What impact do institutional donor requirements have on NGOs ?

The French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs (IRIS) is one of the main independent European Think Tanks on geopolitical and strategic issues.

IRIS, a public-interest association created in 1991, is a French think tank on geopolitical and strategic issues. It is the only international think tank to have been set up as a totally private initiative in an independent approach. IRIS activities can be divided into four fields: research, organisation of events and meetings, publishing and training.

Under the direction of Michel Maietta, Senior Research Fellow at IRIS and Head of the Strategy and Analysis Unit at Action Against Hunger France. This space of reflection aims to be an open forum for dialogue and research on humanitarian space’s evolution and the role of its stakeholders.

The humanitarian sector is going through an identity crisis; discussions about its west centric orientation, interventionist nature and more recently the resilience agenda have stirred new thinking but not revolutionary change. This is perhaps because serious consideration of these issues could radically challenge the established models, question our set of values and redefine the balance of power between the humanitarian actors.

This observatory aims to facilitate discussions which will bring together the perspective of actors in the humanitarian field and contribute to the thinking around a new generation of humanitarian organisations.Abstract:

Among the numerous actors making up the humanitarian aid system, there are institutional donors (mainly governments, EU and UN) and NGOs. In recent years, this environment has been marked by, among other things, the need to rationalise and indeed reduce the costs and obligations, and in particular the administrative burden, associated with management and funded actions. In this context, institutional donor requirements, however they appear, ultimately impact upon those receiving the funding and in particular on NGOs, which are now faced with obligations in their humanitarian emergency response as well as in their operations and ways of working.

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