Today FAO, the Norwegian Refugee Committee (NRC) and UNDP launched their jointly commissioned report Financing the Nexus: Gaps and Opportunities from a Field Perspective at the European Union Delegation in Geneva.

Ms Lydia Poole, Independant Consultant and co-author of the report presented the main points, findings and recommendation from the report and mapping exercise on existing humanitarian and development funding flows and mechanisms in Cameroon, CAR, Chad, DRC, Ukraine and Uganda.

An audience of over 50 Member States and International Organizations representatives joined in a discussion moderated by Ms Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, Director of the FAO Liaison Office in Geneva following remarks by Ms Joachime Nason, Head of the Humanitarian Section at the E.U. Delegation, Mr James Munn, NRC Head of Policy and Geneva Director, and Ms Mervat Shelbaya, Head of the Interagency Standing Committee Secretariat.

Three years after the World Humanitarian Summit brought humanitarian donors, responders and affected people together to agree how crises need to be dealt with differently, the main questions debated were: To what extent is predictable, multi-year, flexible financing made available at the programme level? and how does funding match collective outcomes and financial requirements in humanitarian and development plans?

In her closing remarks, Ms Rodriguess-Birkett highlighted four key recommendations from the report:

1. For each context, clarify the scope for the nexus approach. Does it include addressing the root cause of conflict? In the absence of government commitment and in absence of support for peace, the scope for nexus approach is limited. This is important to acknowledge this limitation and set realistic objectives accordingly. 

2. Commit to funding continuity.  Donors should provide more flexible funding with appropriate timeframes to deliver transformative results while addressing humanitarian needs and shocks. 

3. Better programming. The need for organizations to build up further their capacity at country level to design and deliver transformative programmes (It may require other type of skills and competencies than those needed to deliver humanitarian assistance).

4. Bottom up approach. We now have successful examples of thematic, sectoral and area-based nexus approaches at country level, which offer lessons for future work.  This is good news. Understanding why these initiatives yield results, why they are funded and how they can be replicated should be a priority. This bottom up strategy seems to offer good opportunities for identifying priorities, developing financing strategies and for scaling up. This could be the subject of another study.