Start Network has launched three new grants that will enable members to access funds in order to accelerate locally led anticipatory action and community-led approaches to monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning.
This is in recognition that locally-led organisations at the front line of crises do not often have equitable access to resources, due to dependence on global humanitarian structures that are often rigid and slow to respond to emerging needs. Even further, some small to medium scale crises are sometimes overlooked by global aid agencies, leading to populations needlessly suffering results.
By centring the experiences of local and national organisations, Start Network will be able to identify supportive mechanisms to ensure that at-risk communities receive the best assistance, including new forms of financing, to enable greater impact and grow local organisations’ sustainability.
To achieve this, Start Network is launching three grants, namely:
- Community-Led Approaches to MEAL Research Grant
- Organisational Strengthening Grant
- Anticipation Tool Grant
The MEAL Research Grant is now available to ensure that Start Network members can effectively research, and develop MEAL (monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning) methodologies which ensure that people at-risk of or affected by crises have more of a say in how impact and success are monitored, evaluated, and measured, in a humanitarian intervention.
The Organisational Strengthening Grant, rolled out with support from the Conrad N Hilton Foundation, will embolden member agencies’ policies and processes, to grow their compliance infrastructures, which in-turn will open up greater access to a wider variety of funding opportunities.
Our Anticipation Tool Grant is targeted towards crisis anticipation, in cognisance that information, forecast and data analysis tools are crucial when predicting certain crises. This grant is accessible by Start Network members and their technical partners to develop data tools that support anticipation of crises.
We believe that by innovating collectively, through mechanisms such as these grants, we can share insights and perspectives that allow us to shape a more effective humanitarian system overall.
We invite our member agencies and their partners to apply for these opportunities before the application deadlines indicated below:
Community-Led Approaches to MEAL Research Grant– 7 March 2022
Organisational Strengthening Grant – 3 March 2022
Anticipation Tool Grant – 21 March 2022
We’re looking forward to increased agency within local and national organisations, even as Start Network continues its journey towards becoming a decentralised network of networks.