Guidance: Proposal for a harmonized approach to funding flexibility in the context of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on ongoing humanitarian crises have created a need to make funding agreements more flexible so that frontline humanitarian actors receive timely and adequate resources and can pivot as appropriate to COVID-19-related activities. The immediate need to improve flexibility is driven by the urgency of preparedness, anticipatory actions and response to COVID-19, however, these actions are also well aligned with the long-term commitments outlined in the Grand Bargain to improve efficiency and effectiveness of humanitarian aid, to deliver flexible and unearmarked funding and to increase funding to frontline actors. Over the longer term, it is understood that COVID-19 may require fundamental changes to the current humanitarian response model, including programming modalities that are more reliant on national actors, with greater consideration for the humanitarian-development-peace nexus.