Financing humanitarian needs amid the Covid-19 pandemic

International grant support for response to the Covid-19 pandemic is being provided as both humanitarian grants, to meet immediate humanitarian needs, and development grants, to address the wider socioeconomic and health impacts of the pandemic. On 1 October 2020, 64% of the total humanitarian grant funding to the Covid-19 pandemic response had been allocated for support to specific countries – with remaining funding designated for response at the global level (26%), to multiple countries (1.0%) or with the destination yet to be specified (8.6%).^[1]

• Funding patterns for international humanitarian grants to the Covid-19 pandemic response largely mirror those for the response to other crises; however, funding to the Covid-19 pandemic response is spread more evenly, across a wider number of recipients.
• Yemen and Syria are the two largest recipients of humanitarian grant funding to the Covid-19 pandemic response, as they are for grant funding to other humanitarian needs.^[2] However, they have received a smaller proportion of total grant funding to the Covid-19 pandemic response than to other humanitarian needs: Yemen has received 4.2% of total humanitarian grant funding to the Covid-19 pandemic response, and Syria has received 3.9%; these proportions are considerably smaller than the 9.1% and 10.3% received, respectively, as a proportion of total humanitarian grant funding to all needs for the same time period.
• Among the 20 largest recipients of humanitarian grant funding to the Covid-19 pandemic response, only one country (Iran) is not currently experiencing protracted crisis.^[3]
• Notable among the 20 largest recipients of humanitarian grant funding to the Covid-19 pandemic response, are Pakistan and Iran. These countries are receiving a higher proportion of total humanitarian grant funding to the Covid-19 pandemic response than they have typically received for other needs.

The Covid-19 pandemic is putting increased strain on already limited funding for humanitarian response. On 1 October 2020, UN appeal requirements that were not related to the Covid-19 pandemic stood at US$30.4 million, with an additional US$10.2 billion required to respond to the pandemic.

Funding to the Covid-19 pandemic response has continued to increase. However, this increase in funding has occurred in the context of escalating needs, which are reflected in the increase in total appeal requirements for the pandemic response: in July 2020, the target for the Global Humanitarian Response Plan (GHRP) increased from US$7.3 billion to its current target of US10.2 billion. Therefore, the proportion of appeal requirements met remains small.

• On 1 October 2020, 28% of appeal requirements for the Covid-19 pandemic response had been met. This compares to 35% of appeal requirements for other humanitarian needs.
• At the end of June 2020, when the total appeal requirements for the pandemic response was lower, 21% of appeal requirements for the Covid-19 pandemic response had been met.

Three countries have seen large increases in their appeal requirements for Covid-19 pandemic response over the period June to October, with funding targets more than doubling.

• Appeal requirements for the Covid-19 pandemic response increased during the period June to October for Bangladesh by 231% (to US$387 million), for Sudan by 224% (to US$284 million) and for Yemen by 115% (to US$386 million).

Among the 20 countries with the largest requirements for Covid-19 pandemic response on 1 October 2020, only four countries had better coverage for pandemic response requirements than they did for other humanitarian needs.

• The four countries with a higher proportion of requirements met for Covid-19 pandemic response than for other humanitarian needs were: the Democratic Republic of the Congo (33% of pandemic response requirements met compared to 21% for other needs), Haiti (17% coverage compared to 15%); Lebanon (40% coverage to 21%); and Zambia (16% coverage compared to 12%).
• Among the 20 countries with the largest requirements for Covid-19 pandemic response, Pakistan had the largest coverage of pandemic response requirements (50%), while Uganda had with the smallest coverage (5%).
• Among the 20 countries with the largest requirements for Covid-19 pandemic response, only four had received funding fulfilling more than 50% of their other humanitarian appeal requirements: Somalia (66% of other appeal requirements met); Iraq (61%); Central African Republic (52%); and Bangladesh (51%).

Total humanitarian funding for the Covid-19 pandemic response reported to UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ (OCHA’s) Financial Tracking Service (FTS) had reached US$ 5.3 billion by 1 October 2020.

• Total humanitarian funding to the Covid-19 pandemic response has doubled since late June 2020, when committed funding was US$2.6 billion. This funding includes resources committed to activities within the UN’s GHRP, as well as funding for humanitarian activities in response to the pandemic outside of this plan.
• A large proportion of humanitarian funding for the Covid-19 pandemic response has been reported as committed but not yet disbursed. On 1 October 2020, 49% of reported funding had been disbursed. This represents a slight increase in the proportion of funding disbursed compared with late June 2020, when 44% of funding was reported to have been disbursed.

A growing number of donors have committed humanitarian funding to the Covid-19 pandemic response – with the total number of donors increasing from 110 at the end of June 2020 to 154 by 1 October 2020. However, a small number of donors account for the majority of international humanitarian assistance directed to the Covid-19 pandemic response.

• Five donors – the US, Germany, Japan, the EU and the UK – account for just under two thirds (62%) of all humanitarian funding to the Covid-19 pandemic response.
• While humanitarian funding is concentrated among a small number of large donors, the funding response is spread more widely than for total international humanitarian assistance for other crises in recent years. In 2019, the three largest donors of international humanitarian assistance (the US, Germany and the UK) accounted for 58% of total assistance, while the three largest donors to the Covid-19 pandemic response (the US, Germany and Japan) accounted for 44% of humanitarian funding for the pandemic response on 1 October 2020.
• Since the end of June 2020, large increases in funding have been made by the US, growing from US$382 million to US$953 million, and Japan, rising from US$270 million to US$653 million.

As of 1 October 2020, the majority of humanitarian funding reported to UN OCHA’s FTS for response to the Covid-19 pandemic (including assistance to the GHRP and for response outside of the plan) had been channelled through multilateral organisations in the first instance.

• Two thirds (66%, US$3.5 billion) of the international humanitarian assistance for response to the Covid-19 pandemic was channelled through multilateral organisations. This represents a smaller proportion of total humanitarian funding to the Covid-19 pandemic response than at the end of June, when 73% was directed through multilateral organisations.
• The majority of funding to multilateral organisations (92%, US$3.2 billion) was received by just five UN agencies. The World Health Organization received 33% (US$1.1 billion) of funding to multilateral organisations, Unicef received 21% (US$745), the World Food Programme received 17% (US$581 million), the UN High Commissioner for Refugees received 16% (US$547 million) and the International Organization for Migration received 5% (US$190 million).

The proportion of total humanitarian funding for response to the Covid-19 pandemic received by NGOs has increased since the end of June.

• As of 1 October 2020, NGOs had received 12% (US$645 million) of total humanitarian funding to the Covid-19 pandemic response. This compares to just 5% (US$134 million) reported on FTS at the end of June.
• Of the humanitarian funding for response to the Covid-19 pandemic that was channelled through to the GHRP, almost a fifth (19%, US557 million) was provided directly to NGOs.
• Outside of the GHRP, however, only a very small proportion of funding (4.0%, US498 million) for responding to the humanitarian need associated with the Covid-19 pandemic had been received directly by NGOs. Multilateral organisations had received 52% (US$1.3 billion) of this funding outside of the GHRP, the public sector received 19% (US$456 million) and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement received 12% (US$285 million).