Perspectives on the Grand Bargain
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Ground Truth Solutions worked with the OECD Secretariat from 2016 to 2019 to provide people affected by crisis with a way to assess progress on humanitarian performance.
The focus was on the so-called Grand Bargain, a package of reforms that more than 50 humanitarian donors and aid agencies have signed since it was adopted at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit.
The research looked at progress against the Grand Bargain’s goals from the perspective of affected people and staff involved in humanitarian operations. It covered seven countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Haiti, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia and Uganda. The first round of feedback was collected in 2016 and 2017, followed by a second round in 2018.
In the last round, we asked some 5,000 people affected by crisis and 1,500 aid workers to rate progress towards reaching the broader reform goals described in the Grand Bargain.
Do people affected by crisis see humanitarian organisations going beyond meeting their basic needs? Do they feel they could be self-reliant and have opportunities to live without aid, even in protracted crises and facing recurring vulnerabilities?
We found that:
People feel safe and treated with respect by aid providers.
Much of the aid provided does not meet priority needs.
Cash, food and health services are the top unmet needs.
Affected people are largely satisfied with cash assistance, while humanitarians seem slightly less enthusiastic about it.
Most people do not feel self-reliant.
Feedback mechanisms are less effective than humanitarian staff think.
There is some progress on the participation revolution, from a low base.
Overall, there has been little change in how affected people view aid compared to previous years.
