In early 2024, the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) formally adopted CHS Certification as a recognised quality marker in its humanitarian partner due diligence process. For organisations certified by HQAI, this creates direct operational benefits — and signals a significant shift in how major institutional donors are approaching quality assurance.
What Passporting Means
"Passporting" refers to the practice of a donor recognising a third-party quality audit — such as an HQAI CHS Certification — as equivalent to, or a partial substitute for, the donor's own due diligence assessment. Rather than requiring every partner to submit to a full organisational assessment for each funding relationship, the donor accepts the independent audit as evidence of organisational quality.
For FCDO, this means that organisations holding a valid CHS Certification from HQAI are eligible for a reduced scope of the standard FCDO partner assessment process. The specific areas where the CHS evidence is accepted align closely with FCDO's humanitarian capacity framework — particularly around accountability to beneficiaries, safeguarding systems, and complaint mechanisms.
Why This Matters for the Sector
The administrative burden of donor compliance is a significant operational challenge for humanitarian organisations, particularly smaller ones. An organisation working with five different institutional donors can find itself managing five parallel due diligence processes, each requiring similar (but not identical) evidence of organisational quality.
Passporting directly reduces this burden. It also creates a powerful incentive for organisations to invest in independent quality audits rather than managing compliance in silos. One rigorous, externally verified, publicly available audit report — rather than five bespoke self-assessment submissions.
HQAI's Role
HQAI has worked actively with FCDO, DG ECHO, Sida, and other institutional donors to develop frameworks that allow CHS Certification to be recognised for compliance purposes. We believe that independent quality audits should simplify — not multiply — the administrative demands on humanitarian organisations.
We are committed to maintaining the integrity of the CHS audit process as a condition of this recognition. Passporting only delivers value if the underlying certification is rigorous, transparent, and trusted. That requires continued investment in audit quality, independence, and public reporting.
For Organisations Considering Certification
If your organisation receives or is seeking UK Aid funding, CHS Certification now carries direct financial and operational value — beyond the intrinsic quality benefits. We encourage you to discuss this with your FCDO programme officer and to contact HQAI to explore certification options.