Start Network has developed a tiered due diligence framework to enable the network to bring in more local organisations as members, while still meeting donor compliance and ensuring trust across the network. In March 2020, a pilot was established to evaluate the impact of directly funding members that had met a particular tier in the tiered due diligence framework. Through the pilot these members were given access to up to £30,000 via the Start Fund.
We wanted to understand the value that Start Network membership has brought to new members, including the value of our due diligence process. Based on interviews conducted between November and December 2020, here are the three main ways that due diligence has benefitted our new members from their perspectives.
Start Fund Bangladesh, since its inception in 2017, has been advocating to change the deep-rooted partnership practices that hinder localisation commitments, one of which is the equal sharing of ICR. Although changes were not reflected initially, in 2019 a few Start Fund Bangladesh INGO members started negotiating with their head offices and became successful in ensuring a share of ICR went to their local partners.
As part of Start Network’s commitment to supporting local actors, eight national and local members have so far been selected to participate in a fund for COVID-19 response. This fund will allow these organisations to access funding of up to £30,000 to respond to COVID-19 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India and Pakistan.
Using local membership strength of a pooled funding mechanism to extend humanitarian support during a pandemic.
Start Network is pleased to announce that 12 new local and national aid agencies, based in India, Pakistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, have joined the network. The new members have joined as part of Start Network’s plans to build a more balanced network made up of more local and national actors.
Gang Karume est natif de la République Démocratique du Congo (RDC) et a travaillé pendant plus de 12 ans, entre 1998 et 2009, comme Coordinateur des opérations dans l’équipe globale d’urgence d’International Rescue Committee (IRC). Ici, nous parlons avec Gang sur comment il s’est engagé avec Start network et sa vision de l’action humanitaire en RDC.
Gang Karume Augustin is a DRC national and worked for 12 years as the Global Emergency Coordinator for IRC from 1998-2010. Here we speak with Gang about how he got involved with the Start Network and where he sees the future of humanitarian action in DRC.
I, like many of you, have been reading about and watching videos on the riots, the police brutality, the incidents of racial injustice and racially motivated violence of the last several weeks linked to the murder of George Floyd by US police in Minneapolis. This makes me deeply sad and deeply angry.
Today Start Network's five hubs have launched a bold paper aimed at catalysing a more local response to the immediate needs of COVID-19 needs and to accelerate a lasting step-change in humanitarian response.
