Humanitarian Financing Monitoring and Evaluation Training Course

Participants can compare funding instruments and establish evidence needs for allocation decisions.

• Compare bilateral grants, country-based pooled funds, and CERF allocations
• Trace reporting lines through UN agencies, NGOs, and local partners
• Allocation criteria based on severity, feasibility, coverage, and funding gaps
• Use OCHA Financial Tracking Service data to assess funding patterns
• Examine advantages and limitations of multi-year humanitarian financing
• Document allocation decisions with transparent evidence and approval records

Participants can create a results framework connecting financing decisions to humanitarian results.

• Theory of change linking funds, activities, outputs, outcomes, and impact
• Construct causal pathways for rapid-onset and protracted crisis responses
• Separate funding inputs from programme outputs and population outcomes
• Assumptions, risks, and external factors within financing results chains
• Align logframe levels with donor reporting and management decisions
• Test vertical logic using realistic humanitarian delivery scenarios

Participants can specify measurable indicators for humanitarian financing performance and results.

• Indicator reference sheets: definition, calculation, source, frequency, and responsibility
• Funding timeliness measured from commitment, disbursement, receipt, and expenditure dates
• Calculate budget utilisation, burn rate, and expenditure against approved plans
• Coverage indicators comparing reached populations with assessed priority needs
• Cost-efficiency indicators using unit cost, cost per output, and delivery ratios
• Disaggregate indicators by location, sex, age, disability, and displacement status

Participants can set defensible baselines and targets under uncertain humanitarian funding conditions.

• Establish baselines from needs assessments, financial records, and service data
• Set targets using caseload estimates, delivery capacity, and available funding
• Model best-case, expected-case, and constrained-funding delivery scenarios
• Distinguish output targets from outcome targets and financial milestones
• Revise targets after shocks, access restrictions, or funding reductions
• Record target changes through formal change-control procedures

Participants can select and organise data sources for financing and programme monitoring.

• Match indicators to accounting systems, distribution records, surveys, and partner reports
• Design data collection matrices covering source, method, frequency, and owner
• Reconcile financial data between ledgers, grant trackers, and programme databases
• Capture commitments, obligations, disbursements, expenditure, and outstanding balances
• Use mobile data collection appropriately for beneficiary and service monitoring
• Maintain data dictionaries for consistent reporting across partners

Participants can assess data quality and plan verification of financing performance evidence.

• Apply data quality dimensions: validity, reliability, precision, integrity, and timeliness
• Conduct source document verification against reported financial and output figures
• Test indicator calculations using sampled records and recalculation procedures
• Compare partner narrative reports with invoices, registers, and distribution lists
• Establish data quality assessment schedules based on programme risk
• Document findings, corrective actions, owners, and completion deadlines

Participants can monitor financial performance against approved budgets and implementation plans.

• Read grant budgets by cost category, activity, location, and implementing partner
• Calculate budget variance using actual expenditure, forecast, and approved budget
• Investigate favourable and adverse variances using structured variance analysis
• Monitor burn rates against implementation milestones and grant end dates
• Separate committed costs, accrued costs, paid costs, and unspent balances
• Escalate material variances through management action and donor notification

Participants can analyse cost patterns and frame value-for-money findings for humanitarian decisions.

• Calculate unit costs for transfers, kits, consultations, shelters, and training
• Compare planned unit costs with actual costs and market changes
• Apply economy, efficiency, effectiveness, and equity to funding decisions
• Identify cost drivers including logistics, staffing, procurement, and access constraints
• Use cost per beneficiary cautiously alongside quality and outcome evidence
• Present cost analysis without overstating causal claims or attribution

Participants can produce an operational monitoring plan aligned with financial reporting cycles.

• Build monitoring plans from indicators, risks, reporting dates, and decision points
• Synchronise programme monitoring with monthly financial close and donor deadlines
• Assign data collection, validation, analysis, approval, and escalation responsibilities
• Create reporting calendars for internal reviews, partner submissions, and donors
• Set evidence requirements for budget revisions and no-cost extensions
• Track overdue reports, missing documents, and unresolved corrective actions

Participants can prepare monitoring evidence that meets common donor compliance requirements.

• Interpret grant agreements, approved budgets, logframes, and reporting clauses
• Differentiate narrative reporting requirements from financial reporting requirements
• Link reported achievements to approved indicators and verified expenditure
• Explain budget deviations using evidence, corrective actions, and approval status
• Prepare supporting files for donor monitoring visits and desk reviews
• Maintain an audit trail for amendments, approvals, reports, and correspondence

Participants can establish monitoring arrangements for pooled-fund grants and sub-grantee portfolios.

• Monitor pooled-fund allocations against prioritisation criteria and funded activities
• Assess sub-grantee capacity using financial, programme, and safeguarding evidence
• Apply risk-based monitoring frequencies to partner grants and advances
• Review partner cash requests against expenditure, forecasts, and workplans
• Use sub-grant reporting templates for consolidation and exception tracking
• Escalate suspected ineligible expenditure through documented review procedures

Participants can monitor financing performance and controls for cash and voucher assistance.

• Map cash transfer funding flows from donor receipt to beneficiary payment
• Monitor transfer value, payment completion, reconciliation, and rejected transactions
• Calculate delivery cost ratios for financial service provider arrangements
• Verify beneficiary eligibility, duplication controls, and complaint resolution records
• Track market price changes affecting transfer adequacy and budget forecasts
• Assess payment data protection risks within cash assistance systems

Participants can integrate accountability, inclusion and ethical safeguards into financing M&E systems.

• Apply Core Humanitarian Standard commitments to financing monitoring arrangements
• Include community feedback data within funding performance review processes
• Analyse participation barriers affecting expenditure, reach, and outcome evidence
• Protect personally identifiable information in financial and beneficiary datasets
• Establish consent, access, retention, and sharing rules for monitoring data
• Refer safeguarding concerns through approved reporting and investigation channels

Participants can plan an evaluation of humanitarian financing relevance, performance and results.

• Apply OECD DAC criteria to humanitarian financing evaluation questions
• Develop evaluation questions on relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, and impact
• Define scope across funding modalities, partners, locations, and population groups
• Select evaluation designs appropriate to time, access, ethics, and resources
• Write evaluation terms of reference with governance and deliverables
• Plan management responses to evaluation findings and recommendations

Participants can select practical sampling approaches and interpret financing M&E evidence accurately.

• Choose purposive, random, stratified, and cluster sampling for humanitarian studies
• Calculate sample size considerations without claiming false statistical precision
• Triangulate financial records, monitoring data, interviews, and observation findings
• Use descriptive statistics for expenditure, reach, timeliness, and unit costs
• Identify outliers, missing values, duplicates, and inconsistent reporting patterns
• Separate correlation, contribution, attribution, and plausible alternative explanations

Participants can use monitoring evidence to recommend timely funding and implementation adjustments.

• Establish decision thresholds for underspend, overspend, delays, and coverage gaps
• Convert monitoring findings into corrective actions with named accountabilities
• Use pause-and-reflect reviews to examine implementation assumptions
• Prioritise budget reallocations using evidence of needs, performance, and risk
• Document management decisions, rationale, approvals, and follow-up evidence
• Close feedback loops with communities, partners, donors, and programme teams

Participants can identify financing risks and maintain evidence for audit and assurance review.

• Develop risk registers covering financial, operational, fiduciary, and reputational risks
• Recognise fraud red flags within procurement, payroll, distributions, and partner advances
• Apply segregation of duties to payment approval and reconciliation processes
• Test control effectiveness through document review, walkthroughs, and exception analysis
• Maintain supporting evidence for procurement, assets, payments, and distributions
• Prepare action plans for audit findings and control weaknesses

Participants can present financing performance evidence clearly for management and donor audiences.

• Select dashboard metrics for funding status, expenditure, results, and risk
• Build variance charts comparing budget, actuals, forecast, and grant balance
• Use traffic-light thresholds only where escalation criteria are defined
• Present disaggregated reach data without masking excluded population groups
• Write concise findings statements supported by verified data and context
• Tailor management reports for operational decisions, governance, and donor assurance

Participants can build, review and present a complete humanitarian financing monitoring and evaluation package for a funded response.

• Define a funding scenario, response scope, stakeholders, and decision requirements
• Construct results framework, indicators, baselines, targets, and key assumptions
• Complete data collection matrix, verification plan, and reporting calendar
• Analyse budget monitoring requirements, risk controls, and escalation thresholds
• Draft evaluation questions, terms of reference elements, and management response process
• Present the package, defend design choices, and incorporate peer feedback