Country-based Pooled Funds for Humanitarian Financing

Country-based pooled funds (CBPFs) are mechanisms used to receive contributions from multiple financial donors and allocate unearmarked resources to multiple implementing entities within a country. Donors use CBPFs to pool their contributions to support local humanitarian efforts. CBPFs are thought to enable the provision of timely, coordinated and principled assistance, and help meet The Grand Bargain commitment to channel by 2020 25% “of humanitarian financing to local and national responders as directly as possible”. In recent years humanitarian CBPFs have grown in number and funding. However, the overwhelming majority of global humanitarian funding is provided as direct bilateral grants from donors to recipient organisations. While the volume of unearmarked pooled funds is increasing, it is not growing as a share of the total.

This rapid review provides a brief overview of the evidence on the effectiveness of CBPFs for humanitarian response, and recommendations of good practice.