Call summary :

What is the Humanitarian Innovation call for projects (APIH)?

The APIH was launched by the Humanitarian and Stabilization Operations Center (COHS) in 2021 in line with the commitments made at the French National Humanitarian Conference (CNH) and the recommendations of the external audit of the Emergency Humanitarian Fund (FUH).

It is an annual financing instrument aimed at supporting innovative and structural humanitarian projects conducted by local and international NGOs specialized in emergency responses.

The aim of this call for projects is to encourage the establishment of high-impact underlying solutions that benefit the whole sector, in order to improve the effectiveness of humanitarian action. It is fully aligned with the aims of the 2023 - 2027 French Humanitarian Strategy and seeks to ensure its implementation by supporting initiatives from humanitarian NGOs.

The APIH also aims to foster pooling of approaches and help develop synergies between humanitarian actors, so as to contribute to transforming practices and the comprehensive evolution of the humanitarian sector.

What priority themes for 2024?

The APIH’s priorities are based on the evolution of the challenges faced by the humanitarian sector.

In 2024, it seeks to continue support for initiatives related to:
- Integrating the place of women and girls and gender issues in humanitarian action and emergency response;
- Addressing the consequences of climate change on humanitarian crises and reducing the environmental impact of humanitarian action ;
- Protecting the humanitarian space, civilians and humanitarian personnel and fighting impunity for crimes against them.

How to respond correctly to our call for projects?

Projects should fulfil the following three criteria:

- Innovation
The APIH aims to finance humanitarian innovations that can help transform the humanitarian sector.
Projects should involve an innovative approach compared to existing forms of action and tools. Initiatives are considered innovative if they develop or trial new solutions to improve the effectiveness of humanitarian action.
Project presentations should clearly indicate the benefits of the innovation as opposed to existing approaches.

- Impact
The APIH aims to support the general evolution of the humanitarian sector through high-impact projects in emergency response.
In order to benefit the whole sector, the scaling up of proposed innovation should be anticipated and detailed in project presentations. For pilot projects, presentations should explain how they will be shared and adapted to other contexts and areas.

- Effectiveness
Proposed innovations should optimize the effectiveness and efficiency of humanitarian action to improve responses related to the 2024 priorities.
The challenges addressed by projects should be analysed clearly and coherently.

What are the eligibility criteria?

Eligibility
- The APIH is open to international and local humanitarian NGOs working individually or in consortiums. Each organization (consortiums included) can submit only one project.
-Project budgets must be between 200 000€ and 1M€ .
- Project durations should be between 12 and 18 months, starting from 1 November 2024 onwards.