Rethinking Humanitarian Funding: New Approaches to Backing WLOs

About the Report

This report from ODI Global's Humanitarian Policy Group examines how funders can overcome barriers to supporting women-led organisations in humanitarian response. By analysing successful funding models across direct, indirect, and pooled mechanisms, the research paper offers practical pathways for building a more accessible, efficient funding ecosystem. For public servants managing humanitarian budgets or development partnerships, this could be an essential task, and this study provides evidence-based guidance on diversifying funding approaches without requiring new budgets- providing an efficient alternative method of working.

Report Name

Pathways to better funding for women-led organisations.

Who Wrote This Report?

This report was produced by ODI Global's Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG). The research draws from a desk review of evaluations and case studies, interviews with diverse stakeholders, and a mixed-methods survey completed by 271 representatives of women-led organisations worldwide.

Best Quote

“The reasons for change go far beyond budget cuts: the old ways of funding and collaborating were simply not working – for WLOs, funders or affected communities."

Key Takeaways

• Women-Led Organisations as Indispensable Humanitarian Actors : WLOs possess unparalleled access, not just for hard-to-reach geographies, but for marginalised groups often invisible to outsiders. Their community embeddedness enables them to monitor and respond to sensitive issues, including sexual exploitation and abuse, while their intersectional approach begins organically from community-stated needs rather than predetermined international frameworks.

• Debunking the "Too Risky" Myth: Concerns about funding WLOs are rarely evidence-based. The report challenges funders to flip the question: Is the perceived risk of funding WLOs greater than the real risk of overlooking initiatives that actually meet people's needs? The paper supports the fact that local organisations could deliver programming as much as 32% more efficiently than international agencies, highlighting that funding is crucial, even if it poses a risk.

• Multiple Modalities, One Ecosystem: No single funding model works for all contexts. Direct funding offers WLOs greater agency and alignment; indirect funding through intermediaries can work when designed equitably; and pooled funds, particularly feminist funds, demonstrate impressive reach through participatory grant-making. The key is building a complementary ecosystem where each modality plays to its strengths.

• Co-Financing and Consortia Models Overcome Barriers: Where legal restrictions prevent direct funding, creative solutions exist. Sweden's development agency (SIDA) partnered with Switzerland's SDC through co-financing to reach unregistered organisations in Myanmar. Consortium models allow multiple small WLOs to access funding collectively while sharing governance responsibilities.

• Inclusion Must Be Structural, Not Tokenistic: WLOs report a catch-22: they need funding to gain visibility with funders but cannot access opportunities without prior visibility. Progress requires structured accountability mechanisms ensuring WLOs are brought in as equal partners in decision-making, and not just consulted superficially.

What's in This Report?

The report addresses a fundamental challenge in humanitarian funding: despite years of advocacy, women-led organisations face persistent barriers to full participation in humanitarian response, including funding scarcity, onerous accountability requirements, and misconceptions around capacity and risk.

The core analysis examines three funding modalities through concrete examples. For direct funding, the report profiles East SOS in Ukraine, which highlights advantages including direct reporting lines with donors, easier budgeting for indirect costs, and longer-term certainty. It also explores co-financing arrangements between Sida and SDC, and consortium models like Uganda's National Platform established by the Feminist Humanitarian Network.

For indirect funding, the research differentiates in between what makes intermediaries transformative versus extractive. Positive examples include the Resourcing Change project channeling unrestricted funding to WLOs in Afghanistan, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Yemen, and CAFOD models ringfencing resources for WLO-led capacity mapping.

The analysis of pooled funds distinguishes between humanitarian pooled funds and feminist funds. The Ukraine Humanitarian Fund demonstrates what's possible within mainstream mechanisms. It does so by training over 50 WLOs on eligibility systems, identifying 100+ others to apply, and awarding $9 million to WLOs in 2023. The Feminist Funds like the Equality Fund have moved over CAD $100 million to women's rights organisations since 2019 through participatory grant-making approaches.

Beyond the above modalities, the report outlines three conditions for transformative change: working toward a complementary funding ecosystem that allows WLOs to evolve, meaningful inclusion in decision-making spaces, and experimentation, innovation, and learning by doing.

What can you takeaway from this publication?

A potential paradigm shift for humanitarian and development funding, can be seen through this report. It demonstrates that the most effective approaches aren't always costly new budgets or complex intervention strategies, but rather deliberate, evidence-informed changes to existing systems.

For public servants who are managing bilateral aid, pooled fund contributions, or partnerships with intermediaries, this is a practical guide. It shows that barriers often perceived as insurmountable, in the form of legal restrictions, due diligence requirements, administrative burdens, have been overcome by peer institutions through creative solutions like co-financing, consortia, and implementation of pilot programmes.

The report also presents a fundamental reassessment of risk perceptions. Current frameworks privilege donor concerns about financial and reputational harms while leaving local actors and communities to tackle all other threats. Rethinking these assumptions is essential for more effective resource allocation.

Most importantly, the report provides concrete "key actions" for each funding modality, in the form of actionable steps that government donors, intermediaries, and pooled funds can implement immediately.

Who Is This Report For?

This report is an essential reading for:

• Humanitarian budget managers who are seeking to diversify funding channels and improve efficiency.

• Development cooperation officers working on localisation commitments

• Policy advisors involved in humanitarian reform initiatives

• Programme managers overseeing partnerships with intermediaries or pooled fund contributions

• Public servants engaged in gender equality and women's empowerment programming

Whether you're responsible for bilateral funding decisions, contributing to multilateral mechanisms, or designing partnership frameworks, this research provides the evidence base and practical pathways to translate localisation commitments into measurable action.