This quarterly learning brief (QLB) summarises some of Start Network’s key learning from the last quarter (Q4) of 2021. It completes the learning shared across the year and provided in Q1, Q2 and Q3.
In 2019, Start Fund Bangladesh opened up its membership to 26 local and national organisations enabling them to access direct funding and become involved in decision-making around funding and responses. As a direct result, 80% of all Start Fund Bangladesh funding had been awarded directly to local and national organisations in 2020. This directive to shift the power has also been explored in other ways. For example, Start Fund Bangladesh has also been working to encourage INGOs who have local implementing partners to share overhead costs so that these can be used to grow and strengthen local organisations. To understand more about further changes that Start Fund Bangladesh could make, we listened to some of the reflections of Sina Chowdhury and Sirajul Islam who work for two of the local organisations that joined in 2019. The verbatim quotes from the interviews provide a powerful and rich narrative around their experience working with Start Fund Bangladesh and as humanitarians and have led us to formulate three main lessons for the Start Network: BE MORE INCLUSIVE TO BE MORE EFFECTIVE; UPSKILL TO EMPOWER; and CHAMPION FOR CHANGE. This report would be of interest to all those working towards a system change to a more locally led humanitarian system that is more accountable to those affected by crisis.
This session introduced Start Ready, a new financial service for the humanitarian sector that will use climate science, risk protection mechanisms, and financial best practice to protect more people against predictable disasters worldwide. Start Ready will sit alongside the Start Fund in Start Network's financing facility.
Recently the Start Network partnered with Complexity University and Global Fund for Community Foundations offering organisations a unique opportunity to take part in a radical experimental intiative. Global teams engaged in an intensive course looking at how we can work together to transform the humanitarian aid sector from the ground up. In this session, we presented the outcomes from the Crisis Response Resilience Lab and showcased some of the teams experiments and lessons from the innovation course.
This session provided an overview of Start Fund Bangladesh and Start Fund Nepal, and provided a platform for Start Network member and partner organisations to share what they have learned through the development and delivery of local Start Funds.
This session looked at the global Start Fund's lessons learnt, particularly focusing on locally-led decision making and enabling humanitarian action (by unlocking access to funding). It included findings from the localisation pilot and added value of local organisations leading humanitarian action
Humanitarian actors play an important role in disaster response in Bangladesh. As such, their decisions and actions can have a profound effect on the daily lives of disaster affected people. However, the accountability framework being used by different humanitarian agencies are different and to some extent inadequate to hold humanitarian agencies accountable to the affected people in rapid response. Affected people lack an effective voice in the decision-making process of the humanitarian agencies. Hence, new tools and mechanisms are needed at the local and national level to make the humanitarian actors more accountable to affected people and communities.
Humanitarian actors play an important role in disaster response in Bangladesh. As such, their decisions and actions can have a profound effect on the daily lives of disaster affected people. However, the accountability framework being used by different humanitarian agencies are different and to some extent inadequate to hold humanitarian agencies accountable to the affected people in rapid response. Affected people lack an effective voice in the decision-making process of the humanitarian agencies. Hence, new tools and mechanisms are needed at the local and national level to make the humanitarian actors more accountable to affected people and communities.
This handbook details the procedures which govern the use and allocation of the Start Fund.
This new quarterly one-page brief summarises some of Start Network’s key learning from January to March of 2021. The brief talks through the key learning takeaways and provides links to more detailed reports. It focuses on Ways of working: how can we improve our evidence and learning? Programmes: what to consider when implementing programmes and What we want to learn more about. The brief is provided in English, Spanish and French.
