WORKING WITH DG ECHO AS AN NGO PARTNER | 2021 - 2027
CO-BENEFICIARIES
The number and the complexity of today’s disasters are stretching humanitarian actors’ capacities to respond effectively and efficiently to these disasters.
Strengthening collaboration between humanitarian Organisations operating in the field can bring advantages such as complementarity, increased geographic coverage, increased target population coverage and decreased duplication.
Partners may decide to join forces to respond to complex and major crises and create a consortium.
This coordinated approach consists in signing a single (multi-beneficiary) grant agreement between several Certified NGO Partners, recognised MSSAs and International Organisations Partners of DG ECHO, which have chosen to collaborate more closely in the field to address the needs of a specific crisis.
Under this approach the collaboration takes place ex-ante between Partners present in the field.
The Partners share their needs assessment (or they carry out joint needs assessment), they develop their response in a collaborative way which is translated into a joint Logframe.
The Coordinator will then submit one single proposal on behalf of the consortium.
Key factors for a successful collaboration
- Common objectives between partners
- Effective leadership
- Alignment of procedures
- Support staff working for the project
- Commitment for the collaboration (meeting, MOU)
- Transparent, effective communication
- Clarify roles and responsibilities
- Realistic funding
- Finding common approaches
- Managing internal crisis within consortium
CONSORTIUM – MULTI- BENEFICIARY GRANT AGREEMENT WITH DG ECHO
A consortium within a DG ECHO-funded Grant Agreement is defined as an arrangement where multiple Certified NGO Partners (or even sometimes International Organisations, including the United Nations and MSSAs Partners of DG ECHO) are all contracting parties to a multi-beneficiary Grant Agreement with DG ECHO.
From a legal point of view, the members of a consortium (except the lead partner referred to as ‘Coordinator’) are considered as co-beneficiaries (co-partners).
The Grant Agreement with several Partners is legally referred to as multi-beneficiary Grant Agreement.
In this set-up one of the Certified Partners signs the Grant Agreement and acts as Coordinator of the consortium, while other Certified Partners accede to the Grant Agreement and take part in the implementation as co-beneficiaries (also referred to as co-Partners).
The Coordinator acts as an interface with the Commission (e.g. with respect to communication, grant and payments’ management) and monitors that the action is implemented properly by the co-beneficiaries.
Financial responsibility will be divided between co-beneficiaries according to their share in the implementation of the Action. At final payment, the Coordinator will be fully liable for recoveries, even if it has not been the final recipient of the undue amounts. At beneficiary termination or after final payment, recoveries will be made directly against the beneficiaries concerned. More information on this can be found in the Annotated Grant Agreement.
- Certified NGOs cannot act as Implementing Partners: they will participate in the implementation of the action as co-beneficiaries.
- A consortium does not need to have a written Consortium Agreement. However, its members must have internal arrangement regarding their operations and coordination to ensure that the action is implemented properly. Ensuring a clear audit trail is key.
REFERENCE & DOCUMENT
EU HUMANITARIAN PARTNERSHIP CERTIFICATE GUIDANCE, SEC. 3.1
