Disbursement is the transfer of the full/partial amount from the UN bank account to the implementing partner’s bank account, for a specific approved project. The number of disbursement tranches and the amount will be clearly stipulated in the grant agreement between OCHA and the implementing partner based on the risk level of the partner and the project duration.
II) When is the Disbursement triggered
The first tranche of funding is disbursed to the partner within 10 working days following the signature of the Grant Agreement by OCHA’s Executive Officer.
Disbursement tranches are set before the generation of the Grant Agreement, at Timelines development stage. To learn how to set the Disbursement tranches, please refer to this article of the Help Portal.
The implementing partner will receive a first installment at the beginning of the project and will be entitled to request the next disbursement(s), by submitting a financial statement, as soon as the implementing partner has spent 70% of the funds previously received.
As shown in this workflow, disbursement follows specific steps. For the first disbursement, the Finance HQ team must create an obligation (step 1).
During this create obligation process, they must configure the disbursement details, by adding a payment plan (step2), creating a voucher from the payment plan installement (step 3). After configuring the tranche disbursement, Finance HQ can submit the disbursement to the accounts (step 4), as shown in the workflow above.
Finally, Finance HQ can finalise the process by indicating the tranche has been disbursed (step 5).
If another disbursement is required, the process will repeat, where Finance HQ will begin the next disbursement process (step 6), configure this next disbursement, submit it to the accounts and disburse the tranche.