1.2 Limitations of the study

The literature review confirmed that there are a number of common performance-management concepts that are not well or consistently applied by HOs, or whose application is challenging or open to interpretation. These included alignment with national priorities, evidence-based interventions, managing by results, results-based budgeting and sustainability.

Based on the first phase of the research, the Reference Group identified two focus areas for the case studies: managing for results, and the incorporation of system-wide humanitarian reform commitments into the organisational performance standards for individual HOs. During the second research phase, we set out to explore in each area what factors constrained the performance of the organisation and whether the standards used to assess organisational performance accorded with their own understanding of good performance. We chose four case study organisations. Two of them – United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and United Nations High Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs (UNHCR) – were selected from MOPAN’s list of HOs scoring poorly in these areas. The other two – United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) – were chosen as having both humanitarian and development mandates, providing an opportunity to compare how they undertook performance management across the two spheres. The case studies were light-touch desk reviews, involving synthesis of past and ongoing MOPAN reviews and other relevant reviews and evaluations, and key informant interviews with headquarters staff and field staff in two countries, Afghanistan and Chad.

We also held consultations with a range of key informants, including MOPAN members, humanitarian organisations and independent experts. Our Reference Group for the study, made up of Canada, the European Union, Norway and the United States, provided extensive advice and support throughout.

The study is a preliminary exploration of a complex set of issues, touching on some of the key strategic challenges facing the international humanitarian system. It makes no claim to be comprehensive. In exploring humanitarian reform commitments, our focus was on institutional factors that facilitate or impede implementation, rather than on overcoming implementation challenges in the field, on which there is a growing literature. This is an area where generalisations need to be drawn with care. The four case study organisations are diverse in their mandates and ways of operating, and also face distinct challenges across different operating contexts. While this study focuses on humanitarian action, all the organisations discussed here engage in activities that go beyond the delivery of material support to people in crisis. For example, UNHCR builds national protection capacity and promotes durable solutions for displaced populations, while OCHA is focused on humanitarian co-ordination and advocacy. UNICEF and FAO have mandates that incorporate both humanitarian and development action. This is a rapidly moving field, and each of the case study organisations has ongoing initiatives to strengthen their performance. The study therefore seeks to identify broad lessons and principles that HOs can adapt to their own unique circumstances.

2. HOW SHOULD HUMANITARIAN ORGANISATIONS RESPOND TO SYSTEM-WIDE REFORM COMMITMENTS?

In this section of the report, we consider the implication of humanitarian system reform commitments for ‘what good looks like’ in organisational terms for humanitarian organisations (HOs). We look at whether and how humanitarian reform commitments can be translated into individual performance standards for HOs, and ask what external factors – including the terms and conditions of humanitarian finance – hamper their implementation. Over the years, many humanitarian reform instruments and commitments have been entered into, including most recently at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit through the New Way of Working and the Grand Bargain (adopted voluntarily by a group of humanitarian actors, and now in a second iteration). To focus our enquiry, we looked at the humanitarian-development-peace nexus (HDP Nexus), localisation and accountability to affected populations (AAP). None of these are new commitments. They are the latest expression of a long-running effort to address systemic problems in the humanitarian sector. They seek to overcome the siloed nature of international support in crisis-affected contexts, strengthen the role of national and local actors in responding to emergencies, and accomplish a shift towards demand-driven assistance that is responsive and accountable to target populations.8

The international humanitarian system is famously difficult to reform, and it is widely acknowledged that progress on implementing these commitments has been limited.9 A recent progress report on implementation of the Grand Bargain talks of ‘a continuing failure to address the long-standing challenges that have inhibited positive change in the international humanitarian system’.10 The considerable inertia across the system has meant that reform commitments that are widely subscribed to as high-level principles are implemented only selectively and partially. Well-intentioned implementation efforts encounter systemic barriers and collective action problems that dilute their impact in the field, with the result that meaningful change has been very hard to achieve. The May 2022 Interim Progress Report on the Humanitarian-Development Peace Nexus noted the widespread adoption of new policies, but also noted the challenges in translating these into programming.11 The Grand Bargain progress report notes:

The vast majority of signatories continue to focus on their own institutional priorities, with the result that investments are spread too thin to achieve system-wide change. There has been a general failure to take the wealth of emerging positive practice to scale, even where tangible results have been demonstrated, largely due to a lack of appetite or motivation to take the risks inherent in changing entrenched business practices.” 12

Source: The Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus Interim Progress Report

8 A commitment to greater community participation in humanitarian assistance has been expressed in many past instruments, including the 1992 Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief, the Humanitarian Charter in 2000, the Good Humanitarian Donorship principles in 2003, and the

Humanitarian Reform initiative in 2005. 9 Patrick Saez, Jeremy Konyndyk and Rose Worden, Rethinking Humanitarian Reform: What Will it Take to Truly Change the System? Briefs, Center for Global Development, 29 September 2021, https://www.cgdev.org/publication/rethinking-humanitarian-reform-what-will-it-take-truly-change-system. 10 Victoria Metcalfe-Hough et al., Grant Bargain annual independent report 2020, Overseas Development Institute, June 2020, p. 103, https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/system/files/2020-12/Grand Bargain Annual Independent

Report 2020.pdf. 11 OECD, The Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus Interim Progress Report, May 2022, https://www.oecd-ilibrary. org/sites/2f620ca5-en/index.html?itemId=/content/publication/2f620ca5-en. 12 Ibid., pp. 16-17.