The humanitarian sector is currently undergoing upheaval as organisations look for ways to continue their activities with increasingly limited funding. This article explores how mutualisation can help aid actors optimise their use of resources. By discussing the challenges and opportunities presented by this way of working, the article aims to show how mutualisation can help organisations navigate this period of forced adaptation in the humanitarian community.
The humanitarian sector is at a turning point. For several years, an ever-increasing funding gap has challenged aid actors.[1]OCHA, Humanitarian aid contributions, Financial Tracking Service, 2025, https://fts.unocha.org Now, humanitarian actors are facing the reality of responding to emergencies with fewer resources. According to the Global Humanitarian Overview from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), funding dropped by $6 billion from 2023 to 2024, with only 43% of needs funded.[2]OCHA, Global Humanitarian Overview 2025, December 2024, https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/world/global-humanitarian-overview-2025, p. 43. As of September 2025, the OCHA Financial Tracking Service estimates global humanitarian requirements to be at $45.34 billion, while current funding is estimated to be at only $9.58 billion (approximately 21% of overall needs funded).[3]OCHA, Humanitarian aid contributions, op. cit. The United States (US) was not the only government to cut humanitarian and development funding. The United Kingdom (UK),[4]Philip Loft, Philip Brien and Sarah Barber, “UK aid: Reducing spending to 0.3% of GNI by 2027/2028”, UK Parliament, Commons Library Research Briefing, 28 July 2025, … Continue reading France,[5]Alison Hird, “France’s proposed budget cuts set to slash overseas development aid”, Radio France Internationale, 5 février 2025, … Continue reading Germany,[6]Marcel Fürstenau, “Germany slashes aid, development budget”, Deutsche Welle, 21 September 2025, https://www.dw.com/en/germany-slashes-aid-development-budget/a-74066633 and the Netherlands[7]Government of the Netherlands, , “Policy Letter on International Development”, 21 February 2025, p. 17, … Continue reading have also reduced the share dedicated to aid in their national budgets.[8]. Indrabati Lahiri, “From Finland to the UK, European countries are slashing aid. What does it mean for climate funds”, 30 March 2025, … Continue reading
Yet despite this ongoing reduction of aid budgets, needs have never been greater. In 2025, more than 300 million people need humanitarian aid globally, with 190 million people with life-threatening needs.[9]OCHA, “UN releases US$ 110 million to shore up life-saving assistance in neglected humanitarian crises”, 6 March 2025, … Continue reading Organisations are forced to reckon with a new reality of more demand with even fewer resources than before. In this pivotal moment, the humanitarian community must find new ways of operating and innovate to overcome this crisis.
One approach that can help manage the changing funding landscape is cooperation and collaboration between humanitarian actors. As presented in hulo’s 2025 “Call for Community”, which was published in response to the closure of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), there are significant opportunities to optimise humanitarian operations, particularly in supply chains and logistics. In an emergency response, a supply chain makes up approximately 60-80% of costs, representing a significant share of expenses.[10]Jonas Stumpf, Maria Besiou and Tina Wakolbinger, “Assessing the value of supply chain management in the humanitarian context – An evidence-based research approach”, Journal of Humanitarian … Continue reading Mutualisation can help organisations continue their activities, working together to create more value than they could create working in silos and competing in the same markets. Aid actors should now consider how sharing expertise, goods and services can help them deliver more with less.
The state of mutualisation in the humanitarian sector: opportunities and barriers to cooperation
Mutualisation, also known as resource pooling, is the practice of sharing resources, goods, facilities or services between actors. This approach allows organisations to manage activities based on committed partnerships, pooling resources where their interests align.[11]Mojtaba Salem, Carolin Winter, Jonas Stumpf et al., “Resource pooling within the humanitarian ecosystem: Lessons learned from a case study of a cooperative-based initiative”, Kühne Logistics … Continue reading At present, mutualisation offers some interesting options for humanitarian organisations to consider as they evaluate their expenditure and ways of working.
There are several key advantages to sharing resources in the current humanitarian context. First, mutualisation allows humanitarian organisations to share costs for essential activities and resources. An organisation with extra space in its warehouse or office can work with other actors to fill this space and share costs for an existing financial commitment. This approach allows organisations to maintain essential expenses (such as office space, storage or other facilities) while optimising use of an available budget. For non-governmental organisations (NGOs) with existing or ongoing commitments, this approach can help reduce costs and mitigate some of the impacts of funding reductions.
Furthermore, mutualisation can help organisations continue operations by finding innovative solutions for cost reductions. For example, if multiple humanitarian organisations seek to purchase supplies locally, a group of aid actors can contact the supplier together to organise a large purchase, improving the final price negotiated and enhancing transparency. Similarly, organisations looking for waste management solutions can jointly identify a common supplier that abides by environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria, identifying high-quality local partners in the field to limit the environmental impact of operations. This allows participants to find shared suppliers to handle a problem shared by multiple NGOs.
Inter-organisational collaboration brings the best solutions to the table, providing crucial support while the sector undergoes large-scale change.
Lastly, mutualisation helps advance innovation in the sector. Resource pooling has always been an aspect of the humanitarian response, but these activities were low-scale, ad hoc initiatives. Resource-pooling projects were often informal, people-based practices, such as sharing of transport or storage, as well as temporary hosting. These solutions provided crucial solidarity across humanitarian organisations. This impulse to work together, as evidenced by these early attempts at mutualisation, demonstrate that collaboration is a fundamental part of our identity as humanitarian actors that translates across institutions and organisations. Improving service delivery and identifying shared needs is a common value that allows actors in the humanitarian sector to work together.
“In the current funding context, NGOs need to formalise cooperation at an institutional level.”
In the current funding context, NGOs need to formalise cooperation at an institutional level. By integrating joint working, resource pooling opens up new possibilities for conducting humanitarian operations. As NGOs work together out of necessity, opportunities emerge as they identify areas of mutual concern and potential future projects. Resource pooling becomes an instinct instead of a one-off activity; organisations participating in a single joint project become better acquainted with their counterparts in other organisations, allowing for greater collaboration in the future. This is particularly important for small and medium-sized organisations, which can benefit the most from resource pooling by sharing costs with other stakeholders.
Based on these advantages, humanitarian organisations have been taking action to implement resource pooling. Many optimisation initiatives have sought to find new approaches to improve operations, such as Atlas Logistique for last-mile delivery as well as Bioport and the United Nations Humanitarian Response Depot for international storage and transport. Another entity is hulo, formerly known as Réseau Logistique Humanitaire (RLH). Created and managed by the logistics directors of sixteen humanitarian organisations[12]. As of September 2025, hulo’s sixteen member organisations are: Acted, Action Against Hunger, Bioport, French Red Cross, Fleet Forum, Humanity & Inclusion, International Federation of Red … Continue reading (to date) to identify and implement mutualisation, its goal is to link aid actors together, structure cooperation, and facilitate joint initiatives. While the benefits mentioned above demonstrate clear value creation, the sector needs facilitators and clear processes to make resource pooling a reality. As such, hulo acts as a focal point and neutral intermediary to make these actions possible.
The funder community has also recognised the importance of mutualisation in optimising humanitarian operations. As governments seek to ensure effective use of money dedicated to foreign aid, institutional funders are now requesting that partners demonstrate collaboration as a criterion for funding allocation. For example, the European Commission’s Humanitarian Implementation Plan (HIP) now emphasises the importance of collaboration and coordination for efficiency gains and savings in humanitarian operations.[13]. European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, “Financing decisions, (HIPs)” 2024, … Continue reading With this increasing awareness about mutualisation’s benefits, both NGOs and funders alike are looking for innovative, effective solutions for its implementation.
However, mutualisation is not without its difficulties. In surveys conducted by hulo, participants noted several barriers to cooperation. One key difficulty is that resource pooling requires a high level of inter-organisational coordination. For example, organisations choosing to recruit a shared technical expert will need to agree upon selection criteria for the expert, evaluation of this expert and their schedule upon the start of activities.[14]Matthieu Lacourt and Manon Radosta, “Strength in numbers – Towards a more efficient humanitarian aid: pooling logistics resources”, Réseau Logistique Humanitaire, 2019, … Continue reading This creates a new kind of interdependency where aid actors must build consensus and identify shared values, thereby adding more obstacles to implementation. Furthermore, resource pooling requires more planning and interfacing with external stakeholders, calling for a change in mindset from internal coordination to inter-organisational coordination. While our missions bring us together, each NGO has its own internal processes, practices and work culture, which can impede our ability to work together successfully.[15]Jonas Stumpf, Maria Besiou and Tina Wakolbinger, “Assessing the value…”, op. cit. By better understanding complementarity between NGOs and by aligning expectations and practices, a more coordinated humanitarian ecosystem creates a friendlier environment for the sector-wide adaptations needed for widespread resource pooling.
Moreover, preparedness is essential for successful mutualisation. As much as possible, the organisations concerned need to create the prerequisite structures and environments for mutualisation before the start of a crisis to ensure its success. With hulo, we have seen the impact that anticipation and planning can have on successful resource pooling. At the onset of the Ukraine war in 2022, resource pooling was not successful. Each organisation was focused on their own operations. And other conditions, such as direct purchase exemptions, reduced the need to work together. Hulo’s efforts to swing into action for this crisis were therefore unsuccessful: without participant assent, mutualisation was not feasible. However, during the 2024 Lebanon crisis, resource pooling was much more successful. With existing national networks and an existing community prior to the emergency, hulo was able to facilitate and organise resource pooling quickly and in response to NGO needs. When the need came, participating organisations were aware of hulo and were able to request assistance, creating a much more successful response. These two examples illustrate the importance of organisations’ assent and preparedness prior to emergencies: to share resources, organisations must have already built trust and partnerships to be able to lean upon one another when needed.
For mutualisation to work, organisations must be committed to navigating this transition together. Breaking silos is a necessary step toward cooperation, fluidifying communication and the exchange of information between actors. NGOs need to be willing to create a new culture within the sector: a culture with an instinct to work together as much as possible – and to work individually only when collaboration is not possible. Under these conditions, mutualisation is the clear and necessary answer to our current challenges.
Making mutualisation work: case studies from the field
While the concept of mutualisation can be useful in framing potential humanitarian activities, practical examples of successful implementation provide guidance for organisations seeking to integrate it into their approaches. In several logistics and supply chain activities, aid actors have streamlined their operations through collaborative practices.
International transport is a field where resource pooling has been particularly successful. In an emergency, sending lifesaving supplies to communities in need can be difficult to coordinate, sometimes requiring chartered flights to deliver supplies on time. To improve this process, humanitarian actors can mutualise international transport to deliver cargo more efficiently. The European Union Humanitarian Air Bridge (EU HAB) mechanism is a clear demonstration of how resource pooling can help a large number of NGOs. This programme organises free flights for humanitarian organisations, allowing NGOs to send freight to hard-to-reach countries where aid operations are carried out. With hulo coordinating the flights departing from Europe, each EU HAB flight aims to carry supplies from NGOs, EU member states, and UN agencies as near to its full capacity as possible. Funded by the European Union, this programme has helped over one hundred humanitarian organisations deliver humanitarian supplies since 2020 as a key pillar in their emergency operations.
When humanitarian actors work to organise shared flights, the private sector can also join these initiatives to make its resources available for aid. Private companies have also supported mutualisation. The Airbus Foundation has organised free flights to the Central African Republic and helicopter operations in Burkina Faso to deliver life-saving supplies with hulo. Furthermore, organisations such as Airlink work directly with airlines and maritime shipping companies to help NGOs transport freight, providing another mutualisation solution for the humanitarian community.[16] Airlink, Our Story, 2025, https://airlinkflight.org/about-us/our-story International transport is a costly part of an emergency response, and carbon emissions have a significant environmental impact. Mutualisation can help ensure that organisations can continue to respond to new crises while limiting the negative repercussions of carbon emissions. Current funding cuts, including the downsizing of the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS), make these programmes more important than ever as they ensure continuity in aid delivery across many countries where aid operations are carried out.
Joint procurement is also a useful approach in making use of existing financial resources more efficiently. Through this process, a group of NGOs can conduct market assessments and approach suppliers as a group, rather than individually. By ordering and negotiating together, organisations get better prices from suppliers. Participants set baseline prices prior to procurement, which identifies pricing outliers and helps determine the average market price. Applicable across a broad range of goods, hulo had twenty-one active joint procurement projects across seven countries in 2024, covering purchases including enriched flour, hygiene kits, non-food item (NFI) kits, and information technology equipment. For hulo initiatives, an average variation of up to 65% between baseline prices was identified, indicating that joint procurement intelligence can contribute to a better negotiation position for NGOs.[17] Paul Machado, Edith Fortier, Havva Okur et al., Annual Impact Report: January 2025, hulo, 13 May 2025, https://hulo.coop/january-2025-annual-impact-report In 2024, participants in joint procurement initiatives benefited from 13% savings on average.
Beyond financial savings, joint procurement also helps improve the transparency and responsiveness of humanitarian purchasing. For participants in joint procurement, anti-fraud and corruption is an added value.[18]Idem Collective negotiation and clear selection criteria ensure a level playing field for suppliers, improving trust. This shared process also improves preparedness, mitigating some of the risks associated with informal market assessment in emergencies. Furthermore, some suppliers appreciate the organisation of joint procurement, which allows them to foresee demand more easily.
As organisations may currently find themselves unable to hire new staff members and specialists, joint human resources allow humanitarian actors to share experts between the parties concerned. In the field, sharing staff helps organisations work with subject-matter specialists on key projects, even if they do not have a full-time need for their assistance. Together, NGOs discuss their staffing needs and identify the profile of experts that they wish to hire. Once a candidate is identified, the organisations then define a schedule determining the expert’s presence and activities for each participating actor.
This approach has been successful in addressing specific and infrequent staffing needs in the field, where a project can be advanced with assignments carried out by an identified expert. In the Central African Republic, a joint human resources (HR) project was used to hire a specialist electrician to give advice on installing solar panels. Upcoming joint HR projects will also focus on hiring subject-matter experts, such as mechanics and information technology professionals. Organisations facing difficult decisions about whether to undertake projects involving new staff may consider whether joint HR can help address this issue.
Lastly, joint projects can help ensure that under-resourced projects are continued in a complex funding environment. In environmental initiatives, financial cuts risk deprioritising sustainability. Pooling resources and expertise across sustainability-related challenges can help ensure the continuation of important environmental programmes. These projects can include joint procurement for more sustainable items and collective bargaining power with suppliers, as well as leveraging combined NGO needs to secure access to qualified, registered, official recyclers and sharing waste management solutions. Prior to 2025, mutualisation consistently proved to be both logical and effective.
Today, with the deepening crisis in humanitarian funding, this necessity is even more evident. Environmental focal points are disappearing from organisational headquarters, and the prospect of dedicated environmental staff in the field is fading. This makes collaboration more essential than ever. Identifying shared experts in the field, as well as joint suppliers, is one way that environmental activities can continue despite this disruption. Another way is to engage in sustainability networks and knowledge-sharing. Humanitarian actors can benefit from resource pooling by feeding into projects such as WREC (Waste Management Measuring, Reverse Logistics, Environmentally Sustainable Procurement and Transport, and Circular Economy) and the Réseau Environnemental Humanitaire (REH) through contributions like recycler mapping,[19]WREC, Environmental Sustainability Map, 2025, https://logie.logcluster.org/?op=wrec while also benefiting from the coordination and shared tools that these platforms provide. It is through these projects that we can identify the shared need for environmental sustainability and cost efficiency: buying less but better, reducing waste and consolidating demand to serve both needs. Without mutualisation, the advances of recent years risk being lost. We must close ranks: only by working together will we maintain progress.
The future direction of resource pooling in humanitarian aid
“Mutualisation requires assent from all actors involved: funders, NGOs and suppliers.”
Through these examples, we can identify common themes and practices that inform the current situation in humanitarian aid. First, mutualisation allows us to reduce, share and optimise costs across a range of activities. For logistics and supply chains, it is particularly suited to help remove unnecessary duplication and improve the efficiency of operations. Second, mutualisation requires assent from all actors involved: funders, NGOs and suppliers must be willing to test new solutions and build new ways of working together. Preparedness and trust-building is a key part of this process: resource pooling needs to be anticipated in order to be effective during crises.
Previously, mutualisation was optional for humanitarian aid. However, our current context demonstrates that this is no longer the case. NGOs, funders and all humanitarian actors recognise the evolving landscape in funding and are looking for ways to limit the impact of today’s changes in foreign aid budgets. As resources grow scarce, the call for mutualisation is also coming from the funder community. An increasing number of agencies acknowledge the value of joint initiatives and are also encouraging organisations to engage in humanitarian forums and communities to make every penny of their funding go further.[20]Mojtaba Salem, Carolin Winter, Jonas Stumpf et al., “Resource pooling within the humanitarian ecosystem…”, art. cit. NGOs already benefitting from the improved efficiency from joint initiatives are also boosting demand, asking for new types of projects for procurement, sustainability, transport, HR, information technology and mobility.
In this tumultuous period of transition and change, cooperation is a path forward for the humanitarian community. By reinforcing each other’s capacities and by learning how to work together, we can navigate these challenging circumstances.
Picture credit : © Kishor Sharma
