Overheads, or indirect costs, are essential for humanitarian organizations, helping to fund core institutional functions such as risk management, internal controls and building up reserves for organizational sustainability. Most donors provide a fixed overhead rate that often falls short of covering the actual operating costs of their direct partner organizations – let alone those of their local and national partners. This practice can undermine equitable partnerships and limit the financial viability of locally led humanitarian response. 

In this online session, Kaela Glass, Head of Humanitarian Financing Policy and Geneva Partnership Unit at the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), will discuss this tension. She will explore questions such as: 

  • How can partners’ indirect costs be covered within current donor constraints? 
  • What are good practices for overhead sharing between intermediaries and local and national actors? 
  • Why do we need additional, separately budgeted overheads, rather than split allocations between intermediaries and their local and national partners, to make locally led response viable? 

Drawing on NRC’s experience, Kaela will share practical insights from her own organization. She will be joined by Pierre Vischioni from the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) for additional insights such as:

  • How can we shift from seeing overhead sharing as a cost or concession to an essential part of equitable partnership?  
  • How can we address INGOs’ institutional realities and incentives while advancing overhead sharing and localization?  
  • How do we move from policy to culture change, including at country level where established ways of working and practical concerns can remain barriers? 

Speakers 

Kaela Glass is Head of Humanitarian Financing Policy and Geneva Partnership Unit at the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). Kaela has been with NRC since 2018 covering NRC’s partnerships with UN agencies and the Swiss government, and leading NRC’s work on humanitarian financing policy. Over the last 15 years, she has also worked with other humanitarian organizations, such as USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance on their disaster assistance response teams, with OCHA’s assessments, planning and monitoring branch, and as the Special Assistant to the Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator in Ethiopia’s Somali Region. Kaela holds a Master of Public Policy and a Master of Social Work from the University of Minnesota.  

Pierre Vischioni is a Senior Policy Advisor with the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) in Geneva, focusing on humanitarian policy, advocacy and strategic partnerships. He brings over 20 years of humanitarian experience, including more than 17 years in field-based operational and leadership roles across contexts including Ukraine, Iraq, Myanmar, Palestine and the South Caucasus. His current work includes humanitarian financing, pooled funds and funding quality. Pierre represents DRC on the OCHA Pooled Funds–NGO Dialogue Platform Advisory Group (PAG) and serves as DRC’s Grand Bargain focal point. He holds graduate degrees in Humanitarian Action from Aix-Marseille University and International and European Law from the University of Exeter. 

Registration

Please register by 8 September. Participation is free of charge.

Target group: Staff of Austrian development and humanitarian NGOs & their partners  

Number of participants: 25 

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Please note:

  • You can unregister up to 24 hours before the event by sending an email to veranstaltungen@globaleverantwortung.at. 
  • The use of AI agents is not permitted. Any such agents will be removed.
  • Recordings and screenshots may be taken during the event for future use, for example on our website, social media, and in publications. If you do not wish to be recorded, please inform the event manager at the start of the event. 

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