10. Design the s/EAP budget

The IFRC budget follows the IFRC plan and budget. There are the sector interventions that fall under the ‘planned operation’ and cross cutting ‘enabling approaches’.

The operational matrix in the s/EAP and the budget should match. For example, if two trainings are planned under shelter, settlement and housing, then these trainings should be included under the same sections in the budget.

Planned operations sectors and enabling approaches:

Planned operation sectors

• Shelter, Settlement and Housing, Livelihoods, Multipurpose Cash, Health, WASH, Protection, Gender and Inclusion, Education, Migration, Risk Reduction, Community Engagement and Accountability, Environmental Sustainability

Enabling approaches

• Coordination and Partnership,
• Secretariat Services,
• National Society Development

Eligible types of activities in an s/EAP:

• Readiness activities are any ongoing costs and services, including HR and logistics, that are necessary for the National Society to remain ready for subsequent trigger-based activation of an EAP. These costs should be spread out annually over the five-year lifespan of an EAP or two-year lifespan for an sEAP.
• Prepositioned stock can be procured and prepositioned so that stock is available once a trigger has been reached. The stock should have a shelf-life of two-years or five-years, aligned with the respective lifespan of an s/EAP. The budget can include related costs such as warehousing, transportation and insurance. Note that stock that has a shelf life shorter than five years/two years such as nutrition, pharmaceuticals and medical items may not be eligible for prepositioning funding. We recommend that National Societies identify suppliers who can supply these items within the lead time.
• Early action activities are activities that are done to reducde or mitigate the impact of a hazard on at risk communities. Early action activities should be completed within the lead time; however, some expenditures will be eligible and follow up cost may be incurred after the end of the lead time (e.g. debriefing volunteers, monitoring activities, lessons learned workshop). These activities need to be completed within a few weeks of the activation.

Before you get started preparing your budget, make sure that you have the latest version of the budget template. You can pick the budget template directly from FedNet or from the IFRC delegation.

Budget caps for EAPs and sEAPs:

The maximum budget for a full EAP is CHF 500,000. The maximum budget for a simplified EAP is CHF 200,000. These figures must be inclusive of the IFRC indirect or programmes and services support recovery (PSSR) of 6.5 percent.

The IFRC delegation supporting the National Society can add up to 10 percent above the 200,000 or CHF 500,000 limit requested by the National Society to support the maintenance and activation of an s/EAP. This sum must include the 6.5 percent IFRC indirect or programmes and service support recovery (PSSR), meaning that the maximum budget allocated to IFRC is CHF 50,000 for a full EAP and 20,000 for an sEAP. The National Society and the IFRC budget should be included in the same budget template.

• In column C: use the dropdown menu to indicate the type of activity: readiness, prestock or early action.
• In column D: use the dropdown menu to indicate who will be implementing the activity: Host NS, IFRC or PNS
• In column E: use the dropdown menu to indicate when the activity will be done. For readiness, indicate which year the activity will be done (YEAR 1 – YEAR 5). If the activity will be done 5 times, you will need to copy this column five times and allocate the five to ‘YEAR 1’, ‘YEAR 2’, through to ‘YEAR 5’. Prepositioning activities should always be done in ‘YEAR 1’. For early actions, indicate that the activities will be done in ‘YEAR EA’.
• In column F: indicate using the dropdown menu the appropriate budget group. The full list of budget groups can be found under the sixth excel tab called ‘budget group’.

If the budget tool is completed correctly, then the spreadsheet tabs will automatically calculate:

• EAP BUDGET FOR PUBLISHING, which groups the budget by planned operation and enabling approaches.
• SUMMARY BY AP CODE, which gives a breakdown by planned operation and enabling approaches, broken down by readiness, preposition stock and early action.
• SUMMARY BY YEAR, which provides a breakdown of amount and percent of readiness, prepositioned stock and early action by Host National Society, the Partner National Society (if applicable) and the IFRC, by year. This can be used for populating the IFRC project funding agreement.
• RESOURCE BUDGET SUMMARY, which provides a more detailed breakdown by AP code across readiness, prepositioned stock and early action.

What goes where?

• As much as possible, ensure that activities are included in the appropriate sector under the planned operation. For example, if there is a general training which will cover Shelter, Health and PGI – rather than including a lump sum under ‘National Society Strengthening’, pro rata the costs under the relevant sectors – 33% allocated to shelter, 33% allocated to health, and 34% allocated to PGI.
• Any costs related to the IFRC, should be included under ‘Secretariat Services’.
• Any costs related to the National Society which cannot be attributed to a sector, include under ‘National Society Strengthening’.
• Early warning and evacuation should go under ‘Risk Reduction’.
• Household items should be planned and budgeted under ‘Shelter, Settlement and Housing’.
• The lessons learned workshop should normally be included under ‘National Society Strengthening’, always as an early action (YEAR EA).
• Any coordination with stakeholders whether the Met Service or Government departments, whether readiness, stock or early action should be included under ‘Coordination and Partnerships’.
• PDM related to health should be included under the health sector, however general CEA such as a community feedback mechanism should be included under ‘Community Engagement and Accountability’.
• The IFRC indirect costs, or PSSR, is automatically calculated as part of the budget template.
  

Before you complete your budget, make sure that it meets all the guidelines:

• Maximum 65 % of the total budget can be allocated for readiness activities and prepositioned activities combined. It is up to National Societies to decide how to allocate the budget over these two types of costs. National Societies that request a high proportion of readiness costs (more than 35%) may be requested to justify the allocation. Also, National Societies who have more than one EAP may be requested to demonstrate that readiness costs are diminishing.
• The National Society may include administrative costs of up to 5% of the early action budget. If the 5% rate is not used, the National Society will need to list out each administrative cost individually generated during the early action phase (finance, logistics, electricity, support staff, etc.)
• The monitoring and evaluation budget should be maximum 5% of overall the budget (CHF 25,000 maximum for a full EAP (CHF 500,000) or CHF 10,000 maximum for an sEAP).