The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has launched a report publishing key findings from the largest intervention into early childhood in the world.  

The release of the publication marks thirteen years since the start of the Syrian conflict, which has devastated the lives of children, and amid the current humanitarian disaster unfolding in Gaza. 

In a report, forwarded by its CEO David Miliband, the IRC says trust-based philanthropy, focusing on interdisciplinary frameworks and investing in data are key elements that the wider sector must implement and a key factor that has made Ahlan SimSim, its child intervention programme, a success.  

The IRC first launched the Ahlan SimSim (translated as ‘welcome SimSim’ in Arabic) six years ago in a deliberately different way to traditional humanitarian model of short-term aid. The programme has reached over 3 million children and caregivers with direct support in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. 

The international aid organisation urges funders and policymakers to ensure ‘interdisciplinary decision-making across education, health, nutrition and protection policy and programming. Ensure that funds allocated will maximize the needs and voices of the most marginalized.’ 

‘The bottom line on our most important takeaways: Our teams took risks, tested, and ultimately developed a set of programs, services, and approaches that were best suited to their unique and challenging environments,’ said David Miliband, CEO of the IRC. 

‘To better serve children and caregivers, we partnered across sectors, reshaped and strengthened systems, and solved for long term problems rather than short-term wins. By investing in innovation, research, and adaptation, we upended old models of how progress is made. We believe this is a model for how the entire international community should operate,’ he added.  

The MacArthur Foundation invested an initial $100 million. Thereafter, the programme had a multi-year, trust based financing model, allowing staff to focus on the initiative rather than chasing funding after a year. Trust based philanthropy has, the IRC report finds, valued ‘transparency of failure and resulting pivots or adaptation.’ 

Ahlan Simsim’s funding from the MacArthur Foundation also came with a substantial allocation to learning and research—encouraged by MacArthur at the proposal stage—as a deliberate priority, with 15 per cent of the total budget invested in learning including rigorous impact evaluations. Later funding received from the LEGO Foundation increased the pot of funding for research alongside advocacy work to build on and leverage research findings. 

‘This investment in research is rare in the humanitarian sector. Implementers of programs are often forced to weigh tradeoffs, making decisions between investing in learning and research or in programming that reaches people in the immediate,’ the IRC report concluded. 

Shafi Musaddique is news editor at Alliance Magazine.