Case Study: Get Ready Fund

Events in 2020 brought to light a need for adaptation and change in approaches to humanitarian action worldwide. Humanitarian-to-humanitarian organizations' technical skills and services can support frontline responders to tackle crises effectively and efficiently. However, independent H2H organizations are typically small, operating on tight budgets -- it can be difficult to scale up and quickly get to work in an emergency. To help members develop processes, systems, and services allowing them to respond faster and more effectively to crises in 2021 and beyond, the H2H Network launched its “Get Ready Fund” in late 2020. The H2H Fund selected four projects from 11 submitted to develop a support package covering the H2H Network’s four thematic areas: data and information, community engagement and accountability, security, logistics and programme support, quality and sector professionalization.

The Get Ready Fund supported six established H2H members (CartONG, Groupe URD, CDAC Network, Translators Without Borders, RedR UK, Field Ready) with unusually valuable funding to develop their services. An emerging lesson across several projects was the critical importance of partnerships with in-country humanitarian actors, which were needed to establish hosting arrangements and stakeholder collaborations, to tailor services to requirements, or to mobilize national and local technical capacities.

This case study explores how the H2H’s ‘Get Ready Fund’ activation in 2020-2021 contributed added value to humanitarian action. It examines how the H2H Fund activation and H2H Network members' projects made potential contributions to improving the humanitarian system. The Get Ready Fund activation is unlike other H2H Fund activations because it supports the development of member services to strengthen the humanitarian system instead of the delivery of services to support a specific humanitarian response.