Annual Sector Survey, child rights, Grand Bargain and more

+ Signs of new ways of working, but public donations static

New Zealand’s ‘mission-driven’ charities working in international aid are showing early signs of changing the way they work, in particular prioritising building the capacity and resilience of local communities to do their own development. 
 
“It’s about increasing the impact of each New Zealand aid dollar, and the value to the people our charities exist to help. Build their ability to lead and implement their own development and humanitarian responses, and the impact will be greater. It’s the same principle in New Zealand – local communities know best how to help themselves,” says Josie Pagani, Director of the Council for International Development (CID).
 
It’s small steps. Long term changes to business models are yet to emerge. But in CID’s new Annual Survey of the Sector released today, New Zealand’s aid charities have increased their partnerships with Pacific groups for example.
 
New Zealand has signed up to an international commitment called the Grand Bargain, which aims to get more aid (25% of aid budgets at least) directly to local community groups in developing countries who work with the most vulnerable.
 
Public donations to aid charities in New Zealand are either static or in decline, with the biggest drop in child sponsorships. 
 
“This isn’t because New Zealanders have become less generous, but because they want to see aid funds going directly to vulnerable people, and they want to know its effective. Aid charities are responding to this.”
 
Key findings from CID’s Annual Survey of the Sector:

• Total income for CID’s members was $202 million (a slight drop from last year)
• More funds have gone to humanitarian disaster response work this year
• 80% of CID members have partnered with a Pacific organisation (a 6% increase)
• Other types of partnership are static or in decline, particularly with New Zealand businesses
• Only 54% of CID members partnered with a business, down from 74% last year
• Public donations are static, after a drop nearly every year for 15 years. The trend towards a decline in donations appears to be continuing
• Child sponsorships have dropped from 60% to 37%  of member income
• CID members work in 71 countries, and go where the need is greatest
• Their work is spread evenly between the Pacific, Africa, and South East Asia 
• South Sudan received the most support this year, as members responded to a famine
• New Zealand’s international charities achieve a lot with limited resources - 42% of staff are part time
• Volunteers are vital, making up 50% of the workforce
• The sector bucks trends in other workplaces for gender balance. 55% of leadership teams and 57% of Board members are female.

 

+ Launch of Annual Survey - 4pm today

Book now or turn up. Hope to see you there at 4pm today

A panel of CEOs, MFAT leadership, academics and commentators will discuss the latest fundings of the CID Annual Sector Survey.

Jonathan Kings Deputy Secretary Pacific & Development Group MFAT
Claire Szabo CEO of Habitat For Humanity New Zealand 
Livia Esterhazy CEO of WWF NZ
Sam Sachdeva Political Editor of Newsroom
Professor Regina Scheyvens Massey University.

• Drop in child sponsorship as public funding remains static or declines
• Partnerships with eachother or business declining
• But partnership with local partners in the Pacific increasing 
• More spent on humanitarian responses this year, with record amounts going to the crisis South Sudan and the Horn of Africa
• But a slight increase in funds to the Pacific 

Join us for a fun and informative evening of data and networking. 

+ NZ Aid - Where are we going wrong?

New Zealand aid organisations are battling declining donations and growing fragmentation - so why are so many positive about their future? Sam Sachdeva reports.

Today's Newsroom piece on the CID Survey launched today, highlights the positive, that according to the survey, 80 percent of the CID’s members had partnered with an organisation in the Pacific, with a 6 percent increase in the funds spent in the region.

These are 'heartening' signs that show many CID members had made moves towards devolving the implementation of aid to local partners.

But he also writes about the 15 year decline in public donations, while acknowledging that this is a global phenomena.

"While public donations remain the largest source of Kiwi aid organisations’ income (at 57 percent), there is no sign of an end to the multi-year decline that has seen donations drop 15 percent in the last decade."

Sam Sachdeva from Newsroom will be at the launch today to take part in the panel discussion on the Survey's key findings.
 

+ Localise the Bargain

It's three years since the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) in Istanbul, where world leaders and humanitarian agencies committed to scale up support for locally-led humanitarian action. How has the humanitarian sector done since then?

Two weeks ago, senior donor officials, the UN and NGOs met in Geneva for the annual review of the “Grand Bargain” process - the main follow-up process to the WHS through which signatory INGOs, UN and donors report on progress made, including on localisation.

A report is forthcoming from the Grand Bargain Facilitation Group in due course. However, two issues were reported by Bond UK:

• A UN agency challenged Grand Bargain signatories to promote “true localisation”. This would involve agencies not just reporting on their overall level of funding to local partners, but to also quantify how much goes into strengthening local capacity in a sustainable fashion. They would also report on the extent their programmes put local actors in the driving seat, not just having them implement projects defined by international agencies. This makes a lot of sense. Donors should hold all international agencies receiving funding (especially multi-year funding) accountable for taking this forward.
• Proliferating, burdensome and inconsistent compliance and due diligence requirements obstruct localisation. As one INGO participant put it, isn't this fundamentally political? Donors don’t impose this level of bureaucracy on stabilisation funding. Couldn't donors, and others, do more to educate their parliaments and media on the merits (saving lives and doing so more efficiently) of locally-led humanitarian response? Donors were also encouraged to support the Start Fund pilot to develop a tiered approach to compliance - enabling smaller groups to access smaller funds with less onerous compliance. This could also get packaged with multi-year support so those local groups grow the scale of funding and level of compliance that they can manage over time.

Also, The New Humanitarian has recently hosted an event called “The Grand Bargain – where to now?”, and you can read about it here.
 

+ Child rights: a second revolution

In 1989, at a time of massive political and economic change, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was passed by the UN General Assembly and set in motion a quiet, far-reaching revolution for the world’s children.

The CRC has become the most widely ratified of any of the human rights treaties and, since its adoption, and on most measures, the lives of children today are dramatically better than 30 years ago. The mortality rate for children under the age of five, for example, has more than halved in the last 30 years. 

But for all the advances that have been made, too many children have been left behind.

An assessment of children’s rights today by a group of leading child-focused organisations finds that the promises of the Convention remain unfulfilled for millions of children in our region and around the world. A ‘second revolution’ is required to realise the rights of all children, write Nigel Spence, Susanne Legena, Paul Ronalds and Claire Rogers on Devpolicy.
 

+ Aid Innovation Challenge

In tough economic times, agencies are increasingly relying on new innovations that will save them time and money to counterbalance their shrinking budgets and resource pools.

Every year one of the highlights at AidEx is the Dragons’-Den-style pitching session and ultimate unveiling of the winner of the coveted Aid Innovation Challenge, a competition in which innovators reveal their newest inventions for the aid and humanitarian sector. 

Here we take you through the archive of past winners of the Aid Innovation Challenge to help understand what the judges are looking for from the winning entry. 

Enter the Aid Innovation Challenge to be in with a chance of winning €1000 plus a free stand at AidEx 2020 equivalent to €3,500. Deadline for entry is 27th September 2019. 

+ Trees will save us, but forests under threat

Brookings Institute reports on why forests around the world are still under significant threat.

"Increasing demands for fuel, housing, and nourishment drive large-scale changes in land use at the cost of forest and tree cover. Some studies estimate that 27 percent of all forest loss—about 50,000 square kilometers per year—is caused by commodity-driven deforestation. That’s an area about the size of Costa Rica," writes Roy Parizat.

Deforestation is the second-leading cause of climate change after burning fossil fuels and accounts for nearly 20 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions.

"To save forests, we have to understand what is driving communities and countries to clear them, and propose land use alternatives that are both economically viable and environmentally sustainable."

 

+ Lowy Aid Links
 

And much more from Lowy links.

+ Big thank you to Rebekah and T&T

CID would like to thank Rebekah Robertson from Tonkin & Taylor for filling in for Aaron in the humanitarian role for the last couple of months. 

It's been great to have Rebekah as part of the CID team, and to model this kind of deep partnership with an organisation like Tonkin & Taylor. 

Rebekah brought her considerable skills and experience to the role, and her passion and heart for development work, and will continue to be a regular at the CID Humanitarian Network (NDRF).

She is also working on a paper that will explain to businesses how NGOs and the development eco-systems works; and explain to NGOs how and why businesses are more involved in development these days. 

We look forward to continuing the work with her, with John Leeves and the Tonkin & Taylor team.

And welcome back to Aaron who has returned from his trip to South America and Rapanui. It's great to have him back in the CID fold. 

From the CID team