Flagship Initiative

Martin Griffiths, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC), explains: “For international humanitarian assistance to have the greatest impact for the greatest number of people in the years ahead, the priorities of affected communities must drive response efforts, and local actors must be supported and empowered to deliver the response wherever possible.” He adds that the only way to make this happen is to initiate a “a bold new way to coordinate, deliver and finance humanitarian action.”

Thus, the Flagship Initiative was born. It is “bold” and “new” because it gives crisis-affected people a canvas to shape the response to help them, but without the use of traditional humanitarian coordination models or humanitarian programme cycle processes. The Initiative will be piloted in 2023 in Colombia, Niger, the Philippines and South Sudan, with an objective to develop approaches that can be replicated and scaled-up in other countries and contexts.