In the global humanitarian sector, local NGOs often express frustration about the culture of compliance that doesn't adequately recognise their expertise and knowledge of their communities. This compliance culture sometimes turns the small size and local insight which are their greatest strengths into risks to be managed. The main issue at hand is due diligence, the process by which risk is managed and transferred through the humanitarian sector – from donors to international NGOs and UN agencies and from them down to the local NGOs that ultimately implement most humanitarian programmes.
Due diligence assessments are conducted at the beginning of a new partnership and at regular intervals thereafter to evaluate the risks associated with contracting with an agency. At best, they complement a more holistic partnership process that will consider the agency’s capabilities and capacity-building needs. But all too often they are considered as tick-box exercises, and even in the best-case scenario, they can absorb significant time and energy at all levels of the partnership – at worst, preventing new partnerships from forming.
To tackle this issue, CCD agencies have collaborated to pilot a harmonised approach to due diligence. They have developed a shared tool with funding from the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), consolidating the key elements of participating agencies' existing tools.
This tool is being piloted in three different contexts – Türkiye, North-West Syria, and Ukraine. If successful, this harmonised approach will bring about a significant shift in the humanitarian sector. It will save valuable resources for local NGOs, who would no longer need to complete numerous different formats to form various partnerships but could simply complete the process once and send it to multiple partners. This streamlined process would not only save time but also reduce the administrative burden, allowing local and international NGOs alike to focus more on their core humanitarian work.
We understand that reforming due diligence is complex and we cannot do it alone. That's why we are collaborating with other organisations at both the country and global level to share knowledge, learn from each other, and collectively succeed. This autumn, we intend to join forces with other agencies to establish a global community of practice on due diligence. Our goal is to create a platform for continuing this learning beyond the project. A survey will be launched in the coming days to gather more information on ongoing initiatives and begin forming a mailing list for the Community of Practice - please watch this space for more information!
For more information on the project, to receive a link to the survey, or to learn about the proposed Community of Practice, please don't hesitate to get in touch.
Written by Laura Gordon, Project Design Lead.