Search

Six years ago today, Christian Aid made the first alert to a new aid financing mechanism. The Start Fund’s first alert to food insecurity in South Sudan went on to disburse just over £300,000 to Action Against Hunger, Christian Aid, Plan International and Tearfund within three days of the alert. Originally conceived as an antidote to the limitations of the large pooled funds and traditional emergency appeals, in 2020 the Start Fund has come of age, a recognised pillar within humanitarian financial architecture and a force for transformation in its own right.

In 2016, the Start Network launched the Start Fund Anticipation Window in Bonn. We set out to link Start Network members with forecasts of impending crises and to facilitate country-level collaborative risk analysis, to release funds before a disaster strikes. Twenty-five Start Network members have since led innovative anticipatory projects, in twenty-four crisis-prone countries.

Last week a kick-off meeting took place in Dakar, Senegal between Start Network NGOs and the government of Senegal to officially launch the beginning of Replica payout activities.

Start Fund Bangladesh is demonstrating how localisation makes aid more effective and efficient. People in need are receiving help 10 days faster and operational costs have been halved.

In an official ceremony in Darkar, Senegal today the Start Network was issued with a symbolic cheque of 10M USD in the largest every early humanitarian action pay out.

Start Network has today confirmed that the biggest ever funding allocation to civil society for early humanitarian action has been announced. The money will enable aid agencies to offer life-saving support to people before an oncoming drought in Senegal leads to a famine, which threaten people’s lives.

Des polices d'assurance innovantes contre les risques climatiques souscrites par des agences humanitaires devraient permettre de venir en aide à 1,3 million de personnes en Afrique de l'Ouest. Parmi les pays bénéficiaires figurent le Sénégal, le Mali, la Mauritanie, le Burkina Faso et la Gambie.

Humanitarian agencies are setting up innovative climate risk insurance policies to protect up to 1.3 million people in West Africa from catastrophic drought. Read more.