Funding to Local Humanitarian Actors: Somalia case study

Commissioned by NEAR, this report presents findings on humanitarian funding trends and dynamics in Somalia. The aims of the study were to develop a better understanding of the amount of funding that goes directly and indirectly to local/national humanitarian actors from their international counterparts, and to provide an analysis of partnership issues and dynamics between this set of actors.

The study reflects on the issues and progress around the subject of a fairer deal in terms of international funding for local/national actors, which led to the commitments made by the largest international donors and responding actors at the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016 under the resultant Grand Bargain.

The study utilises public sources of data, as well as financial data generously provided by most major international agencies operational in Somalia, much of which has not been obtained and analysed before. Twelve Somali non-governmental organisations also provided funding-related financial data to enable further analysis. In addition, the study team carried out interviews with representatives from donors, international and local/national agencies, and conducted a workshop in Mogadishu.