Start Network director Sean Lowrie describes the Start Fund and says it demonstrates how local and international NGOs can work together. The international aid system rests on a population of thousands of organisations around the world, but governments who provide most of the funding don't have the resources to process lots of contracts to fund those organisations, so we can either consolidate or we can aggregate. Aggregation is better for the system because it allows for a more diverse population of organisation, and diversity is more resilient, it’s more agile, it’s more responsive, and it enables the local and international NGOs to work together. The Start Fund does just that, it provides aggregation, a single point of entry for governments to access a large population of organisations, and the ownership and power is diverse across the Start Network.
Start Fund key stats
The Start Fund is collectively owned, people who manage it live on four continents, and projects are selected at a national level by peer review.
83% of projects are selected in country.
50% are implemented by local partners.