Protecting quality under scarcity
Ten years on from the World Humanitarian Summit, the Grand Bargain is at a crossroads. Signatories must decide whether to end it, fold it into other processes, or carry forward its most valuable work in a redesigned and clearly refreshed form.
Oxfam submits this paper to help frame that choice. Their argument is not for the preservation of the Grand Bargain in its current form, but for continuity of what has worked – an independent multi-constituency space that can accelerate practical change and hold signatories accountable – rebuilt with a new operating model (and if needed, a new name) so it can protect quality, legitimacy and real-world results as resources contract and the operating environment becomes increasingly harsh.