News

The NGO “Open Policy Foundation” has successfully undergone a capacity assessment made by the Ukraine Humanitarian Fund and has obtained a low score of the risk rating, which gave the right to apply for projects of the Humanitarian Fund through the Grant Management System (GMS).

The purpose of such capacity assessment is to verify the partner's institutional, technical, governance and financial capacity and to ensure that the necessary information is available to make informed decisions about the partner's eligibility and its initial risk rating.

So, in order to undergo this assessment, we have submitted all the necessary documents and passed the preliminary steps (Step 1: Registration, Step 2: Due diligence), and on July 19, 2019, Humanitarian Coordinator at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Samuel Kihara visited the Open Policy Foundation to undergo the capacity assessment.

The Open Policy Foundation was then categorized as a low-risk organization. The Foundation meets the requirements as a low-risk partner.

List of documents submitted by the Open Policy Foundation: 

Organizational Information:

- Governance Documents 

- An email by the concerned Sector/Cluster Coordinator, confirming membership of the organization in the Cluster and stating the number of 3W/5W submissions by the organization to the Cluster 

- Organization’s organigram

- Code of Conduct 

- Policy on accountability to affected populations (AAP) 

- Anti-fraud and conflict of interest policy

Policies/Manuals:

- Procurement & Logistics

- Human Resources

- Program Planning 

- Finance & Administration

- Stock Management system and disposal policy

- Monitoring & Evaluation

- Security, Safety & Access

- Gender, HIV/AIDS and/or Environment

- Child Protection

Reports and other relevant documents:

- Annual country reports for the last 1-2 years

- Annual financial statements for the last 1- 2 financial years

- Financial report automatically generated from the accounting system

- Annual work plans and budgets for the last 1-2 years 

- Copy of completed internal monitoring or review report within the last 1-2 years

- Reports from a) external audits of financial statements for the last 1-2 financial years, and b) external audits of projects completed in the last 12 months 

- Reports from external and internal evaluations, reviews and studies undertaken in the last 1-2 years by the organization in the country 

- References and/or Letters of Recommendations.

- List finished and ongoing projects with funding amounts per project in the last 1-2 years 

- List of donors in the last 1-2 years with corresponding record of supported projects, budget, implementation period and geographic location.

- List and Contact Details of Implementing Partners if the NGO works through them

- Copy of Capacity Assessment tool if one is used for Implementing Partners 

- Sample report on a recently concluded needs assessment or situation update

- Sample financial report during the last six month comparing budget against expenditure

- Samples emails or documents demonstrating the use of the organization’s feedback and complaint system

- Demonstration on the use of accountability to affected populations (AAP) policy i.e informing beneficiaries about programs, posting information etc

The following is the original response from the Ukrainian Humanitarian Fund regarding the results of the capacity assessment:

The capacity assessment of Open Policy Foundation has been completed and is currently assigned a Low Risk rating, based on the final assessment score. As a result, Open Policy Foundation is eligible to apply for project funding through the Grant Management System (GMS) in accordance with rules and regulations that govern the Fund.

Please note that your assigned risk level does not influence whether you will receive the UHF funding, but rather determines the funding operational modalities such as the amount and frequency of tranches received, monitoring and financial controls applied etc. (refer to Annex 2 of the Allocation Strategy Paper for the UHF 2019 1st Standard Allocation).

The risk level will be reviewed in the future, and, if necessary, adjusted based on project implementation performance indicators (derived from quality & timeliness of project proposals, quality of project implementation, quality & timeliness of project narrative/financial reporting, financial compliance, timing of No Cost Extensions among others) and other available information. While an improved rating may result from continuous good performance, poor performance could affect your organization’s chances of receiving the UHF funding in the future or being deemed ineligible altogether.

We also want to emphasize that having passed the capacity assessment does not guarantee that your organization will receive funding. The eligibility to receive UHF funding assumes that the partnerhas the necessary capacity to manage funds and implement humanitarian projects. Decisions on the allocation of UHF funds are taken by the Humanitarian Coordinator for projects recommended through two distinct allocation modalities: the standard allocation rounds, which implement a specific allocation strategy; and through the reserve facility, which typically supports focused and immediate single interventions. AllUHF partners are also required to continuously update their due diligence information in the UHF Grant Management System (GMS).

We would appreciate if you can confirm the receipt of this message and we are looking forward to our future collaboration.

Best regards

Ukraine Humanitarian Fund (UHF)