Cost-savings and efficiencies must help those working with affected children

• Grand Bargain savings and efficiencies only useful if more money is released for those working with affected children and communities.
• Building and maintaining long-term local and national capability should be at the core of any financing approach.
• World Vision will seek to deliver half of its humanitarian aid through a cash-first approach by 2020, including developing innovative digital payment systems. 
• Improved accountability to reassure donors and the public that their money is being spent appropriately is critical.

Monday, May 23rd 2016 – The cost-savings and efficiencies of the Grand Bargain are only useful if they release more money for those working face-to-face with affected children and communities, says international aid agency World Vision.

Speaking at the World Humanitarian Summit High Level Roundtable on humanitarian finance, World Vision International President and Chief Executive Officer Kevin Jenkins said the Grand Bargain unblocked “the stream of what should become a cascade of financial reforms”.

The Grand Bargain advocates for reform of humanitarian funding models so they are more efficient, transparent and accountable.

“But the cost-savings and efficiencies of the Grand Bargain are only useful if they release more money for those who work face-to-face with affected children and communities, drawn from an ecosystem of government, private sector, UN and civil society specialists according to their particular advantages,” Mr Jenkins stated.

“Building and maintaining long-term local and national capability should be at the core of any financing approach that we take.”

Mr Jenkins said World Vision had built up its national capacity for humanitarian response in more than 60 countries. This includes a privately-funded development portfolio of more than one billion US dollars each year.

“When our national affiliates face disaster, we commit to rapidly re-allocating up to 20 per cent of our development funding to respond,” he said.

World Vision will also seek to deliver half of its humanitarian aid through a cash-first approach by the year 2020.

“As part of this pledge, we will continue to develop innovative digital payment systems through partnerships, such as the one we have with MasterCard, enabling us to track assistance from donor to beneficiary,” Mr Jenkins said.

“In many contexts, humanitarian cash-based programmes should become the normal way of doing business, strengthening social protection system.”

Mr Jenkins reiterated the importance of improved accountability to reassure donors and the public that their money is being spent appropriately. World Vision is a member of the International Aid Transparency Initiative.

“By the end of June we will complete reports on grants we received in 2015,” he said.

“We commit to improving the quality of our data by building permanent capacity to report at this standard.”

Moderated by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, the Financing: Investing in Humanity High Level Roundtable included statements from Presidents, Prime Ministers and Ministers of countries from across the globe. As well as World Vision, international aid agencies and organisations also made representations at the event.

“Ultimately, the success of all the measures we discuss today will be judged at the local level – by children and communities, and their ability to recover from today’s shocks while building resilience to those still to come,” Mr Jenkins said.

The World Humanitarian Summit is being held in Istanbul from May 23rd to May 24th.

 ENDS

Notes to editors:

• For more information please contact Tanya Penny – Director Global Humanitarian Communications from World Vision on +971 50 550 5803 or tanya_penny@wvi.org.
• Follow @wv_humanitarian on Twitter for more news and updates.
• World Vision is a Christian relief, development and advocacy organisation dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. For more information, visit http://wvi.org/disaster-management/media-centre