Governance and guidance
The Myanmar Humanitarian Fund (MHF) is a pooled funding mechanism under the overall authority of the Humanitarian Coordinator (HC), supported by an Advisory Board (AB), OCHA, and the sectors and clusters coordinators. The HC determines the Fund’s strategic focus, sets the allocation amounts, approves projects and initializes disbursements. The HC chairs the AB that is comprised of senior-level representatives of donors, UN agencies, national and international NGOs and observing organizations. This governance body supports the HC in developing an overall strategy and overseeing the performance of the MHF. The AB is consulted on key aspects of the management and strategic direction of the MHF, including allocation strategies, resource mobilization and any other major decision taken by the HC related to the Fund.
The core function of the MHF Advisory Board is to support the HC on the strategic focus, ensuring that the allocations are in line with the Myanmar Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) and that the main objectives of the Fund are met.
Sectors and clusters coordinators support the MHF processes at two levels:
- At a strategic level, to ensure that there are linkages between the proposed projects, the HRP and cluster strategies.
- At an operational level, to provide technical expertise to the process of project prioritization and evaluation, and to promote sector coordination amongst humanitarian agencies.
Under the overall supervision of the OCHA Head of Office, the Humanitarian Financing Unit (HFU) ensures adequate and efficient management the Fund, including the coordination of allocation processes and oversight of the entire funding cycle from the opening of an allocation to the closure of projects, while providing technical support and policy advice to the HC.
The HFU maintains accountability requirements, including risk management and operational modalities, as well as coordination with other units of the OCHA Country Office and sub-offices. Further, the HFU ensures donor contributions are channeled to partners in compliance with the minimum requirements outlined in the MHF Operational Manual (revised in July 2021), the OCHA’s Operation Handbook for Country-based Pooled Funds (October 2017) and the OCHA Policy Instruction on CBPFs (February 2015).
Resources
MHF Operational Manual [EN/MY] (revised in July 2021)
MHF Risk Analysis and Mitigation Matrix (revised in March 2021)
MHF Common Performance Framework (indicators and targets) 2022
MHF Flexibility Guidance on the context of the political crisis (March 2021)
MHF Flexibility Guidance on the context of the COVID-19 (May 2020)
MHF Advisory Board (revised ToRs, 2020)
Operational Handbook for Country-based Pooled Funds (October 2017) and Annexes
How to create a project proposal
MHF Project Management Guidance (Training Material, March 2020)
Brief on Protection Mainstreaming
Global Protection Cluster: Protection Mainstreaming
Disability Inclusion: Washington Group Questionnaire • Presentation • UN Disability Inclusion Strategy • Disability Inclusive Language Guidelines • Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse • Myanmar PSEA Toolkit • Social Cohesion (March 2020: English • Myanmar)