The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has been piloting a Flexible Mini-Grant (FMG) modality to enhance responsiveness, localisation, and equitable partnerships in humanitarian programming under a variety of funding sources and donors.
In 2025, NRC was funded by DG ECHO to develop a FMG modality that would be compliant with ECHO rules and regulations. During the first phase of the project, NRC held consultations with DG ECHO Legal team (E1), Finance (E3) and Audit teams (E2) to explore legal and financial feasibility of the FMG approach and identify three options for implementing and accounting under DG ECHO the use of FMGs to be piloted in Colombia.
NRC is now entering a second phase, which will focus on further designing the financial and legal compliance aspects of each of the three options to expand and contextualise the current SOPs for piloting in Colombia. As NRC continues to explore simplification, proportionality, and equitable partnerships, there is an opportunity to develop and test a Simplified Cost Options (SCO) approach for FMG that reduces transaction costs while ensuring full compliance with ECHO’s legal and financial regulations.
This consultancy will support NRC in building a robust evidence base, in close collaboration with NRC Finance and Risk teams, to demonstrate the feasibility, compliance, and added value of applying Simplified Cost Options to FMG and provide DG ECHO with language and evidence to issue an authorising decision. The assignment will also result in a draft FMG SOP for implementation using SCOs, designed to meet ECHO regulatory requirements and to inform structured dialogue with ECHO.
Deadline for submission of proposals: 19 March 2026.
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