Resources

This report shares findings from a strategic review of the H2H Fund. The purpose of this review was to understand the impact of the fund to date and to inform its development and strategic direction.

This strategic review of the H2H Fund evaluates its impact, highlighting how fund activations have improved access to information, strengthened coordination, increased accountability, and supported innovation in humanitarian response. Key findings show that beyond immediate response, the H2H Fund delivers added value by filling critical gaps in the humanitarian system, facilitating collaboration, and producing publicly accessible technical resources. It enables rapid scale-up of underfunded services, supports learning across the sector, and offers donors a cost-effective way to maximize impact.

2025 we aim to advance a more equitable and effective humanitarian system by building on H2H’s core strengths to ensure that specialized services reach those on the frontlines of crises, particularly local responders, and shape change in the wider humanitarian system. Within this focus, we seek to amplify our members’ collective impact, promote the role of independent H2H services in strengthening humanitarian action, and position locally driven humanitarian action as central to addressing today’s humanitarian challenges, empowering local action through support with technical services.

This report highlights the critical, yet underrecognized, role of local support service providers (LSPs) in enabling effective, efficient, and accountable humanitarian action. While these local actors possess unique expertise, agility, and proximity to affected communities, structural inequalities in the international humanitarian system often marginalize their contributions. In a localized world, what are the opportunities for collaboration and stronger partnerships between LSPs and larger, international actors? Incorporating the diverse perspectives of LSPs from 25 countries across five global regions, 44 organizations participated in this study through qualitative interviews, and 55 others contributed written reflections. The goal was to learn more about their unique approaches, and explore how the H2H Network can better engage with LSPs to enhance collaboration, address systemic challenges, and ultimately strengthen humanitarian responses.

What role does neutrality play in humanitarian access and supporting localization efforts? The report "Neutrality, Access, and Making Localisation Work" initiated by H2H Member Global Interagency Security Forum (GISF) and co-authored by the H2H Head of Outreach and Engagement, Emmanuel Tronc, explores the complications surrounding the humanitarian principle of neutrality. It focuses on the intersection of neutrality with humanitarian access and acceptance-based strategies, which aim to ensure aid reaches and is willingly received by target communities. The paper also examines how collaborations between local and international organizations can improve acceptance, but may complicate perceptions of neutrality.

This report explores the role that specialized service providers like H2H actors can play in supporting the next generation of Anticipatory Action programmes, by providing key contributions that expand the capabilities available to AA actors, particularly in the scope and diversity of data and information solutions.

Humanitarian data, Information Management (IM), assessments, and analysis are fundamental to the effective planning, delivery, and accountability of humanitarian aid. The decisions based on these data impact millions of people affected by crises. It is critical these decisions are grounded in an informed and impartial understanding of needs and context, ensuring that the humanitarian narrative is driven by evidence rather than political agendas. As specialised H2H organisations committed to providing independent data and analysis, we welcome the increased focus on these issues, particularly within OCHA’s review of its IM and analysis functions. This is an important opportunity to strengthen the sector, and we encourage OCHA to recognise and enhance the role of technical partners in fostering collaboration, partnership, and joint ownership.

The humanitarian sector has begun to recognise the significance of shifting operational decision making and leadership to local and national partners, albeit slowly. This report highlights some of the key experiences of national and international humanitarian professionals with partnerships and localisation and their reflections on them. Several key themes emerge, including the lack of conceptual clarity about localisation and its ambitions; the absence of a unified vision and voice on whether and how to implement approaches; localisation as a topdown policy priority that may not translate well in the field; and donors’ failure to revise their internal processes to allow more risk taking and more direct funding to go to national actors despite their ambitions to do so.

This strategy seeks to distil from consultation with the membership and other stakeholders, the central network functions1 that the H2H network aims to fulfil in the next three years, and the focus areas that will contribute to this. To further guide our action, we have developed a set of simple rules2 for each priority area of the strategy, to aid decision making in the face of strategic choices and changes in the external context. Finally, we have outlined what success will look like at the end of the period, to aid measurement and accountability.

This systematic review assessed the evidence of the Humanitarian to Humanitarian (H2H) organisation model’s effectiveness in action; its alignment with the broad strategic aims of the network; and, its contribution to humanitarian action globally. To conduct this review, Bodhi Global Analysis systematically reviewed the H2H body of evidence - in the form of documentation and key informant interviews (KIIs) - against the Review Questions (RQs). Assessment utilised a systematic quantitative document review (against RQs and internal/external criteria), and qualitative synthesis.

The H2H Network has activated its fund to provide rapid funding for specialized member agencies and coordinate services to strengthen the response, building on local capacities, knowledge and expertise. | Le Réseau H2H (H2H Network) a activé son mécanisme de financement en lançant un appel à propositions à destination de ses membres. Les membres du réseau H2H fournissent des services techniques spécialisés qui s'appuient sur les capacités et les expertises locales et qui s’intègrent à l’écosystème humanitaire déjà présent.