Sudan Humanitarian Fund 2016 Positioning Paper

Overall purpose

The Sudan Humanitarian Fund (SHF) is a country-based pooled fund that should contribute to the overall operational impact of “the provision of timely, coordinated, principled assistance to save lives, alleviate suffering and maintain human dignity” within Sudan. The SHF aims to promote a strategic and coordinated response towards the highest priorities in support of the Humanitarian Response Plan (or HC agreed strategy) and acute emergency needs. Projects should be based on the fundamental humanitarian principles and be in line with the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) approved Minimum Operating Standards.

Positioning statement

The SHF facilitates response to new emergencies identified through joint or coordinated needs assessments. The Reserve for Emergencies, guided by specific criteria, equaling a minimum of 20% of the overall SHF is foreseen in 2016 alongside other allocations. The response to the protracted crises in Sudan remains important with an increased focus on multi-sector and longer term responses that integrate early recovery and resilience components. Short term projects are encouraged to link to and leverage other funding sources in order to promote sustainability and/or continuity. The SHF will attempt to scale up the size of grants or work through consortiums to enable more coherent coverage and more strategic allocations. The SHF promotes the integration and mainstreaming of cross cutting issues such as gender, environment, ‘do no harm’, protection, and accountability to affected populations at all project stages.

Funding of sector coordination is not considered a priority for the SHF as all lead agencies have made commitments to the IASC Cluster Coordination system at the global level. The provision of funding for Monitoring & Reporting officers who monitor both the SHF and sector projects are considered a benefit to both the fund and enhanced sector coordination. Emergency preparedness and needs assessments can be exceptionally eligible for funding when critical importance and a funding gap coincide. Core pipelines and common services (Telecom, logistics including UNHAS, Security, Data tracking) will be eligible for top up funding through ongoing standard or reserve allocations in order to address critical funding gaps (and within the scope foreseen for UN agencies). No funding is available for an early allocation to core pipelines or common services in 2016. Food aid (except for therapeutic food) is too resource intensive given funding levels of the SHF. It is of very low priority for the SHF and will ordinarily not be considered for SHF funding.

The SHF will prioritize the provision of funding to NGOs working as front-line responders to the emergencies in Sudan as increasingly encouraged in the humanitarian environment and as clearly stated by donors to the Sudan HF as a principal added value. The SHF will target 70% of direct funding to be allocated to NGOs. Sectors are encouraged to ensure national NGO participation to enhance capacity and facilitate funding by the SHF. International NGOs are encouraged to explore sub-granting partnerships with national NGO partners. Strengthening partnerships with national NGOs to gradually build their capacity and ultimately improve humanitarian response is important. In that respect, programme support costs (7%) should be shared proportionally with non-governmental sub-grantees. We promote an approach of working in partnership with the government through collaboration and capacity enhancement and promote this over sub-granting to the government.

Marta Ruedas Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan