terms.

For aid organisations, the survey tool requested total income from institutional and private sources, and the amount of multi-year expenditure through implementing partners and self-implemented multi-year operations. These organisations were also asked to provide a breakdown of the contracts signed with their partners, including data on recipient type, contract start and end dates, duration of contract, total value contracted, end date of contract extension, total value extended, sector or cluster, and project location. There was an extra field to capture comments on contractual terms.

For earmarking, we used the four modalities and their respective definitions as agreed in the Grand Bargain document^[1]: unearmarked, softly earmarked, earmarked and tightly earmarked.

The survey tools and the survey dissemination note were circulated by the Grand Bargain Secretariat on 12 April 2019. Organisations returned their completed surveys during the months of April to August 2019.

The figures collected were aggregated separately for member states and aid organisations. The latter also receive private contributions, and alongside different sample sizes, this prevents reconciling the donor and aid organisation databases (see the section called ‘Financial tracking and reporting: Data gaps and challenges’).

Limitations

Response rates: Of the 24 member states who were sent a quantitative survey, 11 responded, or 46%. Of the 37 aid organisations sent a quantitative survey, 10 responded (27%). Four aid organisations provided granular data and one provided aggregated data on the multi-year funding they pass to second-level recipients. Five aid organisations reported no multi-year expenditure for downstream partners. Of these, three reported that they do not pass on multi-year funding to partners, while two provided no breakdown of their multi-year expenditure.

Data representativeness: Qualitative findings should not be read as necessarily representative of the wider humanitarian landscape, given the small sample sizes, but should be read as points for wider discussion and future research. Qualitative data was largely based on anecdotal evidence, supported by organisational documentation, where appropriate and available.