Evidence-based decision making for funding allocations

Linking evidence-based information to decision-making is crucial in humanitarian aid to ensure the effective and efficient use of limited resources. This is even more important due to the growing gap between the amount of funding being requested for humanitarian aid and the finances available.

The study takes as a starting point that decision-making for humanitarian funding allocations is not exclusively related to needs. It understands the term “evidence” to be information that supports a given proposition with the aim of making a decision. The methodology applied therefore consisted of analysing whether and to what extent donors use evidence to answer the three following questions:
“Where, What and Who to fund?” at different decision-making levels (global, strategic and operational).

Seven donors were included in this scoping study: Canada, DANIDA (Denmark), DFID (UK), ECHO, SIDA (Sweden), SDC/HA (Switzerland) and USAID (USA). 

Based on the key findings of the study, a series of 11 recommendations are presented below for further discussion among GHD donors. These are related to the definition and production of evidence, decision-making processes and funding instruments.