Executive Summary
Background
Due diligence is of critical importance in ensuring accountability and transparency to donors. However, it can also present a significant burden on the vital resources of local organisations, who often face repeated requests for information, straining their capacity. Balancing the need for thorough due diligence with the urgency to act quickly and access funding effectively, is a challenging trade-off that has been particularly pertinent to the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.
BDO has been engaged to build upon the existing work of the Due Diligence Taskforce (DDTF), to support and strengthen networks and engage stakeholders, both locally in Ukraine and globally, to drive knowledge sharing. This assignment was co-commissioned by ActionAid and the NGO Platform, funded by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC).
Working closely with the DDTF, representatives from the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) and the Humanitarian NGO Platform in Ukraine (NGOP), we have supported efforts to scale up existing projects to harmonise terminology, build networks within Ukraine and develop a local partner database. Our work has involved gathering information on due diligence from a larger platform of users, and helping collate and present evidence based reports to key decision-makers. This will be a powerful lever to drive the necessary changes and innovations in due diligence processes.
There has been three phases of our work:
1. Situation review and stakeholder engagement, incorporating surveys, focus groups and a literature review;
2. In-depth analysis of due diligence processes across a sample of 26 organisations; and
3. Capitalisation and learning activities.