WORKING WITH DG ECHO AS AN NGO PARTNER | 2021 - 2027
PARTNERS AND CO-PARTNERS
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 one (multi-partner) grant agreement with several certified partners which have decided 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 certified partners share their needs assessment (or they carry out joint needs assessment), they develop in a collaborative way their response which is translated into a joint Logframe.
Co-partners will then submit one single proposal.
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-CERTIFIED PARTNER GRANT AGREEMENT WITH DG ECHO
Consortium within a DG ECHO-funded grant agreement is defined as an action under which several certified partners (or even sometimes international organisations, including the United Nations) are all contracting parties to a multi-partner grant agreement with the Commission and work together under a consortium arrangement, with one of the certified partners signing the grant agreement and acting as coordinator of the consortium, while other certified partners accede to the grant agreement and take part in the implementation as co-partners.
From a legal point of view, the members of a consortium (except the lead partner referred to as ‘coordinator’) are considered as co-partners (cobeneficiaries). The grant agreement with several partners is legally referred to as multi-beneficiary grant agreement.
The coordinator acts as an interface with the Commission (with respect to communication, and grant and payment management) and monitors that the action is implemented properly by the co-partners.
Financial responsibility will be divided between co-partners according to their share in the implementation of the action. 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-partners.
- 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
