Ground Truth Solutions - Kärnstöd 2022-2025

The overall goal of GTS is to make people's perceptions, feedback and priorities a key driver of humanitarian action. In doing so GTS have established four main outcomes that they strive towards achieving. The 2023 results within these outcomes, in heading, will be presented below. Response leadership is supported to improve accountability - In 2023 GTS obtained and analyzed the perception of thousands of people in 15 contexts in 2023, namely Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Chad, the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Nigeria, Palestine, Somalia, Northwest Syria, Türkiye and Ukraine, Poland Romania and Moldova. In Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Chad, DRC, Nigeria, Somalia, Ukraine and CAR GTS data was cited and used in the creation of strategic priorities for the humanitarian response within the Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) and the Humanitarian Response Plans (HRP). Although seen as valuable in informing decision-making, GTS in 2023 chose to move away from making the inclusion of data in humanitarian documents a primary goal looking more at the impact that engagement though this data have on in practice changing the humanitarian response in line with peoples needs and perceptions. An example of this could be seen in their focus to expand away from national-level workshops to regional ones with a more diverse group of decision-makers. - GTS reached their target of executing perception studies in 5 countries per year with a total of 15 countries in 2023. In every country where perception studies were obtained GTS held community dialogue with the aim of co-creating community recommendations. In 2023 GTS went further and worked to ensure discussions on feedback were reaching a more diverse group of humanitarian stakeholders and more important reaching actors that had the greatest possibility to have an impact on the execution of the humanitarian response. GTS exceeded its target of producing and officially publishing at least one report, bulletin and information products per country in order to create transparency on how communities perceive the response and what their priorities are. - Showcasing a more qualitative analysis of the results in 2023 GTS produced a narrative report summarizing results and challenges in each country. From this account it is clear that GTS´ and partners perception studies and advocacy work have had an impact on the way that the humanitarian response is carried out. In 2023 a specific focus was given to the perception of women and youth through projects in Afghanistan and Burkina Faso. See below for a couple of examples of results accounted for: -In Afghanistan the findings of a project looking into womens access to aid informed global reform discussions, led to new training on including women and girls in responses and have been taken up as a UN Women priority for the coming years. -In Bangladesh using data on perception among participants in climate adaptation programs informed discussions with local governments and aid officials to find solutions to current obstacles. The GTS methodology was then used by International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh to produce the report Overcoming the odds, about local leadership in climate financing. -In Burkina Faso a flagship report called Burkina Faso's youth speak up led to commitment from child protection actors across the whole response but especially from local organizations to refine the methodology and roll it our more broadly in 2024. -In CAR GTS have been in partnerships with UNOCHA and UNICEF since 2019 and are seeing a steady increase in the country teams commitment to involve more crisis-affected people in decisions that impact them. However perceptions data remains negative the GTS data on perception from 2021 now serve as a baseline for perception data to be tracked in future, and feed into the development of the community engagement strategy. GTS data and analysis informs global policy and decision-making - GTSs data, analysis and targeted advocacy asks reached many decision-making and policy-setting foras including the Good Humanitarian Donorship meeting in June 2023, the Donor Cash Forum, OCHA donor support group and various donor discussions led by the Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC). According to GTS its data was used in decision-making by funders including FCDO, USAID BHA, Norway, Australian DFAT, Global Affairs Canada and ECHO, as well as pooled funds in countries of operation. - In 2023 GTS increased the effort in enabling community representatives in gaining more airtime. At COP28, GTS brought together community leaders from four countries to share their experiences at the intersection of humanitarian response and adapting to the climate crisis. At the Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Week GTS hosted a session together with Upinion where a panel of community representatives from Syria participated in the discussion, a model since taken up by many peer organizations. - GTS data, analysis and targeted advocacy asks appeared in publications by The New Humanitarian, Centre for Humanitarian Action (CHA), Food and Agriculture Organisation, Global Food Security Cluster, Mercy Corps, CaLP Network, the CDAC Network, HERE Geneva, Christian Aid, Centre for Humanitarian Leadership, the Arab Reform Initiative, ODIs Humanitarian Policy Group, ALNAP, The Borgen Project, Forced Migration Current Awareness, Eido Research, the University of Michigan Diplomacy Lab, UN OCHA, CHS Alliance and more. GTS teams and partners appeared in events by KFW development bank, UN OCHA, IASC, Centre for Humanitarian Action Berlin, Geneva Centre for Humanitarian Studies, SDC, International Federation of the Red Cross, International Committee of the Red Cross, Internews, Migration Lab and more. GTS appeared on several podcasts, sharing views and analysis about cash potential, people-centred aid, innovation and accountability. People's perceptions inform meaningful action on nexus issues; initial focus climate change - In informing meaningful action on Nexus and climate change GTSs perception data and analysis fed into many different decision making foras and discussions. Perception data informed locally-led adaptation planning in West Africa and an event co-hosted with IIED for climate week in London which resulted in further discussions on improving community influence in the climate crisis with IFRC, several governments and negotiators from crisis-affected countries including DRC and Bangladesh. New climate related data collection and analysis was piloted in projects in Nigeria and Burkina Faso. GTSs first climate report was published and was used to inspire discussions on more people-centered climate action, and its intersection with humanitarian and preparedness activities such as COP28. - In Gaza GTS introduced new lines of questioning that highlighted community decision-making, mutual aid and self-reliance evoking questions on finding more long-term solutions to humanitarian problems with affected communities in the center. Data on peoples desire for resilience were used to inform discussions with UN partners and donors. GTS worked, according to themselves, more closely with local partners than ever before in 2023 and have in different forums focused on giving the central stage to its local partners. GTS is structured, staffed and supported to improve its operations, advocacy and influence - GTS increased their work force through the hiring of a Programs Director together with three analysts to support in grant management, given the substantial rise in the number of projects and overall income compared to 2022. A team retreat was performed focusing on strategy and internal learning as well as on team building. GTS strengthen its internal processes to improve data protection management and work more effectively tracking more stages of programs and providing more oversight and support to project teams. GTS was not able to strengthen the advisory function as planned in 2023 but have developed a terms of reference for an advisory group that they hope to pilot in the coming years.

Ground Truth Solutions (GTS) was established in 2012 to help people affected by crisis influence the design and implementation of humanitarian aid. GTS has an office in Vienna, Austria and GTS consultants are field-based individuals. GTS vision is as follows: "We envision a humanitarian system that recognises the agency of the people it exists to serve, and is responsive to their views, preferences, and needs. Our goal is to make the perceptions of affected people the touchstone and driver of humanitarian effectiveness. To achieve this, we champion their views at the global level and wherever decisions about aid are made". GTS aims at research and teaching in the field of humanitarian aid, development aid and disaster relief. The aim of the research is to gain new insights into the actual effectiveness and quality of aid in order to improve the international aid system in the long term. So far, GTS has established partnership with a range of local and international organizations that are eager to learn and improve based on feedback from the people they serve. These organisations include UN Agencies such as UNICEF, UN OCHA, World Food Programme and UNHCR, humanitarian country teams, the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, INGOs such as Welthungerhilfe and the International Rescue Committee; as well as local organisations such as the Empowerment Centre for Women in Afghanistan. The overall objectives of GTS is to help affected people influence aid provision. To do this, GTS has the strategic expected outcomes as per its 20202025 Strategy: Level 1: Global governance outcomes: Global humanitarian policy incentivises peoplecentred programme design and implementation, placing the perspective of affected people at the centre of humanitarian action. Level 2: Response leadership outcomes: Planning, funding, management, implementation, and monitoring of humanitarian responses at the country level are strongly influenced by, and adapted to, the perspectives and priorities of affected people. Level 3: Field implementation: Local and international humanitarian actors manage their performance using feedback and insight from affected people while enabling their target groups to express their views through ongoing dialogue. As per the application logframe, which is structured as per area, outcomes and desired results of GTS, where the latter has four main results: 1. Supporting response leadership to improve accountability (Strategy levels: Response leadership and field implementation): Response leaders begin to demonstrate more responsive programming, informed by community input and targeted advocacy. Systematically collected and analysed data on community priorities, and subsequent recommendations with a broader range of interlocutors, inform more integrated programming toward longer term solutions for crisis-affected people. 2. Advocacy and policy (Strategy levels: Response leadership and Global): Policymakers use community feedback and GTS analysis to make better decisions. There is more pressure on response leaders to demonstrate improved accountability beyond checking boxes. 3. New programmes (including climate change adaptation): The case is proven that systematic tracking and use of feedback can make nexus, livelihoods and climate change adaptation programmes more effective. 4. Organisational development: The GTS global team is built on strong foundations, with support services in place to accommodate further growth, agility to scale up and down as needed and influence a broader range of actors.