To prepare for the change needed in the future, the Start Network’s 42 members came together over the last six months, to co-create a vision for the network, called Start Evolves, based on experience gained over our first eight years. This proposal was unanimously endorsed by our membership in November 2017.
The Start Fund is a multi-donor pooled rapid response fund that initiates disbursement of humanitarian finance within 72 hours. It is collectively owned and managed by the Start Network members, a group of 42 national and international aid agencies from five continents. The fund was officially launched on 1st April 2014 and has an annual disbursement of approximately £11 million (GBP). It is designed to fill gaps in the humanitarian funding architecture in three main areas: underfunded small to medium scale crises; forecasts of impending crises; and spikes in chronic humanitarian crises.
This month a meeting for members of the Start Network and Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) was held to support organisations in their efforts to meet the Core Humanitarian Standards (CHS) self-assessment process.
More than 30 Start Network members have supported a letter to the UK Prime Minister, raising our concern over the decision to merge the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office because of its potentially devastating consequences for humanitarian aid.
