8 Nov 2026
When a donor-funded project falls behind on disbursement, the discussion quickly turns to causes outside the team’s reach: approvals that take time, a slow treasury circuit, a partner’s review. Those constraints are real. Yet in many projects a large share of the delay comes from inside the project itself, and the finance team holds more levers than it thinks.
This article sorts the causes into what the team can change this quarter, what it can influence, and what it has to live with.
What the team controls: the cash plan
A project that does not know how much it will need next quarter cannot ask for it in time. The cash plan is the most neglected tool in many project units: prepared once for the annual budget, then left aside. A useful cash plan is short, updated every month, and built from the procurement plan and the work plan rather than from last year’s spending.
Warning sign: the designated account runs low before anyone has prepared the next replenishment.
What the team controls: complete files, the first time
A withdrawal application that comes back for correction loses weeks. The reasons for rejection are usually mundane: a missing signature, an expense filed under the wrong category, a supporting document that does not match the amount declared, an exchange rate applied inconsistently. A short checklist used before every submission, and a second pair of eyes, remove most of them.
Warning sign: more than one application in the year has been returned for the same reason.
What the team controls: documents that follow the expense
Supporting documents gathered at the last minute are the main source of ineligible expenditure. The habit that makes the difference is simple: the file is complete when the payment is made, not when the application is prepared. Each payment has its contract, its proof of delivery, its invoice and its approval, filed in one place.
What the team can influence: procurement and approvals
Money cannot be spent before contracts are signed. When disbursement is slow, the procurement plan is often the real bottleneck: tenders launched late, no-objection requests that return with questions, evaluations that drag on. The finance team does not run procurement, but it can make the link visible by showing management, every month, the planned spending that depends on contracts not yet signed.
What the team has to live with
Some delays come from circuits the project does not control: signature delegations at ministry level, the partner’s own review times, the calendar of public accounting. The right response is not to complain about them but to plan for them, by building realistic durations into the cash plan and starting each request early enough.
A scenario to illustrate
Fictional scenario, written for teaching purposes. A rural roads project reaches mid-term having spent far less than planned. The coordinator blames the partner’s reviews. A quick review of the last six withdrawal applications tells another story: three were returned for incomplete supporting documents, and two large works contracts were signed four months late because the bidding documents had to be redone. Once the team adopts a submission checklist and a monthly cash plan linked to the procurement plan, applications stop coming back, and the steering committee can see in advance which contracts will drive spending.
Five questions for your next steering committee
- Is the cash plan updated every month, and built from the procurement plan?
- How many withdrawal applications were returned this year, and why?
- Is each payment file complete on the day of payment?
- Which planned expenses depend on contracts not yet signed?
- Which external delays are already built into the timetable?
To go further
Our program Disbursements and expenditure justification works through withdrawal applications and supporting documents on realistic files, and Project budgeting and financial monitoring covers cash forecasting and variance analysis. Our in-person training in Casablanca is dedicated to the financial management of donor-funded projects.