Financial Management in Emergencies (2 days)

Managing and mitigating financial risk in the first critical weeks of a response

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  • Courses are upon request. Please contact us for in-house training or other inquiries.

Course overview

Click here to download the course leaflet (PDF format).

The aim of the course is to ensure that financial resources are used effectively to save lives and reduce human suffering in emergencies. In particular the course will help participants identify, manage and mitigate the major potential financial risks during the first weeks of an emergency.

The course will be based on the practical tools in Financial Management for Emergencies. The style will be participatory with a balance of short presentations, group work, discussions and individual activities.

There will be plenty of time for participants to ask questions and share their own experiences.

Who should attend

The course is designed for:

  • Emergency programme managers
  • Financial, logistics and administrative staff
  • Donor staff

How you and your organisation will benefit – Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

  • Identify the major potential financial risks which they may encounter in the first weeks of an emergency response
  • Manage and mitigate these risks by:
    • Preparing a useful budget
    • Establishing good relationships with donors
    • managing cash
    • Recruiting the right finance staff
    • Creating systems to record where money is coming from and going to
    • Creating systems to control how money is used

Course programme

The course can be run as a half-day module highlighting key risks, or over a number of days to deal with these and other risks in greater detail including simulations. When run as a two-day course, a typical programme is as follows:

Day 1

  • Participant introductions and expectations
  • Whirlwind tour of the challenges of financial management in emergencies
  • Practical tools for managing finance which can be used from day one
  • Identifying risks – likelihood and impact
  • Participant experience – learning from each other’s experience
Day 2

  • Managing and mitigating risks
  • Roles, responsibilities and financial staff
  • Strategies to prevent theft and fraud
  • Systems to establish financial controls
  • Evaluation and personal action plan

Trainers

The three experienced trainers and practitioners who wrote Financial Management in Emergencies have developed this course; they have complementary skills covering emergency programme management, accounting and fraud prevention. The course can be adapted to meet the needs of participants and will be delivered by the trainers either working individually or as a team.

Individual consultation

As a participant, you can obtain an individual consultation from the trainer during the course on how to further develop a project of your own, or on another subject of your choice.