Cross-Border Operations from Jordan to Syria

CROSS-BORDER OPERATIONS FROM JORDAN TO SYRIA

Under UN Security Council Resolution 2165 2014-2018

Independent Review 9 June 2019

By Tamara Marcello

TABLE OF CONTENTS ACRONYMS ...... III ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... IV DISCLAIMER ...... IV EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...... V RECOMMENDATIONS ...... 1 SECTION ONE: BACKGROUND ...... 3 1.1 CONTEXT ...... 3 1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES ...... 4 1.3 SCOPE AND METHODS ...... 4 1.4 STRUCTURE OF THE REVIEW ...... 5 SECTION TWO: START UP OF CROSS-BORDER OPERATIONS ...... 6 2.1 INFORMAL CROSS-BORDER OPERATIONS ...... 6 2.2 ESTABLISHING THE UNITED NATIONS MONITORING MECHANISM (UNMM) ...... 7 2.3 UNOCHA’S ROLE IN THE FORMAL CROSS-BORDER OPERATIONS JORDAN-SYRIA ...... 8 2.4 TRUST BUILDING ...... 9 2.5 THE WHOLE OF SYRIA COORDINATION ARCHITECTURE ...... 11 2.6 ESTABLISHING THE JORDAN HUB COORDINATION ARCHITECTURE ...... 11 2.7 COORDINATING SHARED NEEDS ASSESSMENTS ...... 12 SECTION THREE: SUPPORTING SYRIAN PARTNER ORGANISATIONS ...... 17 3.1 INTRODUCTION ...... 17 3.2 PARTNERSHIP MANAGEMENT APPROACHES ...... 17 3.3 CAPACITY BUILDING ...... 18 3.4 DUTY OF CARE TO SUB-CONTRACTED SNGO STAFF ...... 22 3.5 COORDINATION ...... 25 SECTION FOUR: MAINSTREAMING PROTECTION, PSEA, AND ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISMS ...... 26 4.1 PROTECTION MAINSTREAMING ...... 26 4.2 PROTECTION FROM SEXUAL EXPLOITATION AND ABUSE (PSEA) ...... 26 4.3 RISKS TO HUMANITARIAN PRINCIPLES ...... 27 4.4 ENSURING ACCOUNTABILITY ...... 28 SECTION FIVE: RISK MANAGEMENT AND REMOTE MONITORING ...... 29 5.1 RISK MANAGEMENT ...... 29 5.2 REMOTE MONITORING ...... 31 SECTION SIX: ENGAGEMENT ...... 34 6.1 GOVERNMENT OF JORDAN ...... 34 6.2 NON STATE ACTORS ...... 35 6.3 LOCAL COUNCILS ...... 36 6.4 STABILISATION ACTORS ...... 37 SECTION SEVEN: INTER-AGENCY CONTINGENCY PLANNING, CONTINUITY OF SERVICES, AND CLOSE DOWN ...... 41 7.1 CONTINGENCY PLANNING ...... 41 7.2 EMERGENCY RESPONSE DURING THE FINAL OFFENSIVE IN SOUTHERN SYRIA ...... 42 7.3 CONTINUITY OF SERVICES AND CLOSING DOWN SAFELY ...... 42 SECTION EIGHT: CONCLUSIONS ...... 45

Acronyms

[Syrian Coalition-formed] Syria International NGO Regional ACU SIRF Assistance Coordination Unit Forum Syrian Non-Governmental ANF Al Nusra Front SNGO Organisation

CBTF Cross Border Task Force SOP Standard Operating Procedure British Department for DFID SWG Sector Working Group International Development ERC Emergency Relief Coordinator TPM Third-Party Monitoring United Nations Disaster Assessment ERR Emergency Response Roster UNDAC and Coordination

FSA Free Syrian Army UNFPA United Nations Population Fund United Nations High Commissioner HCT Humanitarian Country Team UNHCR for Refugees HNO Humanitarian Needs Overview UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund United Nations Monitoring IATF Inter-Agency Task Force UNMM Mechanism United Nations Office for the IDP Internally Displaced Person UNOCHA Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs International Non- INGO UNSC United Nations Security Council Governmental Organisation International Organisation for The United States Agency for IOM USAID Migration International Development International Rescue IRC WASH Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Committee Investing in Syrian ISHA WFP World Food Program Humanitarian Action ISWG Inter Sector Working Group WHO World Health Organisation JKBW Jayesh Khalid bin-Walid WoS Whole of Syria

MOFA Ministry of Foreign Affairs OFDA Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance Protection against Sexual NFI Non Food Item PSEA Exploitation and Abuse Non-Governmental QR Quick Response NGO Organisation NRG Needs Response Group Resident and Humanitarian RC/HC Coordinator RNA Rapid Needs Assessment

SEA Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

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Acknowledgments

Thank you to the many individuals who gave generously of their time to share their views on the collective humanitarian response inside southern Syria from Jordan. Thanks to Asmaa Al Shimary for research and translation assistance and Catherine Richards for editing support. Thanks also to Ana Nikonorow and the team at UNOCHA Jordan for their engagement throughout this process and for providing the opportunity for an independent review.

Disclaimer

This review was written by Dr Tamara Marcello for the Cross-Border Task Force (CBTF) and was submitted in May 2019. The opinions expressed are those of the reviewer and do not necessarily reflect those of any individual humanitarian agency or governmental organisation involved in the cross-border response. At the time of writing this document the cross border operations from Jordan to south west Syria remain suspended. UN Security Council Resolution 2449, which extended the original UN Security Council Resolution 2165, remains valid until January 2020.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Context By mid-2014, three years into the Syria war, 150,000 people had been killed including 10,000 children and 10 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance. Securing access to civilians caught up in the Syrian conflict had long been a major challenge particularly so for those in Hard To Reach1 areas including opposition-held areas in southern Syria. Significant lobbying from many including the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) and the Government of Jordan resulted in the unanimous adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2165 (2014) which authorised UN agencies to use four border crossing points, including Al-Ramtha (Jordan- Syria) to deliver humanitarian assistance to people in need in Syria. Under this resolution and for the next four years, cross-border humanitarian actors worked to deliver humanitarian aid from Jordan to the most vulnerable inside southern Syria. In doing so they supplemented the substantial humanitarian work already being conducted informally in the south by a number of international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) and Syrian organisations. In mid- 2018 a major increase in hostilities led to the return of the territory to Government of Syria control and active cross-border humanitarian assistance and service provision effectively ended by September the same year. Aims and Methods In the context of the suspension of cross-border operations, UNOCHA Jordan, on behalf of the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator (RC/HC) and the Cross-Border Task Force (CBTF), commissioned a review of cross-border operations from Jordan into Syria in order to document the issues and challenges faced in the response, good practices and lessons learned, and to inform future remote humanitarian operations, in particular those in conflicts requiring a remotely managed humanitarian response. In December 2018 and January 2019, over 40 individuals involved in the Jordan-Syria cross-border humanitarian response were interviewed including a cross-section of Jordan-Syria cross-border sector and inter-sector working group leads and co-leads, Syrian NGOs (SNGOs), UN agency, INGOs, Government of Jordan, donor and stabilisation actor representatives. These interviews form the basis of this Review, supplemented by a review of a number of related documents such as sector work group lessons learned documents. Introduction Against the particularly difficult backdrop of the Syrian crisis with its geopolitical complexity, access constraints, scale of need, funding gaps, the targeting by parties to the conflict of humanitarians and civilians, and the challenges to humanitarian principles, the overall humanitarian response in southern Syria achieved a number of important successes. That such a wide range of actors could pull together to deliver a coherent and comprehensive response and provide lifesaving supplies and services to hundreds of thousands of extremely vulnerable civilians in a region inaccessible to most international actors should be considered an achievement in itself. In the early years of the response and with little UN involvement, Syrian individuals, networks and organisations worked together with international NGOs to deliver assistance to hard to reach areas in southern Syria. Following the enactment of UNSCR 2165, UN agencies and a broad array of organisations with diverse interests, varying capacities—often underfunded and overstretched—successfully mobilised to implement the humanitarian response. The response faced a broad spectrum of challenges: coordinating and sharing information in an atmosphere of concern about confidentiality breaches and resultant risks to the security of SNGO staff and families; coordinating within the complicated Whole of Syria (WoS) coordination architecture; determining how best to support SNGO’s development, capacity, participation, and Duty of Care needs; knowing how to address the huge physical protection needs of those in the south;

1 ‘Hard to Reach’ (HTR) and ‘Besieged’ are terms specifically used in reporting to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) throughout the crisis and even before the establishment of formal cross-border programming.

ensuring accountability to affected populations, for example that remotely managed programmes do not put beneficiaries at further risk of sexual exploitation and abuse; obtaining feedback from beneficiaries and gaining a full and accurate picture of programme activities and outcomes given the lack of physical presence; interacting effectively with other actors working in southern Syria; and knowing how to keep beneficiaries and Syrian partner staff safe during and after the complete transition of territorial control from one party to the conflict to another. Start Up of Cross-Border Operations Prior to the passing of UNSCR 2165 in mid-2014, most sectors had already been working cross-border from Jordan since at least 2012. These actors did a creditable job delivering humanitarian assistance into southern Syria in difficult circumstances and without any formal coordination. The passing of UNSCR 2165 allowed cross-border work to be done more transparently and enabled new actors to provide assistance and existing ones to scale up their responses. The resolution made it possible for Jordanian authorities to increase their facilitation of this work and enabled Syrian partner organisations to register to work and to have a legal presence in Jordan. The resolution also provided UNOCHA with a formal coordination role in Jordan and permitted the establishment of dedicated coordination sectors with specialized agency leadership. Immediately after the resolution was passed, the United Nations Monitoring Mechanism (UNMM) was established, and a formal convoy response was initiated, facilitated by the Government of Jordan, which played a significant role liaising for access with groups inside southern Syria. Coordination in the first year of formal operations into Southern Syrian was hindered by INGO reluctance to share information with the UN – distrust stemming from the perception that Damascus- based UN agencies maintained too close a relationship with the Government of Syria in a bid to preserve what little humanitarian access they had in Syria. Coordination challenges were compounded by the fact that many sector leads were overstretched and the assemblage of coordination structures under the WoS umbrella were not well understood and felt by many to be difficult to navigate. Transparent sharing of information at the early stage of the formal cross-border response would have facilitated an improved and holistic understanding of needs in southern Syria, enabling a more efficient and effective response. Supporting Local Partner Organisations Access restrictions and the security context meant that the direct implementation of humanitarian programming inside southern Syria was carried out by local Syrian groups staffed by Syrian nationals managed remotely from Amman either by INGOs or UN agencies. Syrian groups had good access, high levels of community acceptance, and worked hard and at great personal risk to provide services and assistance to fellow Syrians. However, in the absence of historical permission for civil society organisations, most had little humanitarian or organisational experience. Humanitarian actors based in Amman were thus faced with the dual challenges of remotely supporting the capacity development of Syrian partners, and identifying ways to provide appropriate Duty of Care to remotely managed staff operating in a highly insecure environment. INGOs who built responsible partnership management systems and approaches early on and who recognised the need to adequately resource capacity building and Duty of Care fared better than others in supporting their SNGO partners. Capacity Building. Capacity building of local NGO partners was not well-served by existing mechanisms and structures and consideration should be given to the development of a global framework to spell out responsibilities including specifying which organisation should undertake this. At the level of the overarching response, there seemed to be a lack of certainty about who was responsible for what resulting in fragmented efforts at capacity building. UNOCHA convened a forum early on to train Syrian partners in ethics and humanitarian principles and developed a set of strategic capacity building plans but these never gained sufficient traction in the INGO community to see a truly coordinated approach to strengthening capacity. INGOs tended to work on capacity building individually and in isolation, in part to mitigate concerns about partner information being shared with Damascus, but also likely in part due to the competition between INGOs for partners given the small pool of available Syrian partner organisations. Some international organisations invested significantly in strengthening the organisational, technical and humanitarian capacities of their Syrian partner organisations. These organisations imbedded full time staff into projects, provided coaching and mentoring to senior Syrian partner staff, and built respectful relationships based on trust and a real desire to see SNGO capacities grow. Later face-to-face training of Syrian partners in Amman also

vi faced obstacles and was never truly effective in meeting the broad array of needs of SNGOs. Syrian organisations favoured on the job training for a number of key skill sets, provided by imbedded staff, and remote e-training likewise shows promise for technical training for future responses. Duty of Care. The nature and mechanism of appropriate Duty of Care to staff inside Syria was a key concern in the cross-border response. Considerations included financial support for death or disablement, support for those detained, staff wellbeing and psychosocial support, relocation payments, advanced final salary and termination of contract payments, and evacuation support. While some INGOS did financially support staff and families of staff inside Syria in situations of death or detention, this was unsystematic and hoc and faced early resistance from INGO headquarters’ legal departments. It was widely agreed that collectively the response failed to provide timely Duty of Care support although there were some notable successes that point to the potential for future improvements in this regard. The CBTF drafted guidance for minimum Duty of Care standards was widely applauded and is now used as a model at the WoS level. Nevertheless, many in the response described soul searching and felt there remained unanswered questions about the extent to which partner staff are compensated for risk and the extent to which they can be better protected given the massive divide between the kinds of risk compensations and protections afforded to international staff versus those on the front line, particularly in conflict settings. PSEA, and Accountability Mechanisms A significant challenge in remotely managed responses is how to ensure the response itself does not inadvertently do harm to recipients. One important lesson learned in this response was the need to address and fund protection and Protection against Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) mainstreaming issues earlier and more deeply. In remote management contexts where direct staff are not on the ground, where engagement with local councils, non-state actors, and stabilisation actors is difficult or impossible, and where local partners are not experienced in humanitarian work and principles, the risk of protection violations at the level of the response (let alone as a result of the conflict itself) are significant. While the UN eventually acquired funding for a PSEA coordinator, who immediately engaged effectively with actors in the southern Syria response to arrange partner trainings, this did not happen until 2018, too late to see any tangible results. Humanitarian Principles and Protection Mainstreaming The dire protection environment inside Syria threatened humanitarian actors’ ability to uphold core humanitarian principles forcing some to decide between competing principles of impartiality (serving those in need) and independence (no political interference in aid), and ‘doing no harm’ (leaving people without any assistance at all, potentially causing greater harm). Some suggested that the late formalization of the protection sector working group compounded the protection challenges as actors initially lacked a clear sense of where responsibility for protection lay at the overall response level. However, access and capacity challenges were more prominent limitations to the protection response. Risk Management and Remote Monitoring Actors delivering aid in the cross-border Jordan-Syria response using remote management approaches were faced with the challenge of managing a unique set of complex financial, programme quality, security, and protection risks. INGOs and UN agencies managing programmes but with no direct presence inside southern Syria worked hard to verify activities were taking place as planned, monitor outputs and measure outcomes. Published accounts of lessons learned from previous remote responses provided some assistance, although some felt more work is necessary to promote the use of resilience-related programming. Those INGOs who were able to bring in experienced staff in the early months, adapt their pre-existing policies and protocols to relate to the unique Syrian remote management context, and those able to quickly develop good systems, structures, and protocols were better positioned to manage the many challenges posed by risk management and remote monitoring. Triangulation of data sources, building trusting relationships with field and management SNGO staff, ensuring enough resources were available to process data in Amman, and ensuring at least one independent source of monitoring data was considered important to be confident in the quality of data. The importance of direct verbal communication with field staff as one data source was noted. Use of mobile data technology also significantly increased confidence in the veracity of data received.

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Engagement The successful delivery of large amounts of humanitarian aid and the reaching hundreds of thousands with lifesaving services in southern Syria required the engagement and collaboration of a wide range of actors, each with different and sometimes competing interests and values. In addition to UN agencies, INGOs, SNGOs, and donors, other actors included the Government of Jordan, local de facto authorities, non-state military actors, and stabilisation actors. The Government of Jordan played an extremely important enabling role and UNOCHA was viewed as being largely successful in building and maintaining a good relationship and managing the expectations of the various Jordanian authorities. However, there was a feeling by some in the donor and INGO communities that UNOCHA could have done more to support those INGOs using the informal crossing in mediating with Jordanian authorities, with whom there were more strained relationships. While engagement with non-state military and local governance actors in the southern Syrian context was considered less fraught than for those cross-border from Turkey, challenges were faced in ensuring local authorities were attuned to and respectful of humanitarian principles in their supportive role. Early on, most INGOs left local council and non-state military engagement to their SNGO partners rather than resolving issues through a coordinated approach. Local councils were for the most part accommodating in the south, although in retrospect many felt that earlier and more strategic engagement with them would have led to more progress on addressing PSEA as well as protection-related issues. The Food Security Sector created guidelines for its partners on how to engage well with local councils and these could be used as a model for future similar situations. Stabilisation actors were present and active in many of the same sector fields as humanitarian actors in southern Syria and even shared implementing partners in some cases. Although humanitarian and stabilisation objectives varied considerably, the success of humanitarian work in southern Syria in numerous cases benefited from the forward movement of stabilisation projects, and would have benefited from information to prevent duplication, among other things. Ultimately however, coordination between humanitarian and stabilisation actors remained limited, with humanitarian actors divided over how much information exchange should occur. Some good practices and lessons learned did emerge. UNOCHA, donors, and some sector working groups did a commendable job in enabling and encouraging pragmatic yet principled information sharing with stabilisation actors and the pragmatic approach taken by UNOCHA and certain sector working group leads could be built upon further in future responses. Inter-Agency Contingency Planning, Continuity of Services, and Close Down UNOCHA Jordan displayed a commitment to inter-agency contingency planning processes throughout the response and appropriate arrangements were made in advance to respond to the needs of the affected populations as various scenarios arose. Over the four-year period, seven of eight contingencies planned for occurred and pre-positioned goods and services assisted over 460,000 crisis beneficiaries across five sectors, who could not have been accessed otherwise. Significant challenges arose, however, during the transition process after the emergency response in 2018 when Syrian armed forces decisively re-took territorial control over the entirety of previously opposition- held areas in southern Syria. The issue of how to close down operations safely in southern Syria was a real challenge for all actors in this response. UNOCHA attempted to engage the Government of Syria in continuity of services planning, but this effort was largely fruitless and in the end the complete shift of line of control in southern Syria meant little possibility of handover or continuity of services in any form. Many humanitarian actors felt powerless to protect their SNGO partner staff with some field staff immediately going into hiding leaving little or no time to implement data protection protocols (where they existed to begin with) meant to safeguard beneficiaries and staff. While many in the cross-border response started early and took the time to consider what various scenarios meant for response implementation and prepositioning of goods, some INGOs did not have adequate emergency planning components built into their budgets, were slow to develop implementation plans based on emergency scenarios, and did not have full plans in place on what to do once the territorial control changes began. Operational actors would have benefitted from more

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inter-agency guidance on closing down safely and further consideration on how to address the safe closing down of humanitarian operations is necessary to inform future responses. Perhaps one of the most significant common contributors to the major challenges in this response— provision of capacity building and Duty of Care with local partners, ensuring accountability to affected populations (particularly protecting beneficiaries from sexual exploitation and abuse), and increasing the humanitarian benefits of information sharing with stabilisation actors—was the lack of an early common harmonised approach. Future responses will likely require an earlier, more deliberate, and more focused attention to how these matters are organised. Eight months after the Government of Syria retook control of opposition-held areas of southern Syria, the cross-border response has been fully suspended, and this suspension looks unlikely to be reversed. Hundreds of thousands of those most in need in southern Syria were reached with lifesaving support by the cross-border Jordan-Syria humanitarian response. In an immensely challenging context, many lessons have been learned about partnership management, capacity building, the centrality of protection, engagement with local authorities and stabilisation actors, and Duty of Care to local partner staff which can be drawn upon in the future where remote management responses will be increasingly common.

A Key Document Repository containing a large compilation of key accessible documents involved in the southern Syria response can be found at https://drive.google.com/drive/u/2/folders/1iJlq8vMng59Ym8truZKLJub2VosZHUsV

RECOMMENDATIONS

At minimum, those involved in future remotely managed, protracted humanitarian crises (in particular those in conflict settings) should: Humanitarian leadership § Consider developing a global framework to elucidate the range of modalities for implementing the different capacity building requirements of local NGO partners, and responsibilities for its coordination, including specification of which organisation should be accountable for the different elements § Address Duty of Care questions about how local partner staff can be better compensated for risk and better protected in light of the large divide between the compensations and protections afforded to international staff Coordination leads § Continue to provide support to further expand and harmonize Duty of Care for all front-line actors, especially subcontracted staff of local NGOs § Initiate a Protection sector working group early, ideally at the same time as other core sector working groups § Clarify responsibilities of various actors for the sharing of information with stabilisation actors where this is likely to improve humanitarian activities without compromising humanitarian principles § Provide inter-agency guidance on closing down operations safely International NGOs / International Organisations § Build ‘responsible partnership management’ systems before operations commence § Join with inter-agency approaches to building local NGO capacities § Consider imbedding full time staff inside local NGO management teams for the duration of projects to build capacity in partner NGO organisational systems § Consider how to expand current Duty of Care coverage for local partner staff including financial support for death or disablement, support for those detained, staff wellbeing and psychosocial support, relocation payments, advanced final salary and termination of contract payments, and if appropriate, evacuation support § Ensure ‘emergency’ advanced final salary payment schemes for local partner staff are provided in all contracts and budget for these in partnership agreements at the outset § Explore how health care provision compensation can be provided for local NGO staff even in areas where traditional health or life insurance companies refuse to work § Adapt or create policies and protocols as early as possible to relate to each unique remote management context regarding risk and remote management § Triangulate sources of data in remote monitoring and verification and include at least one independent source of monitoring data and one ‘direct’ data point involving verbal communication directly with field staff § Build emergency planning components into budgets at the outset to ensure preparedness for likely emergency scenarios § Ensure partner staff are trained on PSEA and have robust PSEA reporting mechanisms in place early on Donors § Ensure budget lines for ‘emergency’ advanced final salaries for local NGO staff § Expand budget lines for other forms of Duty of Care such as financial support for death or disablement, intangible support for those detained, staff wellbeing and psychosocial support, relocation payments, and if appropriate, evacuation support § Explore how health care provision compensation can be provided for local NGO staff even in areas where traditional health or life insurance companies refuse to work § Ensure early on in the response that dedicated financial and human resources are available to train local partner NGOs in Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA)

Local NGO Partners § Ensure minimum Duty of Care policies are in place for all staff, and have been raised, discussed, and agreed with international organisation partners. Offer to support in INGO- Donor discussions to expand Duty of Care mechanisms.

SECTION ONE: BACKGROUND

1.1 Context By mid-2014, three years into the Syria war, indiscriminate artillery attacks, aerial and barrel bombs in populated areas, the widespread use of torture, chemical attacks, and other violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by Syrian authorities and other parties to the conflict had left 150,000 people dead, including 10,000 children.2 By this time, 10 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance including 6.4 million internally displaced people (IDPs), two-thirds of whom were in areas that were hard to reach, 240,000 were in besieged locations, and nearly three million refugees had fled to neighbouring countries. 3 Since the start of the crisis in 2011, the three most southern Syrian governorates bordering on Jordan—Dara’a, Quneitra, and As-Sweida—were under the control of different parties to the conflict, resulting in different degrees of access for humanitarian actors. As-Sweida was under government control, while some 75% of Dara’a and Quneitra were under opposition control leaving around 726,000 individuals living in in opposition-held areas. 4 Gaining access to vulnerable civilians, particularly those in opposition-held territory, had long been a major challenge.5 Because Bashar al- Assad’s government remained the official representative of Syria in the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations had a Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) in Damascus, the UN required permission from the Government of Syria to carry out humanitarian operations within Syria’s borders. Government of Syria permissions to cross battle lines into opposition-held areas were not forthcoming, and the Syrian authorities also made it clear they would not permit aid to be brought in across borders with neighbouring countries. To alleviate the impact of the conflict on the Syrian people, a number of Syrian and international organisations6 began to work with different degrees of visibility in areas outside Government of Syria control from around 2012. In southern Syria, these Syrian and International NGOs (SNGOs and INGOs) worked independent of the UN to cross the border from the northern part of Jordan into opposition- held areas providing significant levels of aid. In July 2014, through the unanimous adoption of UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2165, UN agencies were authorised to use four border crossing points—including one between Jordan and Syria at Al-Ramtha—to deliver humanitarian assistance cross-border. This resolution required only notification to the Syrian authorities (but not their consent). Between mid-2014 and mid-2018 under UNSCR 2165 and extensions 2191/2258/2332/2393, Jordan-based UN agencies and their implementing partners were able to formally access areas that were previously entirely classed as Hard to Reach (HTR; i.e., had not been previously accessible) by agencies working from Damascus. For the next four years, against the backdrop of fractured global politics surrounding the Syria conflict and a fragmented landscape of warring parties, cross-border humanitarian actors sought to scale up and expand the geographic reach of assistance provision, as well as improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and diversity of programming delivered from Jordan into southern Syria. While cross- border operations from Turkey into Syria were the largest, Jordan’s response was not insubstantial, contributing 25% of the total volume of cross-border goods and services. In mid-2018 a major increase in hostilities, followed by militarily induced surrenders as well as those reached by the negotiation of local agreements, led to the return of the territory to Government of Syria control. The last formal cross-border convoy was sent on 25 June 2018. Active cross-border humanitarian assistance and service provision ended by September the same year.

2 UN Security Council, Security Council resolution 2165 (2014), adopted by the Security Council at its 7216th meeting, 14 July 2014, S/RES/2165 (2014), available at: http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/doc/2165. 3 Ibid. 4 https://reliefweb.int/map/syrian-arab-republic/southern-syria-resident-population-internally-displaced-persons-31-march-0 5 Sida, L., Trombetta, L., and Panero, V. (March 2016), Evaluation of OCHA Response to the Syria Crisis. 6 These included loose Syrian civil society organisations, charities, and Syrian and international non-governmental organisations (SNGOs and INGOs)

1.2 Aims and Objectives In the context of this suspension of cross-border operations, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) Jordan, on behalf of the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator (RC/HC) and the Cross-Border Task Force (CBTF),7 commissioned an independent Review of cross-border operations from Jordan into Syria. The aim of this Review is to document issues and challenges faced in the response, good practices and lessons learned, and in doing so to inform future remote humanitarian operations, in particular those in remote protracted conflicts. The Review is also intended to serve as a repository of key memories and documents for future investigations on topics that may not yet be evident, or for which the details of Syria cross- border humanitarian operations may be a key resource. Specifically, the Review’s scope of work8 includes: 1. Interviews with relevant stakeholders including sector leads, international humanitarian partners, SNGOs, the current RC/HC, local authorities (Al-Ramtha authorities, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), Jordanian Intelligence Department), and stabilisation actors; 2. Documentation of good practices and lessons learned of cross-border operations in the following themes: start up; remote management of service and non-service cross-border programming; monitoring and assessment; engagement with relevant stakeholders (the Government of Jordan, non-state actors, Syrian NGO (SNGO) partners, local councils, stabilisation actors); risk management; mainstreaming of protection; preventing sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA) and other accountability frameworks; coordination including achievements by sector; change management, due diligence, and closing down safely; and lessons learned with a particular view to providing recommendations for other remote and protracted conflict humanitarian contexts; and 3. Creation of a timeline and indexed Key Document Repository. 1.3 Scope and Methods 1.3.1 Scope This Review takes as its mandate the entire operational cross-border response from Jordan into Syria and covers all humanitarian actors and sectors engaged in this response. The time period includes the informal phase prior to UNSCR 2165 but focuses primarily on the period from the passing of UNSCR 2165 in July 2014 and its extensions until the re-taking of Southern Syria by the Government of Syria in mid-2018. 1.3.2 Methods In December 2018 and January 2019, 41 individuals involved in the Jordan-Syria cross-border humanitarian response were interviewed at least once by the consultant, either in person in Amman, by Skype, or by telephone. Those interviewed included a cross-section of Jordan-Syria cross-border sector and inter-sector working group leads and co-leads, SNGO, UN, INGO, Government of Jordan, donor and stabilisation actor representatives, in order to cover a broad sample of key actors and individuals including, where possible, those present during the pre-formal and early formal phases in pre-2014 to 2015, as well as those present at the time of the close down in mid-/late-2018 and into 2019. A large number of documents was reviewed, including reports, press releases, assessments, and briefings, etc. Each sector working group was also asked to provide a lessons learned report. Many of these documents are included in the Key Document Repository, which can be found at https://drive.google.com/drive/u/2/folders/1iJlq8vMng59Ym8truZKLJub2VosZHUsV. This Key Document Repository contains a large compilation of key accessible documents involved in the southern Syria response.

7 The Cross-Border Task Force (CBTF) was the highest-ranking strategic decision-making body for cross-border programming from Jordan, equivalent of a Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) in other humanitarian responses. The CBTF was separated out from the regular meetings of the HCT in Jordan, so that the HCT could retain its focus on refugee response in Jordan while the CBTF would bring together a slightly different set of heads of agencies (some regional and based in Jordan). 8 See Annex A for the Scope of Work

1.4 Structure of the Review The Review follows the themes and topics outlined in the Scope of Work, describes issues and challenges, and presents selected brief case studies and good practice examples. Annex B provides a narrative timeline of the southern Syria response, while an index of documents included in the repository can be found in Annex C. Section 2 examines the informal cross-border response and the start-up phase of the formal cross- border operations. It discusses interviewee perceptions about the passing of UNSCR 2165 and initiation of the United Nations Monitoring Mechanism. UNOCHA’s role is outlined and the initiation of the formal cross-border convoy operation is discussed. Section 2 also outlines the trust issues that proved challenging early in the response, along with the steps involved in establishing the Jordan hub and Whole of Syria coordination architecture. Finally, a summary of how needs assessments were coordinated both early on and throughout the response is included in this section. Section 3 describes successes and challenges in providing support to Syrian partner organisations, including the partnership management approaches, capacity building, and Duty of Care, along with SNGO involvement in coordination structures. Section 4 reviews the challenges faced in addressing protection concerns, the mainstreaming of protection, the mainstreaming of protection from sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA), risks to humanitarian principles, and beneficiary feedback mechanisms. Section 5 discusses risk management and remote monitoring. It begins with a brief outline of challenges in starting up remotely managed operations, moving to a discussion of the management of various risks. It ends with a summary of how operational actors in this response monitored their programmes. Section 6 discusses engagement with the Government of Jordan, non-state actors, local councils, and stabilisation actors. Section 7 describes inter-agency contingency planning, continuity of services, and close down. Section 8 provides conclusions.

SECTION TWO: START UP OF CROSS-BORDER OPERATIONS

2.1 Informal Cross-Border Operations 2.1.1 Pre-Resolution Informal Cross-Border Operations Prior to the passing of UNSCR 2165 in mid-2014, organisations from most sectors had already been working covertly cross-border from Jordan and Turkey since at least 2012. Actors involved in this informal response faced many challenges yet they succeeded in delivering humanitarian assistance into southern Syria in difficult circumstances, with tight diplomatic manoeuvre space, and with minimal UN involvement. The operational environment at the time in southern Syria made the work fragmented and complicated and this was compounded by the fact that the work had to be low profile as the Government of Jordan found it politically untenable to publicly facilitate humanitarian assistance anywhere in Syria, even into areas outside the control of the Government of Syria. Although donor financing was plentiful, INGOs competed to maintain their operational space and coordination was difficult. The extreme lack of security and inability to access opposition-held areas for international staff meant that international actors overwhelmingly did not implement direct programming in southern Syria. Nearly all humanitarian programming inside southern Syria was carried out in partnership with Syrian organisations using a remote management approach. Local partners had good acceptance in their communities, and were able to obtain access through personal networks through a highly relationship-driven process. Their work usually required movement through highly insecure areas (including civilian centres daily impacted by Government of Syria aerial bombardment) and involved interfacing with armed opposition groups. One of the most difficult tasks in the early days of implementing cross-border operations for INGOs was the identification of implementing partners to transport commodities across the border for further distribution in Dara’a and Quneitra. Those involved at this early stage explained that one method for finding partners was to ‘identify from our own networks reliable Syrian individuals living in Amman or commuting from southern Syria.’ Partnerships were formed between INGOs and a variety of Syrian individuals and groups including highly informal volunteer networks, nascent civil society organisations, and with NGOs. Case Study 1 illustrates how cross-border partners were identified by one health INGO at this early, informal stage. Case Study 1: Health INGO Start Up

‘At the earliest stage in 2012, we had easy access to names of groups that were informally organized to help their communities. Often, this led to names of individuals willing to risk crossing the border to bring a backpack of medical supplies to a specific community in the trunk of a car, where it was then verified through our tracking system. These connections were mostly through communications with Syrians who sympathized with people living in opposition-controlled areas. Of course, this also meant the information received was geographically biased and the ability to verify and vet the informal groups was almost impossible, so we tested them with small pilots/samples of low-risk health supplies. This enabled us to walk through communications and logistics with these groups, as well as better determine risk. In the beginning, you could count the number of informal partners on one hand. This informal partnership made sub-grant mechanisms difficult with policy and compliance requirements. By mid-2013, different groups were becoming linked to one another and identified under common names. If certain groups had success in the NFI or food security sector, for example, it was [the donor] that suggested we ‘look into’ specific groups by name. [The donor] was very careful not to specifically recommend who to partner with. From there it grew and partners began to establish offices outside Syria with organisational structures and teams to ensure they were compliant with INGO policy and compliance practices.’ (Health INGO representative)

In the absence initially of a formal coordination structure, individuals from INGOs working cross- border met bilaterally and developed ‘tight-knit groups’ resulting in ‘candid, transparent relationships’. In 2014, an informal ‘Needs Response Group (NRG)’ was established by a subset of

primarily health INGOs thought it reportedly suffered from ‘cliques’ and participation remained partial, with INGOs talking of ‘holding their cards tight’ and ‘not sharing information.’ As there was no formal cluster system in place, INGOs felt there was no prerogative to release information. UNOCHA—which was only established in Jordan in 20129— was never officially involved but engaged ‘lightly’ to provide ‘support to INGOs’ and to help develop a ‘shared understanding’ of the situation. 2.1.2 Perceptions of UNSCR 2165 Senior donor, UN, and INGO stakeholders interviewed viewed the passing of UNSCR 2165 and its subsequent renewals favourably, as a ‘significant’ and commendable achievement. As one donor representative said, ‘I would paint it as a success overall. In general, the fact that there even was a UN managed cross-border response at all was a big deal. Getting the Security Council to grant cross-border permission without member state permission is a big deal. That the Security Council renewed it three or four times, that it did not create such a stir as to be vetoed is really an achievement.’ (Donor representative) Those interviewed believed that UNSCR 2165 provided a variety of advantages: it allowed cross- border work to be done more transparently; enabled new actors—notably UN agencies—to provide cross-border assistance and existing actors to scale up their responses; legitimised existing informal cross-border work by enfolding these INGOs into Jordanian national legal frameworks; made it possible for Jordanian authorities to increase their facilitation of this work; and enabled Syrian partner organisations to register and have a legal presence in Jordan. Finally, the resolution provided UNOCHA with a formal coordination role in Jordan and permitted the setting up of dedicated coordination sectors with specialized agency leadership. The resolution was intended not just to allow cross-border activities but as a mechanism to encourage the Government of Syria to be more permissive of the humanitarian assistance within Syria out of Damascus and to create a more coherent overall response. However, ultimately UNSCR 2165 did not dramatically change the Government of Syria’s restrictions on cross-line operations from Damascus into areas of opposition control. UNSCR 2165 did permit the beginning of formal coordination among cross-border actors as well as between cross-border and Damascus-based operations in the form of ‘Whole of Syria’ coordination. Nevertheless, the Syria response remained not only territorially delineated between the Damascus-led response (into mostly government areas into which the UN were partly able to operate) and the cross-border responses (into opposition held areas where the needs were most acute) but polarised between the two. 2.2 Establishing the United Nations Monitoring Mechanism (UNMM) Immediately after the Resolution was passed, the Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) deployed a core team of UNOCHA staff from headquarters, first in Turkey and subsequently in Jordan, to set up the UNMM. The team consisted of senior surge staff (D-1, P-5), Emergency Response Roster (ERR) staff and United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) members, who were selected based on their specific skills to perform such tasks. The team arrived to Jordan on 2 August 2014. The first crossing of a relief consignment through the Al-Ramtha border point occurred on 6 August 2014. While the strategic aspects of the cross-border operation were coordinated by UNOCHA and its logistical aspects by the Logistics Cluster, the UNMM monitored the loading of the relief consignments onto Syrian trucks and any subsequent opening of the consignments by the customs authorities of its host countries (Jordan in this case). Once the loading of a consignment was completed, the UNMM team accompanied the trucks to the Syrian border to monitor any eventual opening of the consignments by Jordanian customs officials and prevent any manipulation by third parties. Once the consignment had crossed the border, the Director of the UNMM, through the Syria

9 UNOCHA deployed a Humanitarian Advisory Team to support the Humanitarian Coordinator in November 2012.

RC/HC, notified the Government of Syria of the passage of the relief consignment into Syria confirming its humanitarian nature in compliance with UNSC Resolution 2165.10 The UNMM was accountable to the UN Security Council through the Emergency Relief Coordinator. While it collaborates with the Government of Jordan, UNOCHA and other UN agencies for ensuring the implementation of its mandate, it remained independent from them. The UNMM office in Amman was instead established in a separate location from other UN offices. The Jordan UNMM team consisted of five internationals and five support staff. 2.3 UNOCHA’s Role in the Formal Cross-Border Operations Jordan-Syria UNOCHA Jordan set itself a number of tasks or ‘pillars of response,’ including coordinating the management of the ongoing formal convoys, setting up the formal sectoral coordination architecture to enable sectors to work in a more strategic manner, contingency planning (described in Section 7), and the coordination of strategic plans to support capacity building of nascent SNGOs. 2.3.1 Formal Cross-Border Convoy Operations The facilitation of UN cross-border consignments was the result of a form of ‘tripartite’ arrangement, involving UNOCHA ensuring strategic coordination between humanitarian organisations and with the Jordanian authorities, the Logistics sector working group ensuring the operational coordination aspects of the transshipments, and UNMM which carried out its monitoring mandate according to SCR 2165. At the same time as the UNMM was being set up, UNOCHA brought together UN agencies—World Food Program (WFP), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), World Health Organisation (WHO), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and International Organisation for Migration (IOM)—to plan the formal cross-border operations. UNOCHA focused early efforts on coordinating and maximising the impact of formal cross-border convoys, setting up partnerships with SNGOs, carrying out needs assessments, establishing monitoring and evaluation systems, and engaging in access negotiations on behalf of those UN agencies starting cross-border work. UNOCHA also worked hard to develop and maintain good relationships at various levels with the Government of Jordan, a challenge given the many political and security bureaucracies from which approvals were required. Engagement by UNOCHA with the Government of Jordan is described more fully in Section 6.1. On 6 August 2014, three weeks after the passage of UNSCR 2165, the first cross-border UN convoy, comprising 10 trucks, crossed from Jordan into Syria, transporting and distributing food, non-food items (NFIs), hygiene items, water kits, and health supplies to opposition-held parts of Dara’a city. On the 19 August, a second convoy was organized to the Al-Khashniyyeh sub-district of the Quneitra governorate. It had been between nine and 12 months since either location had been reached by cross-line from Damascus or informal cross-border assistance. Over the next four months, the UN organized a further twelve inter-agency UN convoys to locations which had previously been hard-to- reach in opposition-controlled areas of the south.11 By late 2015, the separate UN agencies had established wider bilateral partnerships and other requisite foundations to scale-up and diversify their operations to southern Syria. On average, the UN organised two convoys per week, each comprising around 15 trucks, reaching a peak in 2018 of 30 trucks per convoy, three convoys per week. One early challenge was to ensure the security of the trucks given that Al Nusra Front (ANF), a hard- line armed Syrian opposition group, was within two miles of the crossing, ‘within sight and shooting range of the transhipment area’. Risks were mitigated by the good intelligence links Government of Jordan authorities had in southern Syria in addition to access work by the UN. After access discussions between ANF and UNOCHA which indicated the added difficulties of sending humanitarian aid through a route managed by a listed terrorist organisation, ANF decided to hand over its direct check

10 United Nations Monitoring Mechanism (UNMM) (30 April 2018). UNMM Guidelines. 11 Ibid.

point at the start of the convoy crossing route to a moderate armed opposition group to facilitate humanitarian access to civilians in the south. 2.4 Trust Building By all accounts, the beginning of the formal response was characterised by a trust deficit among and between various actors that hampered significant aspects of the response, particularly in the area of coordination. The sharing or leaking of information to Government of Syria authorities about humanitarian programming in southern Syria constituted a significant risk to the security of staff and organisations operating in southern Syria. Many NGOs did not trust Damascus-based UN agencies (or in some cases any UN agency given that all UN agencies had sister branches in Damascus). Some staff within the same UN agency did not fully trust each other. INGOs involved in coordination working groups were reluctant to share Syrian partner information with each other or the UN. Section 2.4.1 and 2.4.2 further describe the origins and effects of these trust deficits along with a discussion of how these challenges were addressed. 2.4.1 Effects of Lack of Legal Status for Syrian NGOs Most SNGOs working cross-border came into existence only after the Government of Syria crackdown on protests which started in southern Syria in 2011. Many SNGOs grew out of grass roots charitable volunteering networks, with little experience of humanitarian work. They sought to provide emergency gap filling assistance after services were withdrawn or actively targeted by the Government of Syria. Staff of SNGOs risked their lives daily to provide critical services to people in need in southern Syria and many SNGO staff worked as volunteers without salaries for months or years at immense personal risk to themselves and families before being their organisations were able to develop the connections and structures to attract formal larger scale humanitarian funding. Before the resolution, the Government of Jordan refused to grant legal status to Syrian individuals and organisations seeking to use Jordan as a base from which to provide humanitarian assistance. The Government of Jordan was justifiably concerned about the possibility of retaliation—including military retaliation—against its territories for providing ‘support to terrorists,’ the official view of the Government of Syria regarding such work at the time. With no formal legal status to work in Jordan or Syria, nascent SNGOs were unable to access the basic building blocks of transparent financial relationships. Without formal registration in Jordan, SNGOs could not open organisational bank accounts and were thus unable to receive bank transfers from donors and INGOs. Substantial and necessarily opaque financial transfer and accounting mechanisms both impeded the transparency of financial dealings and INGO-SNGO partnership arrangements and left Syrian individuals and organisations open to accusations of misuse or laundering of funds for extremist organisations. This could and did result in the immediate closure of operations and in some cases the removal of Syrian nationals from Jordan. Jordan-based SNGO staff thus lived under constant fear that they might be deported to Syria for any misinterpretation of their programming in Jordan. There was no legal recourse to dispute accusations when applied. Even more critically, as Syrian partners were viewed by the Government of Syria as giving material support to the opposition, there were serious and credible concerns for the safety of Syrian staff and their family members inside Syria. Significant risks therefore arose regarding the sharing of information on SNGO activities inside Syria. Indeed, the Syrian government had proved its willingness to target if not prioritize medical facilities and other humanitarian infrastructure for aerial bombardment. As a result, at the start-up of the cross-border operation, INGOs and Syrian partners were reluctant to fully coordinate and/or share information with each other, or later with the UN. 2.4.2 Trust Deficit Among and Between INGOs and UN Agencies in Damascus At the outset of the formal response, UNOCHA—as the Inter-Sector Working Group (ISWG) lead12— and those specialized UN agencies tasked with setting up cross-border sector working groups found it

12 The Inter Sector Working Group (ISWG) was formed to coordinate cross-border sectors, avoid duplication, build up on common processes and facilitate the flow of information between sectors. Chaired by UNOCHA, the ISWG was the main bridge between the sector working groups.

difficult to carry out their coordination role due to a lack of forthcoming information. As noted above, INGOs withheld information from UN interlocutors concerned that it might be shared with Syrian authorities (though some interviewees argued the reluctance to share may also have stemmed from competition over funding). It was known that UN agencies in Damascus were closely scrutinized by the Government of Syria and concerns about data confidentiality were raised. There was also belief among INGOs that UN agencies were not willing to jeopardise what little access their Damascus-based had by taking a stronger stance with the Government of Syria.13 One senior INGO representative felt that it was easier to develop relationships with those UN agencies whose funding did not require sign off from their Damascus-based colleagues, and that those agencies with a strong regional office based out of Amman had a better understanding of the cross-border dynamics. Due to concerns about confidentiality and security risks for Syrian partners, many INGOs and some UN agencies set up firewalls between their own Amman and Damascus offices to prevent any accidental leaks of information.14 2.4.3 Addressing Trust Deficits In response to these significant concerns, UNOCHA and specialized co-leads of sector working groups exerted significant efforts to build trust with SNGOs and INGOs. A number of INGOs developed strong bilateral relationships with UN agencies and eventually engaged actively in inter-hub coordination. Most interviewed, including coordinators themselves, agreed that the trust deficit between Damascus and other hubs hampered information sharing for a significant period into the formal response. Only once information sharing protocols were developed was the safe space necessary for the most basic hub-level coordination established. Information sharing protocols set out strict regulations about which kinds of information could be shared beyond humanitarian hub-level agency representatives. For example, the sharing of village level data was prohibited because any leak of such detailed information to parties to the conflict—accidental or intentional—could facilitate the military targeting of such humanitarian operations. The development of these protocols was long and drawn out however resulting in the entrenchment of unnecessary firewalls into working practices. As one coordinator said, ‘For some sectors it took two years to develop information management protocols. Whole of Syria coordinators were only able to get the buy in from hub partners to share response data regarding besieged and hard to reach areas at the village level from both inside and outside Syria in 2017. This information was critical to providing accurate access information to the Security Council on Besieged and Hard to Reach areas, reporting to donors, as well for assessing needs and gaps.’ Even with information sharing protocols, some felt that inter-sectoral data sharing was quite restricted, as a health sector coordinator shared: ‘Concerns about data sharing about where folks were operating, even between sectors, challenged our ability to take advantage of other sectors triangulating our work. This could be solved by very early on developing an information sharing protocol that cuts across all sectors. While very sector had an information sharing protocol (sometimes more than one), nervousness and distrust meant that they were unnecessarily restrictive and required coordinators to seek permission for any sharing of data or information outside a very narrow set of uses. In the future, the information sharing protocol should be developed early on with an automatic inclusion of all reported data (i.e. you have to opt-out if you want to specifically restrict some kind of data rather than opting-into a more inclusive information sharing protocol).’

13 Sida, L., Trombetta, L. & Panero, V. (March, 2016). Evaluation of OCHA response to the Syria crisis. 14 Howe, K. (January, 2016). Planning from the Future Component 2. The Contemporary Humanitarian Landscape: Malaise, Blockages and Game Changers. No End in Sight: A Case Study of Humanitarian Action and the Syria Conflict. Kings College London, Feistein International Center, Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG).

2.5 The Whole of Syria Coordination Architecture In response to calls by donors, in September 2014, coordination structures in Syria, Turkey and Jordan hubs were linked closer together by formal—if still limited—coordination framework, the Whole of Syria (WoS) approach. Prior to this, humanitarian actors were accessing Syria from different hubs in Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon, as well as from inside Syria, and were largely divided with restricted if any information exchange and coordination across responses. Impetus for the establishment of the WoS came from the recognition that, while there were elements of polarisation between those accessing Syria cross-border and those in Damascus operating cross-line, both had key areas of overlapping response access. Different hubs also had complementary information available to them about humanitarian systems (for example governorate wide water networks, or governorate wide levels of infant vaccination) that had implications that (by definition) could not be understood or dealt with on one side of a line of control. The WoS approach was an attempt to bring these together into a more coordinated response. Despite the understanding of its importance, many involved in the response remained critical of the WoS coordination structure, for example: ‘Not only was it late in coming but it also lacked consistency across sectors and within agencies which hindered engagement with the mechanism and the other response hubs and it also may have contributed further to lack of trust,’ (Health sector working group coordinator). It is true that partly because of its scale, the WoS architecture was complicated, non-uniform, and slower with respect to information sharing. Its development moved relatively slowly, in a large part due to the previously discussed extensive time taken to build trust within the different hubs themselves. 2.6 Establishing the Jordan Hub Coordination Architecture In late 2014 and 2015, as the WoS architecture was being developed, UNOCHA Jordan initiated the establishment of Jordan hub coordination structures including the ISWG, the CBTF, and sector working groups. The CBTF was designed as a strategic body while the ISWG as the ‘engine room’ or more operational arm. The start-up of each of these are described in more detail below. The WoS architecture was created at approximately the same time as the Amman hub level architecture. 2.6.1 Establishing Jordan Hub Coordination Structures (1) Inter-Sector Working Group. The first formal ISWG meeting, chaired by UNOCHA, took place in the last half of 2014, before the creation of the CBTF. The ISWG was formed to coordinate sectors and served as the main bridge between the sector working groups to avoid duplication, develop information sharing protocols, build common processes, and facilitate the flow of information between sectors. ISWG meetings were convened on monthly basis with ad-hoc meetings called for urgent interventions. (2) Cross-Border Task Force. UNOCHA Jordan began setting up the Jordan hub coordination architecture as a platform to engage INGO partners, donors, and build trust within the humanitarian community. Initially after UNSCR 2165 was passed, strategic head of agency level discussions about southern Syria cross-border programming were held in the monthly Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) meetings for Jordan. Over time, cross-border programming was increasingly managed by special southern Syria program leads within agencies. However HCT members were not necessarily those responsible for cross-border programming (or represented organisations that did not have cross-border programing) so a special ‘task force’ of the HCT—the Cross-Border Task Force (CBTF)— was created to carry out the duties of an HCT for cross-border Jordan-Syria work with more appropriate representation and a cross-border devoted agenda. The CBTF was designed as a strategic body with the ISWG comprising the ‘engine room’ or more operational arm. INGOs, UN partners, and later donors and SNGOs had representation in the CBTF. The first formal meeting of the CBTF was held in May 2015, a year after the cross-border resolution was passed. The first six to nine months of CBTF operations were spent building trust between UN agencies and INGOs. As a result of work on UNOCHA’s part, many agreed that ultimately the CBTF became a place of respectful communication, allowing space for diverse points of view. (3) Sector Working Groups. The Health sector was the earliest to formalise a sector working group structure (in late 2014), although most INGOs refused to actively participate initially with UN agencies. Once information sharing protocols were established, ‘things became easier.’ Working

groups for the Food Security, Non Food Items (NFI)/Shelter, and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) sectors, were activated by end 2014 and the Education sector working group was initiated in May 2015 and the Nutrition sector working group in 2016.15 From mid-2015, agencies made a concerted effort to scale up service provision in the protection, WASH, education, health and nutrition sectors. Further expanding services and integrating resilience- based approaches into programming remained a top priority, given that the most significant gaps in the south were identified as service, rather than supply-related and were thus not addressed simply by increasing the quantities of commodities being sent through additional convoys. Formal coordination among protection actors was slow to gain momentum. While the Gender Based Violence (GBV) and Child Protection (CP) sub-sectors of the Protection sector working group were formalised in mid-2015, the Protection Working Group, led by UNHCR, and the Mine Action sub- sector working group were not established until 2016. The delay in establishing formal protection coordination mechanism was criticised by many actors. The issue of Protection is discussed in more detail in Section 4. 2.6.2 Perceptions of the Utility of the Coordination Structures In 2014, many INGOs who had worked cross-border before UNSC 2165 felt the establishment of the WoS coordination mechanism posed a significant risk for the confidentiality of sensitive information across conflict lines and there was ‘resentment’ about its establishment. Donors felt the call for the WoS was overdue and should have originated earlier from UNOCHA and UN sector leads. Most interviewees from UN agencies believed the approach made progress in rectifying the disconnection, although significant criticism of the WoS remained throughout the response in particular by INGO agencies. One INGO representative felt the WoS design ‘did not reflect the principle of impartiality but reinforced pre-existing problems’, and another did not believe the WoS provided any ‘added value to the Jordan cross-border response.’ During the period before the formal resolution was passed, INGOs who implemented programming in southern Syria using informal mechanisms were coordinating informally but they lacked dedicated staff and most individuals engaged in the informal coordination mechanism were double-hatting in these roles. The introduction of formal coordination mechanisms was welcomed to a certain extent, but those involved in these precursor structures found the new formal structures to be bureaucratic, and unwieldy, in particular at the WoS level. Even at the Jordan level, however, NGO interviewees felt the complexity of the WoS and Jordan hub structures made it difficult—especially for newcomers—to understand the roles, responsibilities, relationships and decision-making structures in the formal mechanisms. Some felt there were too many meetings yielding little open and useful collaboration. A number of interviewees felt these problems negatively affected the quality of the response. This was exacerbated by the fact that many sector leads were double-hatting and either also held a technical position within their organisation, or a second role as WoS sector coordinator. Many sector leads confirmed that double-hatting made it extremely difficult to do their job effectively. A one sector working group co-lead said, ‘The way to avoid these problems for future is that it needs to be recognized that in a remote management context, a conflict in particular, and when people are not on the ground, we need to recognize cross-border work is inefficient, and harder to be accountable and so requires a higher level of coordination. Full time staff should be dedicated to Duty of Care, partnerships, capacity building, and so on. But now this is everybody’s lowest priority’ (Protection sector working group co-lead). 2.7 Coordinating Shared Needs Assessments UNOCHA’s third pillar of response was to ensure granular level needs assessments were conducted and shared across humanitarian actors in the hub for strategic programming. The variety of ways that

15 Saja Farooq Abdullah and Lindsay Spainhour Baker (December 2017), Experiences of the ‘Whole of Syria’ coordination for nutrition, Field Exchange 56 https://www.ennonline.net/fex/56/wholeofsyriacoordinationfornutrition

needs assessments, incident reports, conflict-tracking and mapping were carried out in the Jordan- Syria cross-border response are detailed below. 2.7.1 Introduction and Perceptions about Understanding of Needs Many involved in the response felt the needs were not sufficiently well understood in Syria. This was not particular to southern Syria, but was the case through the whole of Syria, and is a common complaint in emergency responses globally. A representative of a large INGO which initiated cross- border work relatively late in the response stated that she could not get a ‘good sense of where the gaps’ were so that her organisation could meet these needs. In August 2015, the minutes of the CBTF meeting showed the Office for Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) Director calling for better needs and gap analysis, and that ‘it is still not clear what is going on in southern Syria.’ The resulting open discussion called for a more ‘comprehensive assessment’ and recognised that the situation was ‘so fluid that it is also important to put in place a flexible or rapid assessment mechanism that can help monitor changing needs on the ground.’ Some coordination leads however felt that, comparatively speaking, the understanding of the Syria context is ‘relatively advanced’: ‘That doesn’t mean we have enough information or should stop improving obviously. To the contrary, it is to say that this is a symptom of a broader humanitarian issue of how you get relevant information in a short turn around in rapidly changing contexts, and it is particularly telling that [Syria] one of the best examples globally is seen as so lacking in information by people working intimately in that particular context,’ (Coordination lead) 2.7.2 Early Needs Assessments Initially in the Jordan-Syria cross-border response, only small-scale needs assessments by INGOs were conducted, usually at the village level. Each INGO had ‘different ways of doing these, and they were very interpretive, and individual’. Needs assessments during the informal period often drew on anecdotal information and were rarely shared beyond donors and in informal bilateral meetings. INGOs were reluctant to share information at this time, both for confidentiality concerns and likely also due to competition over funding. Early in the formal response, UNOCHA produced and shared with INGOs some informal 4Ws (Who does What, Where and When), displacement and needs reports via anonymised Gmail accounts. At this time, even INGOs with partnership agreements with more than one SNGO implementing partner lacked the capacity to do a full or comparative needs assessment across the whole or even part of southern Syria. These early needs assessments only examined vulnerabilities within certain small areas, with a bias towards zones in close proximity to the border. The majority of early 2014 assessments were carried out in areas in the southernmost third of southern Syria where SNGO groups initially emerged and which were easily accessible from the border. The first UN operations deliberately sought to widen and complement this response by choosing partners with access further afield and carrying out needs assessments in the other two thirds of the opposition-held southern accessible to cross-border. For much of the first year of the formal response, the six UN agencies delegated responsibility for carrying out initial needs assessments to UNOCHA pending their development of specialized assessment and partnership capacity after which the UN agencies carried out and published their own Rapid Needs Assessments (RNAs). UNOCHA took on the role of preparing bi-weekly humanitarian situation snapshots, each of which included a map of displacement. In periods of rapid displacement for several years, as a gap filling measure until specialized operational agencies took on this role, UNOCHA published detailed flash updates within 24 to 48 hours of rapid displacement with community level IDP (internally displaced people) figures and basic needs. These were viewed as very helpful by some INGOs, who had previously relied on their own more geographically limited informal conflict and needs analyses. 2.7.3 Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) In November 2014, UNOCHA coordinated the first overall Syria Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO). Some sector leads interviewed said this improved their understanding of needs. The HNO combined areas accessible from government and opposition control, and underpinned the 2015 Strategic

Response Plan for Syria. This was the first time the WoS was represented in a single appeal.16 However, the HNO exercise was led by sectors and was always contentious because of the tension between Damascus and others regarding cross-border work. Some INGO representatives felt that OCHA spent too much time on the HNO and that over the years it became ‘routine’. The HNO was also considered too politicised, as it required Government of Syria approval. 2.7.4 Rapid Needs Assessments (RNAs) As the number and geographic spread of SNGOs expanded, duplicative RNAs emerged presenting repeated analysis of needs in the same villages. To avoid this, some SNGOs were constrained from publishing needs assessments by clauses in their sub-contracts with INGOs. In response, UNOCHA and two major INGO-SNGO partnerships developed an Inter-Sector Working Group-endorsed Rapid Needs Assessment questionnaire. Assessment findings were available to all humanitarian actors while new actors seeking to carry out RNAs were provided with training. The Health sector working group lead at the time described it in this way: ‘UNOCHA steered away from providing gap assessments themselves to helping the larger group understand the needs and gaps. Through triangulation of information from informants inside Southern Syria, these would be produced every one or two weeks. UNOCHA did a lot in this respect and the assessments were very layered and complex and were done very carefully,’ (Health sector working group lead) The expansion of nascent local NGOs also strengthened the information gathering. Reaching the critical mass of several hundred employees across over 50 villages each meant that the strongest SNGOs could position and devote staff to needs assessments within less than 24 hours and have sufficient geographical coverage to collect in-depth village level information within 48 hours. The expansion of the top four local NGOs in the south was indeed a key factor in creating major efficiencies of scale not only for needs assessments but also programming for international partners across the community. As a result of the increased SNGO capacity and size, and UNOCHA’s improved coordination and information sharing, by 2016 to 2017 comprehensive relevant assessment data in published form covering most of southern Syria was available to the whole humanitarian community. 2.7.5 Syrian Coalition-formed Assistance Coordination Unit The Syrian Coalition-formed Assistance Coordination Unit (ACU) was the humanitarian arm of the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces.17 The ACU worked with local councils, the Government of Jordan, and INGOs, and part of its remit was to identify needs in southern Syria. Some INGOs considered ACU’s contributions to the needs discussion as political and therefore did not give them much weight.18 In addition, ‘because there was no firewall of information between ACU and the Jordanian government, and not all actors trusted the Jordanian government, it was contentious to give information to the ACU,’ (Health INGO representative). Some agencies qualified this noting that that ACU’s understanding of needs in southern Syria—when not mingled with other considerations—possessed nuance ‘many times better than INGOs needs assessments in those early days.’ This was because, as the channel for nearly all humanitarian aid crossing the border (as well as the transportation of nearly all goods associated with stabilisation projects), the ACU had an ‘incomparable reach and network of information, and visibility over implemented programming in southern Syria and consequently of needs and gaps’ as compared to individual INGOs in the early days of the response.

16 Sida, L., Trombetta, L. & Panero, V. (March, 2016). Evaluation of OCHA response to the Syria crisis Evaluation, p. 37. 17 http://en.etilaf.org 18 Sida, L., Trombetta, L. & Panero, V. (March, 2016). Evaluation of OCHA response to the Syria crisis, pp. 36-37.

Good Practice Example 1: iMMAP and SNGO Flash Updates

In 2018, during the major Government of Syria offensive in southern Syria, the INGO iMMAP and a SNGO worked together to prepare Flash Updates, Rapid Needs Assessments and other assessment reports. Critically, iMMAP provided what is usually expensive training to the SNGO on technical humanitarian data presentation systems, English language editing, and computer report formatting. Likewise, the two key INGOs who carried out the Inter-Sector Working Group-endorsed Rapid Needs Assessment programme provided key training for their SNGO partners on Kobo, a free programme that allows an organisation to use tabs or mobiles to quickly geo-tag, compile and process surveys of multiple field assessors thus shaving days off the assessment process. Such technical trainings were broadly recognized as bringing extensive added value across the humanitarian programme cycle to all actors involved. ‘iMMAP did a good job capacity building with monitoring, evaluation and research with us. They came into our office, sent emails, and we worked together to collect and prepare a joint report. A GIS specialist gave us training. Now every organisation, even governments, use our [assessment] maps.’ (SNGO representative) ‘We had to cut ties with our enumerators and could not access households in the same way [as we used to]. We realised [the SNGO] had a vast network of secondary resources and had an unbelievable understanding of the South. I called them, and we asked what would be best. There was no donor telling us to do this, just two partners who had been in multiple meetings with each other. Clearly, every one or two days we needed to understand the numbers of IDPs moving and where, the context on the ground, a map with arrows of where the IDP shifts took place.’ (iMMAP representative) ‘SNGOs have so much critical information but sometimes it gets lost in the document format and especially translation, whereas some INGOs like iMMAP and Care and others helped them with very few resources to turn what they had into a glossy document’ (UN representative)

Good Practice Example 2: Global Voices Report:19 Gender Based Violence (GBV) Sub-Sector

‘Once the GBV (gender-based violence) sub-sector was established at the Jordan hub, the first thing we did was to map actors, activities and locations as we had felt blind as to what was actually going on in terms of programming inside southern Syria. This was a challenge as partners were reluctant to share this information. As a first step in the Voices research, at the Whole of Syria level, community focus group discussions were undertaken to obtain more information on the context on GBV inside Syria. This was repeated each year for four years and yielded information that fed into the Humanitarian Needs Overview. […] Tools were the same across Turkey, Syria and southern Syria and focus group discussions were conducted through partner SNGOs. As a second step, a secondary literature review and two safety audits were conducted in southwest Syria. Also, expert focus group discussions were held. We were able to bring Turkey, Jordan and Damascus experts into the same room. We used a methodology that was specific to the context. It was in Arabic and UNOCHA Regional Office were a good help in facilitating these. We standardized and aligned it to five indicators using the Delphi method. The results were used in our narrative for the Humanitarian Needs Overview and the data yielded was rich in detail. The results have been touted as good practice at the global level.’ (Gender-based violence sub-sector lead)

Conclusion: A wide range of actors were involved in the start-up of the humanitarian response cross- border from Jordan into Syria. INGOs and Syrian individuals, networks and informal organisations worked together in the early years of the informal response to deliver aid to Hard To Reach areas in

19 For example, Global Protection Cluster, Whole of Syria, Gender Based Violence Area of Responsibility (2017). VOICES: Assessment findings of the Humanitarian Needs Overview.

southern Syria. Later, UNOCHA, UN agencies, INGOs, SNGOs, and the Government of Jordan mobilized to establish the formal response. In the context of a trust deficit between and among the various actors, in particular the mistrust resulting from UN agencies being viewed as being too close to the Government of Syria, UNOCHA was able to build trust among actors. However, the lack of information sharing especially early on in the response did have an impact on the ability of formal coordination structures to coordinate the sharing of information.

SECTION THREE: SUPPORTING SYRIAN PARTNER ORGANISATIONS

3.1 Introduction As one of the first responses globally to be almost entirely remotely managed, the cross-border Syria response provided opportunities for all actors to learn lessons about how to better manage local partnerships. Those interviewed identified many interrelated elements to developing positive working relationships with local partners, including taking the time to establish a quality partnership approach, having good Duty of Care policies and practices in place; building good relationships and trust at all levels of the partnership including those at the field level; investing in capacity building such that local NGOs are able to carry out their obligations to the requisite standards; and enabling local NGOs to have a direct voice on the various coordination fora. In this response, however, it was widely acknowledged that collective responsibility on Duty of Care issues were not addressed deeply or early enough and that capacity building of SNGOs was insufficient for the needs of Syrian partners especially early on in the response. The challenges, tensions, and frustration involved in each of these in the Jordan-Syria cross-border are described in more detail below, along with some good practice examples. 3.2 Partnership Management Approaches 3.2.1 Overarching Partnership Structures Because prior to 2014 SNGOs could not register in Jordan while INGOs could not move staff cross- border to Syria, a multi-layered form of management evolved in the southern Syria response. Initially, most UN agencies and donors did not directly subcontract SNGOs preferring to fund INGO implementing partners. These in turn subcontracted local NGOs in Syria for direct project implementation, and managed these organisations and relationships through INGO Syria programme offices based in Amman. While considered to be a necessary cost of doing business early on, this multiple sub-contracting system and its substantial additional overheads distanced the implementing SNGO from the donor, and UN agencies and INGOs from the field of operations. Initiatives like UNOCHA’s Jordan Humanitarian Pool Fund (HPF) and Mercy Corps’ Investing in Syrian Humanitarian Action (ISHA) which sought to provide a more direct line from donor to SNGO and make the SNGO fully responsible for grant management were warmly welcomed by some. However, the funding available through such programmes were small in comparison to the funds provided to INGOs and used in multiple sub- contracts. By 2017 to 2018 SNGO capacity had grown and along with capacities for grant writing, English report writing, monitoring and evaluation and administrative system functions, and resulted in a concomitant increase in donor scrutiny of the cost-benefit analysis of multi-layer funding systems. 3.2.2 Approaches to Partnership In an ideal situation, in line with the localization agenda from the Grand Bargain humanitarian reforms agreed at the global level by donors, local and international humanitarian organisations,20 INGOs and local NGOs should enter into a full partnership model whereby local partners have real decision-making powers and ownership of their strategy and activities. Some INGOs were strategic in their partnership approach understanding that close monitoring of and significant investment in capacity development at the early stages of partnership would later enable SNGO partners to take more decision-making powers and ownership: ‘CARE and Mercy Corps had a partnership-based approach from the outset, which they brought in from their experiences in Gaziantep. At CARE, we realised we had to hand-hold our local partners at first to build their capacity and deliver results. So if there was a complex project with A, B, and C needed, we would train only on A to begin with and coach them through it before we would move to other elements. At the beginning there was some resistance by

20 See https://agendaforhumanity.org/initiatives/3861

partners on this because they felt they could do it without our help and it felt disempowering to them. But the quality really suffered where we didn’t do this,’ (CARE representative) Good Practice Example 3: One INGO’s Responsible Partnership Approach

‘Remote management is a challenge in itself, as is working through partners. If you do not have people on the ground, it is hard to find the right approach to partnerships that is an equal relationship with partners with equal contributions. For us, it was the first time we worked through partners, so it was new and we had to learn how to identify partners, to start work, pilot, get to know each other, build trust, develop strategic partnerships. So we developed a partnership approach and tools. It is the INGO’s responsibility to improve SNGO capacity but it is difficult and complicated to train them in a useful way. We trained our staff to be ‘responsible partners,’ which means helping SNGOs to develop and not stay grass roots. We have a department at headquarter level called ‘Hard to Reach’ and they develop all our remote management policies and tools. It covers partnerships in hard to reach areas. In future, we will be better equipped because we have a well-defined partnership policy, tools, and clear processes which were not there to begin with. These could be reused in other contexts.’

The capacity gaps of SNGOs in the Jordan-Syria cross-border response—especially early in the response—meant INGOs needed to use an approach which required high levels of Amman-based day- to-day management of partner activities, sometimes referred to as ‘Remote Control’ approach. Most INGOs in Amman found themselves ‘micro-managing’ partner activities especially the paperwork and donor reporting elements. In some cases, this drained resources from other management activities such as monitoring and led to tensions between INGOs and SNGOs. There were also financial implications when those INGOs unprepared or unaware of capacity gaps failed to budget for partner capacity building or extra Amman-based staff in proposals. Syrian partners meanwhile were frustrated by what they saw as ‘massive waste’ of funding resulting from subcontracting that ‘could instead go to people in need’. They wondered why international organisations received: ‘...as much as half the budget of a project for what was perceived as merely donor reporting, while projects were designed, assessed and implemented and managed by local NGO staff, rather than having the donor or international organisation partner to build the local NGO’s reporting capacity to later remove layers of bureaucracy and additional costs,’ (Coordination representative) Some INGOs overlooked the operational and local knowledge SNGOs could bring to the table, failing to incorporate the valuable information of local partners in programme design: ‘Some would come and say to us, “you have to do xyz”. They will just give you a project and say “implement it like it says”, or sometimes they will say, “go to xyz place”. But there are lots of places that need it more. We had some problems in the beginning with this especially.’ (SNGO representative) Such examples highlight the need for INGOs to be aware of the centrality of local partners in remote management responses, to undertake an analysis of partners’ capacities and gaps, and allocate time and resources to plan for the development of a full and genuine partnership model in line with the Grand Bargain localisation agenda. 3.3 Capacity Building 3.3.1 Introduction In this response, capacity building of SNGOs was insufficient for the needs of Syrian partners especially early on. Most SNGOs partnering for cross-border had come into existence after the beginning of the conflict in Syria, often growing out of grass roots charitable volunteering networks. As such, embryonic SNGOs comprised staff who were often experienced in their technical sector—for example engineers who had worked for 20 years in the Dara’a Governorate Water Directorate and supervised 1,000 staff—but very few SNGO staff had formal experience and thus lacked understanding of the formal mechanisms of the humanitarian field, or of humanitarian principles.

They also often lacked organisational capacity including NGO-specific proposal writing, donor-specific reporting mechanisms, as well as broader organisational capacity including finance, security systems,21 human resources, and so on. To complicate matters, there was only a small pool of registered SNGOs in the south response, and as the years went on, those SNGOs tended to take on more and more projects to the point of being over-burdened or ‘saturated,’ ultimately managing budgets that, one donor noted, ‘even INGOs would struggle to manage.’ As the Gender-Based Violence sub-sector working group lead at the time said: ‘The challenge was there were not enough organisations—and capacity issues. [For GBV sector] only one [SNGO] organisation was appealing for funding, and they were getting overloaded. With our GBV partners, we wanted to establish women and girls safe spaces, but we struggled with SOPs and referral pathways. Always the issue was capacity.’ (Gender-Based Violence sub- sector working group lead) These capacity gaps were recognised from early on in the response. CBTF meeting minutes for August 2015 show an open discussion on the ‘critical need for capacity building’ and the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance called for a ‘coherent training strategy among SNGOs.’ The CBTF-commissioned March 2016 review22 recommended developing national capacity and the January 2016 CBTF minutes ‘stressed that a mechanism to bring partners across the border is critical.’ The following quote reflects one SNGO’s early experience: ‘We were left alone without much support from [INGO partners early on in the response]. We spent the first two years from 2014 trying to do everything by our own experience, asking people, looking on the internet. The UN and INGOs should know the environment of the country they are working in and if they see there is no civil society then they need to start capacity building from day one.’ While clearly difficult to build capacities at the same time as implementing activities in a large and complex response, some INGOs did take the capacity building of their partners seriously and developed reasonable partnership policies and frameworks but it was beyond the capacity of any one INGO to meet the huge capacity needs of SNGOs. Nor was the situation helped by the short-term funding cycles of humanitarian work. Nevertheless, some INGOs proactively budgeted for and provided intensive levels of support for the capacity building of their partner, (including relationship building, coaching, mentoring, on the job training, targeted technical e-training, and so on) with a view to developing the partners’ capacities such that they would move away from a micro- management approach towards a more equal partnership approach. While likely not due to a lack of will or commitment on the part of any actor, those reflecting on the response recalled feeling that different actors were ‘speaking a different language’ with regards to capacity building of local partners, with ‘some viewing it as training, some as bringing people across the border for face to face training, and some viewing it as coaching, mentoring and on the job support.’ A number of coordination leads believed that the coordination of capacity building of local NGO partners ‘cannot continue to be dealt with by existing mechanisms and structures’ and suggested that ‘there should be a global framework to spell out who is in charge of mapping out and providing coordination for different elements [of capacity building of local NGO partners in remote management contexts]’ and that ‘it requires a specific organisation to be in place’ to achieve this. The remainder of this section discusses these issues in more detail. 3.3.2 Capacity Assessments As discussed, INGOs were unwilling to share capacity assessments among themselves, especially early on in the response. However, it was also the case that, in the rush to implement programming in southern Syria, NGOs did not always undertake appropriate due diligence preferring, in the words of one health INGO actor to ‘take advantage of the ‘quick connection’.’ In addition, there were often

21 Note, capacity building in security is also discussed in Section 4 22 Cross Border Task Force (March 2016) Review of cross-border operations in southern Syria reference review, UNOCHA Jordan.

different kinds of assessments conducted with SNGOs sometimes giving them ‘conflicting signals about which capacities they should be strengthening. For example: The UN normally engages in a lengthy vetting process for any new partner and recommends specific actions the partner should take to strengthen their operations (but without requisite support). If SNGOS are partnered with multiple agencies and given conflicting messages about what to prioritize and how to strengthen, then who helps them to sort this out? My point is that multiple partnerships equals multiple messages without a unified plan about where to focus their efforts and seek support,’ (Health sector working group lead). One donor suggested a lesson learned in Somalia employed by UNOCHA in southern Syria was to assess the capacity of all partner NGOs as part of their application for pooled funding, thus preventing the need to repeat assessments. The relatively small size of the pool fund for southern Syria cross- border operations however meant that only a limited number of SNGOs ever sought to register with the Jordan Pool Fund and prevented the development of a repository of capacity assessments of SNGO partners. 3.3.3 UNOCHA’s Role in Capacity Building of Syrian NGOs One of UNOCHA’s ‘pillars of work’ in the response was to ‘facilitate the coordination of strategic plans to ensure SNGOs had the capacity to do ethical and principled programming with the required organisational and technical skills’. One area SNGOs requested capacity support was in the understanding of humanitarian principles and so at their request, UNOCHA convened a forum to lay out a formal statement of ethics and principles of local organisations working in the crisis and ensure they were clearly in line with broader humanitarian principles. UNOCHA also drew together SNGO and INGO representatives to develop a detailed understanding of areas that should be prioritized. A summary of this consultation found the following priorities: (a) generic training in fiscal management, grant proposal writing, donor report writing and other standard administrative components of running an NGO; (b) technical training in sector and crisis specific capacities (e.g. trauma surgery, psychosocial community work, etc); and (c) agency specific training on partnership agreements. While the ISWG led by UNOCHA developed strategic capacity building plans in 2015, these were impeded due to initial unwillingness for implementing INGO partners to share information–even names of SNGOs—due to genuine security concerns and in some cases the desire to maintain exclusive relationships with the better capacitated SNGO partners. By late 2015 to 2016, partnership information was shared to some degree. The absence of detailed partnership information sharing led to a lack of more detailed cross-referencing of who had been trained on what in turn leading to less effective targeting of trainings and repetition of basic trainings by multiple agencies for the same SNGO partners. With the RC/HC sponsoring a humanitarian training schedule for partner staff from southern Syria to attend trainings in Jordan, UNOCHA turned its focus to facilitating Syrian staff travel across the border. UNOCHA secured formal agreement from the Government of Jordan in support of prioritized trainings. Notwithstanding this, UNOCHA faced significant obstacles obtaining the necessary approvals from Jordanian authorities in a timely manner. Training did take place in 2016 but was halted for 18 months after the Rukban incident.23 Training resumed in late 2017 and by summer 2018 regular training courses were taking place. Despite prior coordination, prospective trainees were still regularly delayed, and often prevented from crossing the border. In spite of almost weekly meetings between UNOCHA and Jordanian authorities on the subject, some involved in the southern Syria response felt that UNOCHA did not prioritise the trainings, and a dedicated capacity-building staff member would have been better able to advocate with the Government of Jordan for more face to face training. A limited number of NGOs also began using ‘fixers’ during this period with reported

23 In June 2016, a booby-trapped car exploded near a Jordanian Armed Forces outpost in the north-eastern point of Rukban, a makeshift camp for displaced Syrians on the border with Jordan leaving 6 dead and 14 injured Jordanian soldiers. As a result, the Jordan-Syria border was declared as a ‘closed military zone.’

‘good connections’ with Jordanian authorities and in some cases were understood to have paid substantial fees for staff to cross into Jordan. These decisions succeeded in allowing access for a limited few, but in cases where payments were made,undermined the higher-level negotiations to restart border crossing without fee payment for the broader group of NGOs 3.3.4 INGO Role in Capacity Building of SNGOs Some INGOs significantly invested in the capacity building of their SNGO partners, although these were perhaps not always visible to the wider humanitarian community. A good practice example from CARE is provided below illustrating that a significant level of planning, investment, and management time is required. It also demonstrates the need to have an attitude of partnership not control over local partner organisations. Good Practice Example 4: CARE Capacity Strengthening with SNGOs

‘CARE invested a lot in capacity building but not a lot was visible to the wider humanitarian community. It was challenging to know where to do the capacity building—SNGOs often not only had staff inside Syria and in Amman, but often they had another layer of management staff in Gazantiep or Beirut. So we needed first to figure out where the capacity building help was needed. Often, there was just one SNGO liaison or representative in Amman and the question was whether it was helpful to focus on the Amman representative for capacity building or only on SNGOs at the field level… At first, SNGOs wanted us to train just one person in Amman, and they wanted to cascade the training down to their Syrian staff at field level. However, as we had to train in many things—finance, gender, technical areas, etc—it was not useful to provide all that training to just one person. So we focused on the field level as much as we could and did a lot of work with them in Gaziantep and Beirut. We did a lot of hand-holding, coaching, and provided feedback on their documents. A lot of effort went into our partnership management approaches. The CARE country director had meetings with SNGO heads in Gaziantep to discuss the partnership and to address any problems head on. For example, if we knew they were struggling and yet continued to take on more work, we would discuss this with them in person. We also put people inside the projects. In Gaziantep, we had a Protection person sitting with partners. We had finance folk working in partner offices. We hired people to build capacity in security. We had an international security consultant who worked on developing a security management package for partners because we realized they didn’t have even the most basic security systems in place. We had this person for 18 months, who developed the package, rolled it out, pushed for the partner to identify a security focal point, and had our Arabic-speaking security person train them. On occasion we did coaching-based relationships. For example, we had our monitoring and evaluation national team work with partner SNGO staff. We did have to train our own staff on the difference between coaching relationship and ‘hammering people over the head.’ At times, we had complaints from SNGO staff. I would sit my staff member down and say, ‘This is a partnership. We are working together, to learn together.’ Of course there were times when we needed to be tough and insist a report was submitted on time. But we also ensured we were professional with them.’ (CARE representative)

Many INGOs inside Amman arranged their own face to face training courses for SNGO partners, passing through a less politically sensitive informal Jordanian Intelligence Department coordinated route which UN could not use as directly, but SNGOs report that this was inconsistent in quality, with some practical technical trainings (like medical trauma care in emergencies) being exemplary, while other often administrative trainings and trainings on ‘principles’ seen as too short or excessively basic. 3.3.5 On the Job Training On the job or ‘embedded’ training was thought by SNGOs to be the most successful form of capacity building. One large SNGO that partnered with a stabilisation agency spoke highly of a large capacity strengthening grant received through US funds in which a capacity building firm imbedded three full time staff for nine months to help with organisational management. The SNGO representative involved felt that as a result:

‘We now have received the necessary training to solve our financial and cash flow problems so that we have the reserves to sustain ourselves. Many other SNGOs working on the southern Syria response have closed down because they did not have this kind of support,’ (Senior SNGO representative) While favoured by SNGOs, the short funding cycles inherent to humanitarian work create complications imbedding staff full-time and long term as do security restrictions over the movement of non-Syrian staff in Syria. Nevertheless, as the SNGO interviewee pointed out, ‘you could at least put one international staff member in the budget line to work full time within the local NGO for the duration of the project. This will help support the organisation with their knowledge.’ 3.3.6 Remote Training Several INGOs and UN agencies provided remote and e-training for Syrian field staff on technical issues through Skype or Zoom in a strong wi-fi area inside Syria. For example, the Gender-Based Violence sub-sector made use of consultants from the Turkey hub to provide e-training for SNGO field workers on sensitive topics including clinical management of rape. The advantages to this were that many people in Syria could be brought together into one (virtual) room for training, and partners on the Jordan side could participate. The GBV sector also tried a coaching system whereby a consultant gynaecologist would be on call via WhatsApp from Amman to coach staff inside Syria. A number of INGO representatives felt this kind of training worked well. Another example is Mercy Corp’s Investing in Humanitarian Action (ISHA) program, which manages an eLearning portal hosted by DisasterReady.org. Launched in December 2016, it has attracted over 16,000 users in the Syria response revealing a strong demand from a broad population of Syrian humanitarian actors who do not speak English, who work with different technological bandwidths, who can access it at their convenience and for free, and who see benefit in gaining access to learning opportunities. Although some kinds of specialized technical training (such as medical trauma trainings) may require in-person training, a number of those interviewed felt that future responses should pay more attention to making innovative use of emerging technologies in remote management contexts. 3.4 Duty of Care to Sub-contracted SNGO Staff 3.4.1 Introduction Remote management operations entail a major transfer of security risks from international to national personnel raising significant challenges in the provision of adequate staff care. This is particularly the case in the Syria response since individuals may face additional threats and be specifically targeted as a result of their involvement in the humanitarian response.24 Duty of Care refers to a variety of ways to provide support to staff in partner organisations including the provision of: (a) financial support at an incident including death, disablement, injury, and detention; (b) intangible support such as help through connections to obtain a person’s release from detention; (c) medical compensation for injured staff; (d) wellbeing and psychosocial support, relocation payment, (e) final salary or termination of contract payments; (f) evacuation, and (g) tracking and supporting partner staff after the close down of operations. Actors involved in the southern Syria response defined Duty of Care in different ways and some INGOs were better than others in having systems in place that provided Syrian partner staff with the kinds of benefits afforded internationals, but most acknowledged that consideration of issues of Duty of Care to SNGO staff was not done early enough nor addressed to sufficient depth. 3.4.2 INGO Experience INGOs seeking to raise Duty of Care matters appeared to struggle at first with legal departments at their headquarters who were reluctant to take on further risk in a new, unknown operation. INGOs report initially being prevented from including Duty of Care into sub-contracts, in order to shield the organisations from liability.

24 Howe, K. (January, 2016). Planning from the Future Component 2. The Contemporary Humanitarian Landscape: Malaise, Blockages and Game Changers. No End in Sight: A Case Study of Humanitarian Action and the Syria Conflict

However, over time, INGO headquarters began to be less concerned with the risk associated with providing Duty of Care measures to sub-contracted partners: ‘As the response progressed, we realised that if we used the right words with our compliance departments our headquarters would allow us more leeway to do Duty of Care. This was especially the case after we all saw what happened in Eastern Ghouta.25 This gave us the impetus to sort this out and our organisation gave us space to do what was necessary,’ (INGO representative). Despite not always having systems in place, INGOs did sometimes informally support SNGO staff, organising internal collections and financial donations for the family of staff members killed or detained in Syria. At few INGOs made efforts to provide SNGO staff in Hard to Reach and Besieged areas with phone counselling services, but take up by SNGO staff was low. The conclusion was that high cultural barriers and low trust meant SNGO staff preferred support from colleagues and friends during these times. 3.4.3 Syrian NGO Experience SNGOs themselves had frustrations about ‘lost rights’ and what seemed to be at times a disinterest in the Duty of Care towards SNGO staff. Individuals could not help but see the large imbalance between the security risks faced by Syria-based colleagues compared to those of international INGO staff in Amman, and between salaries and benefits received by Syrian staff versus those provided to international staff in Amman: ‘SNGOs saw internationals in INGOs and UN making 4,000 to 10,000 USD per month in Amman while Syrian staff were told there was no budget for salaries over 200 USD. They were told there is no possibility for medical coverage if they’re wounded on the job because no health insurance or life insurance company would ever insure local staff in a war zone. They go out day after day to help others under a rain of barrel bombs while Amman colleagues had full medical coverage, education benefits for their children and other compensations,’ (coordination lead). 3.4.4 Advance Salary Payments One positive development to come out of the Syria response was the advanced salary payments guidance document drafted by UNOCHA (and endorsed by the CBTF) with support from key donors and INGOs most notably Mercy Corps which had also done substantial work on internal Duty of Care policies for local partners. Final advanced salary payments provide a particularly valuable form of practical protection as the provision of cash allows important leeway for individuals to decide how to best protect themselves in rapidly changing circumstances and therefore goes some way to providing support for workers. As one large SNGO representative said: ‘The UNOCHA document on Duty of Care is very important. Our employees inside Syria all benefited a lot. Most INGOs paid two months salaries or 1,000 USD as a final payment. Only one organisation refused to pay. Only 10 staff members [missed out] and we paid 280 staff members… This money helped staff to survive. Some employees were displaced and used the money to rehabilitate their houses. One employee had sick children and with this the money could take the child to Damascus for treatment.’ (SNGO representative) Good Practice Example 5: UNOCHA’s Duty of Care Minimum Standards

At the end of the response in July 2018, UNOCHA led a 65-agency consultation including donors, UN agencies, SNGOs and INGOs on how to improve and implement Duty of Care standards for subcontracted Syrian staff, in light of the poor protection environment and imminent threats to SNGO staff inside Syria associated with anticipated changes of territorial control. A summary of the results

25 The rapid retaking of Eastern Ghouta by the Government of Syria was much like what would occur in the South a few months later when the area witnessed a final change in territorial control

of the consultation were circulated in an Agreed Duty of Care Minimum Standards document, 26 now also being used by the Syria INGO Regional Forum and WoS for cross-border Turkey-Syria response planning. In it, among other measures, UNOCHA set out how partners could provide two or more final months’ salaries in advance, in the case of contract termination due to imminent rapid military changes of territorial control. Other practical protection mechanisms enabled by this payment included engagement with the informal economy to remove staff names from wanted lists, paying rent while staff seek employment, or paying for informal economy transport to safer areas.

According to interviewees, many lessons were learned through this process. The most significant were: (a) Donors were generally flexible in providing funds for final salaries but new budget lines are needed in advance from donors for other forms of Duty of Care; (b) It would be more efficient and logistically easier to budget for ‘emergency’ advanced payment of salaries into partnership agreements at the outset, (c) Broader awareness raising among INGOs and SNGOs is needed about the kinds of funding that can be requested in initial international organisation-donor contracts, (d) Specific provisions can be incorporated in SNGOs’ own Duty of Care policies at the outset, (e) There is a need for further work on advancing risk payments in salaries to sub-contracted local staff including some kind of health care provision compensation even in areas where traditional health or life insurance companies refuse to work, (f) There is a need for further work on how to best link with agencies that monitor and support local workers after lines of control change 3.4.5 Evacuation Once the final offensive began in southern Syria, a number of SNGO partner staff requested Amman management or INGO support for evacuation, something that is available routinely for international staff. INGO and SNGO managers in Amman knew that mechanisms were not in place to provide evacuation support for national partner staff from Syria, but it became clear from the calls they received that some Syrian-based staff were unaware of this. INGO representatives said that ‘in future, we need to acknowledge the [limitations on humanitarian staff evacuation] and be honest about them.’ One sector co-lead said ‘If Syrian staff expect to be evacuated but we cannot actually do this, then we need to give salary advances at the first sign.’ The issue of the evacuation of local staff was not helped by the select evacuation of White Helmet (stabilisation) staff felt by many in the response as a ‘deep betrayal’ and believed to have put those left behind at ‘further risk by playing directly into the Syrian government narrative that humanitarian response efforts were really just interventions by foreign governments to support terrorists.’ There was also the practical suggestion that what would be useful for local staff would be discussions about such practicalities as what equipment they would need, how they can stay safe, and what food stores they would need for the coming offensive. Some felt these conversations were very difficult to have with staff: ‘Every time we tried to open this box with doctors, they could not fathom a time where lines of control would shift and cross-border support would no longer be available. It’s a scary and difficult thing to contemplate and the conversation itself can be alarming to staff,’ (Health sector lead) A number of those interviewed suggested that larger questions should be asked about the extent to which partner staff are being put at risk and whether they can be better protected given the massive divide between the kinds of risk pay and protections afforded to international staff versus those on the front line conflicts situations.

26 UNOCHA (July, 2018) Agreed Duty of Care Minimum Standards, on behalf of Anders Pedersen, RC/HC for Jordan, endorsed by the CBTF, 18th July, 2018 with Annex ‘operationalizing advanced salary and/ or severance payments’ added 31st July 2018.

3.5 Coordination In the first year of the formal response, SNGOs were broadly excluded from the coordination architecture. As one SNGO representative said, ‘you couldn’t hear Syrian partner voices’. According to a UN interviewee, their exclusion from coordination architecture at this time was in large part due to the fact that sectors were concerned about authorities intensive sensitivities to the ‘formal public legitimization’ of NGOs not formally registered in Jordan (which was all SNGOs at the opening of 2015). In addition, some key INGOs vocally protested the inclusion of SNGOs in the sector system at that time, concerned that local NGOs might report back to Jordanian authorities on sensitive information shared in sector meetings. On the whole, however, most international organisations and coordinators actively sought a mechanism for the inclusion of SNGOs and did not think that SNGO inclusion in sectors would jeopardize their status (or the status of coordination mechanisms) in Jordan. In the end a substantial number of key technical staff were sent by SNGOs to attend sector meetings, but the lack of translation (and funding for translation) and absence of discussions in Arabic impeded the participation of many. Additionally, not all SNGOs did fully understood the coordination structure. UNOCHA understood that ‘as key actors, SNGO partners could only fully share their unique and in depth understanding of needs and circumstances on the ground through formal, direct participation in the coordination architecture, not just via parallel SNGO meetings later conveyed to other coordinators’. At the end of 2015, an informal SNGO/INGO group was established to support SNGOs to understand the formal coordination architecture and to assist their participation where relevant (including with sector working groups). An INGO representative who led the SNGO/INGO group for a time felt that this SNGO/INGO group did assist participation and assisted SNGOs to frame issues to raise at coordination meetings and what to discuss offline. At the same time, facilitated by the opening to registration of many SNGOs in Jordan, SNGOs started attending sector working groups directly. Following this development there were further SNGO meetings hosted by UNOCHA on an ad hoc basis (given the lack of any SNGO-only coordination forum at the time). At the opening of 2017, two SNGO representatives were elected to represent the community directly in CBTF monthly meetings. It was broadly agreed that the local NGO presence in all of the coordination fora added substantial depth to the conversations. Conclusion: Local actors are increasingly relied upon to implement humanitarian programming but local Syrian partners in this response were not always supported sufficiently. Notable areas for improvement are in the areas of capacity strengthening and Duty of Care obligations to Syrian partners. Although some types of training were successful, for example remote and virtual training often worked well for technical capacity building, the coordination of strategic capacity building plans was hindered early on by mistrust around information sharing, and then by difficulties in bringing Syrian staff across the Jordanian border for direct training. INGOs who built responsible partnership management systems and approaches early on and who recognised the need to adequately resource partnership management (including partner capacity building and Duty of Care) were better able to support SNGOs. Indeed, some INGOs invested significantly in this such as by imbedding full time staff into projects, coaching and mentoring, and building solid relationships based on trust. Some capacity building trainings however were not of good quality or were repeated by different INGOs, causing frustration for SNGOs. Capacity building of local NGO partners is not currently well-served by existing mechanisms and structures and consideration should be given to the development of a global framework to spell out responsibilities for capacity building and especially for the coordination of capacity building of local NGO partners in remote management contexts, different modality options for carrying out capacity building of different skill sets, and the specification of which organisation or organisations should do this. Findings showed that Duty of Care issues as a whole towards SNGOs were not systematically or sufficiently addressed in this response. Although initially some INGOs did financially support staff and families of staff inside Syria in situations of death or detention this was carried out in an unsystematic way and with some headquarter resistance. UNOCHA’s guidance for minimum Duty of Care standards was widely commended and is now used as a model at the WoS level. But there remain serious questions about how future remote management responses can do more to support local staff.

SECTION FOUR: MAINSTREAMING PROTECTION, PSEA, AND ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISMS

The Global Protection Cluster emphasises that protection is a shared responsibility. While there are ‘protection actors’ invested with a protection mandate and expertise, all humanitarians need to ‘ensure that their activities contribute to the overall objective of saving lives, alleviating suffering, restoring dignity and livelihoods and upholding the rights of affected populations. This in turn requires interventions that are safe, impartial, equitable and transparent, and which empower communities to be decision-makers.’27 In remote management contexts the risk of protection violations at the level of the response (let alone as a result of the conflict itself) are particularly significant and challenging to address. 4.1 Protection Mainstreaming Protection mainstreaming refers to what was done in the response to prioritise safety and dignity and enable access by targeting the most vulnerable in humanitarian programming. IRC and the Protection sector produced a monthly protection monitoring report which included information and recommendations for other sectors. The Shelter and NFI sectors made some strides in mainstreaming protection, such as Housing Land and Property due diligence. However given the significant risks, most agreed that at an inter-agency level, the process of incorporating broader protection principles into each sector should have received more attention early on in the response. 4.2 Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) Although PSEA is one of the core priorities of Humanitarian Coordinators,28 and PSEA was included on the CBTF’s first meeting agenda, and despite ‘interest and commitment’ by all in the response, by all accounts PSEA mainstreaming in the Jordan-Syria cross-border response did not ‘move far beyond this’ until nearly its closing days.29 This was thought to be due to a combination of factors including the complexity of the response drawing individuals away to other priorities, a lack of funding, a lack expertise and dedicated staff willing to address these issues in the Syrian cultural context. In the initial phase of the response, training in PSEA (as well as protection mainstreaming) of SNGOs was left to partner INGO agencies. Although a requirement for SNGOs to have PSEA training was usually written into partner contractual agreements, this did not always take place in practice. Without trained specialists on the ground in southern Syria, identifying instances of PSEA was understood to be extremely difficult. The training of field staff on PSEA early in the response was clearly necessary, along with the necessary analysis and research of the risk environment to guide the training. In September 2017, the WoS Strategic Steering Group discussed the need for PSEA mainstreaming to be implemented by the WoS. An action plan was developed and endorsed by the Strategic Steering Group in December 2017. Funding became available by early 2018 to hire a WoS PSEA Coordinator— reporting to the Regional Humanitarian Coordinator—to take the lead in administration and logistics. Coordinated arrangements for SNGO PSEA training were undertaken in 2018 when UNOCHA arranged training for SNGOs and INGO partners on a number of subjects, including PSEA, as well as gender mainstreaming, the gender marker, and gender-based violence. Although work on this in Southern

27 Global protection cluster (2014). Protection mainstreaming training package, http://www.globalprotectioncluster.org/_assets/files/aors/protection_mainstreaming/PM_training/1_GPC_Protection_Mainst reaming_Training_Package_FULL_November_2014.pdf 28 Interview with Whole of Syria PSEA Coordinator 29 Note that a BBC article published in early 2018 alleged, on the basis of one former INGO staff member’s account, that local councils had engaged in sexual abuse relating to distributions, and that the UN and partners knew about this situation and failed to take action. An independent review and assessment of available information commissioned by the UN into the issue found that there was a lack of specific information regarding these particular allegations against certain local councils involved in distributions. However the review acknowledged that the risk of SEA in remote operations such as in Syria using local implementing partners is high and that specific measures need to be put in place and/or strengthened at start-up stage of such operations. A number of recommendations were provided in this regard.

Syria moved quickly once a dedicated PSEA coordinator had been hired, it was too late as the response came to a close. Aside from establishing PSEA complaints and detection mechanisms, there is of course also the need to be able to respond in these cases, and some described struggling with the question of how to actually implement a PSEA response, as one UN agency representative said, ‘It’s not enough to sensitize and monitor, you need to be able to take action if you detect or suspect a problem. This is a massive challenge in a remote programming context’. 4.3 Risks to Humanitarian Principles There are obviously immense challenges addressing protection mainstreaming issues inside Syria and it is difficult to determine what is even possible given the environment, with fact that humanitarian actors are ‘sometimes forced to decide between the often competing principles of impartiality (serving those in need) and independence (no political interference in aid), and ‘doing no harm’ (leaving people without any assistance at all, potentially causing greater harm).’30 One criticism of the overall response in Syria more broadly is that insufficient attention has been paid to human rights abuses, violations of international humanitarian law, and war crimes inside Syria but organisations operating from Damascus risked losing the limited access they had simply by naming (let alone programming for) the protection violations being committed by the Government of Syria. One senior UN representative talked about the need to ‘be realistic’ about what could be achieved. As described earlier, the Protection sector working group was not established until July 2016 (the Gender-Based Violence and Child Protection sub-sector working groups were established earlier in 2015), two years after Resolution 2165 was passed. Some felt that UNHCR was in a difficult position with its relationship with Damascus (and therefore its access) at stake and some criticized UNHCR in Jordan for not taking a stronger stance. The late establishment of the protection sector working group compounded the protection challenges as actors initially lacked a clear sense of where responsibility for protection—including mainstreaming of protection through response programming—lay at the overall response level. The delay also impeded identification of funding sources for training and protection-focused expert staff hampering the ability of the overarching response to address protection related issues. Aside from the independence question posed by the UN’s presence in Damascus, at a programme level, core principles were also at stake. With no physical presence at distribution sites, managers were unable to determine themselves whether vulnerable groups were left out of distributions as the result of discrimination or lack of access. Nor could they independently verify whether distributions were reaching the intended recipients or being diverted to the family and friends of SNGOs, opposition armed groups or local authorities. As one senior INGO representative put it, ‘when you have no feet on the ground [and rely on] SNGOs untrained on humanitarian principles, when [during early start up during the start of informal cross-border] you had large numbers of distributions taking place to people who’ve been nominated by a local council you have no relationship with and in an area with strong tribal dynamics, it raises red flags.’ One senior donor representative said, ‘It's actually getting to the people who need it the most versus just getting to the right location. That I think is very difficult.’ Actors did their best and beneficiary lists were later triangulated and filtered via vulnerability criteria by SNGO staff but the risks were ever-present. Although many felt that SNGOs in the Jordan-Syria response were mostly able to conduct their work in a politically neutral way, one large donor representative felt that there were ‘some SNGOs who ‘clearly took sides’ and ‘two or three with a clear political element.’ It was suggested that sometimes INGOs ‘bury their head in the sand’ about these issues and were ‘deliberately negligent’ about addressing these issues: ‘At the beginning of the formal cross-border response there should have been a very strong reaffirmation of humanitarian principles. If a SNGO has a political wing then they should not be viewed as a humanitarian agency at all. Those doing both humanitarian work as well as stabilisation work with political groups makes it impossible for them to be impartial... INGOs

30 Whole of Syria Strategic Steering Group Protection Strategy 2017—2018

need to pass on the learning that although we all have opinions, it is important to be neutral on the job. This is a big question in remote management: ‘What if there are not any [fully] neutral actors’? (Donor representative) Partly in response to the challenge of political partners, one INGO did engage in both direct and partner work which was felt to ‘balance the two’ somewhat. The direct partner work involved hiring individual consultants who worked directly for the INGO as monitors in southern Syria. By offering good wages, the INGO sought to ensure an incentive for consultants to adhere the principle of impartiality as required by the INGO. The issue of managing humanitarian principles is also discussed in Section 6. 4.4 Ensuring Accountability Having in place adequate beneficiary feedback mechanisms is a key element in ensuring accountability to affected populations in humanitarian action. It assumes even greater importance in remote management contexts where direct access to beneficiaries is not possible and protection risks are both more difficult to identify and mitigate. One UN sector lead felt that those in the response recognised ‘a need for future work to get better at beneficiary feedback mechanisms’ but felt that sectors did not push beneficiary feedback mechanisms in southern Syria because ‘people had other priorities.’ Some INGO agencies did invest in high quality beneficiary feedback mechanisms, as IRC’s example below shows. Good Practice Example 6: IRC’s Feedback, Accountability and Response Mechanism)31 The Feedback and Response Mechanism was an initiative to collect, catalogue, manage, and respond to unsolicited feedback and complaints from beneficiaries, non-beneficiary community members, IRC staff, and partner staff.

‘With good relationships in place with SNGOs in the field, posters were displayed in IRC partner centres with instructions to contact a hotline phone number with any complaints. IRC used a customer service model with dedicated staff, a database, thresholds for action, and used a private sector delivery platform. For example, after cash distributions lots of people say why didn’t I also get xyz? We also picked up cases of sexual exploitation and abuse through this mechanism. As beneficiaries may become confused between the various INGO phone numbers, we tried to share the use of the hotline with other INGOs in southwest Syria, but INGOs tended to prefer to use their own systems. It was also possible that other INGOs were not comfortable with IRC seeing ‘bad’ feedback.’ (IRC representative)

Conclusion: In remote management contexts the risk of protection violations at the level of the response are significant. Without physical presence on the ground, the ability for humanitarian actors to identify and target specifically vulnerable groups with assistance and services is severely hampered. An important lesson learned in this response was the need to address protection mainstreaming and PSEA mainstreaming issues much earlier and more deeply. It is difficult to know what is realistic in terms of protection inside Syria with civilians targeted by multiple parties to the conflict and competing humanitarian principles risking further harm, and many agreed that a clear sense of where responsibility for protection lies at the overall response level and adequate funding for training and protection-focused expert staff should have been made available much earlier in the response. Setting up appropriate accountability mechanisms are also important in obtaining beneficiary feedback in situations where this cannot happen directly, and in this response a number of INGOs were able to provide well-resourced mechanisms of this type, although it is recognised more work is needed in future this regard.

31 International Rescue Committee (received December 2017), Syria’s Feedback and Response Mechanism (FARM).

SECTION FIVE: RISK MANAGEMENT AND REMOTE MONITORING

5.1 Risk Management Managing risks and operations in southern Syria in a context where access, security and warring parties shifted on a daily basis made it very difficult to plan programming. When the programming is managed remotely, the challenges and potential risks involved are significantly exacerbated. Actors delivering aid in the cross-border Jordan-Syria response using remote management approaches were faced with the challenge of managing a unique set of complex financial, programme quality, security, and protection risks. INGOs and UN agencies managing programmes but with no direct presence inside southern Syria at times struggled to verify activities were taking place as planned, monitor outputs and measure outcomes. Interviewees talked about the need for frequent context analysis (daily at times), and the flexibility to adjust priorities rapidly. One UN agency representative mentioned the need for ‘a spirit of cooperation and flexibility.’ Those INGOs who were able to bring in experienced staff in the early months, adapt pre-existing policies and protocols related to remote management, and those able to quickly develop good systems, structures, and protocols were better positioned to manage the many challenges posed. Good Practice Example 7: IRC’s Remote Management Guidelines IRC arrived early to the Jordan-Syria cross-border programming (before Resolution 2165) and devised extensive standard operating procedures (SOPs) for their Syria remote management work including a description of their Risk Management Strategy. These SOPs are not available publicly, however a shorter public document is available online and included in the key document repository.32

From the introduction: ‘IRC in Syria has adopted the mechanisms and principles outlined within this document to assure a standardized, transparent, and predictable approach to remote management, which is in line with IRC’s Global Remote Management Guidelines. These guidelines identify the additional risks associated with remote management in Syria and the mechanisms we employ to ensure the safety of staff/partners and mitigate the risk of low quality or unaccountable programmes caused by vulnerabilities with or restrictions placed upon the IRC’s usual oversight systems. Within this document, risk is disaggregated into four categories: safety and security, programmatic, financial and reputational.’ From p. 3: ‘The IRC Syria risk management Strategy identifies the overarching principles which guide our work and key strategies and approaches that are embedded in programmatic plans and operational processes. Updated annually, the plan outlines the ways in which the IRC systematically deals with the risks it faces in Syria including the use of: 1) acceptance-based approaches, 2) negotiated access, 3) remote management, 4) low-profile approaches, 5) tailored programming, 6) security coordination, and 7) protective and deterrent measures. (Syria Remote Management Guidelines, last updated August 2016)

5.1.1 Security Risks Also addressed briefly in Section 7.3, one main challenge during the offensive in mid-2018 was ensuring the safety and security of SNGO partner staff inside Syria. A number of interviewees felt that one area INGOs could have supported SNGOs better was in the provision of security training, although this needs to be carefully arranged to ensure it is relevant to the context and not too basic (as noted in Section 3). As one INGO representative involved in Duty of Care work with SNGO partners said: ‘Training SNGO field staff in first aid, how to find safety during a bombardment, kidnapping response, psychological first aid, and working in a hostile environment should be done earlier,

32 International Rescue Committee (IRC) (August, 2016), SYRIA remote management guidelines (http://www.orange.ngo/wp- content/uploads/2016/11/IRC-Syria-Remote-Management-Guidelines-External.pdf) Retrieved 21 March 2019

in order to equip them better for emergencies. During the emergency, there should be joint Go/No-Go discussions to determine together whether it’s safe to implement activities.’ (INGO representative) Having pre-outlined policies on when and how to stop or leave behind humanitarian supplies or projects along with discussing this with the relevant donor before the change in lines of control is likewise essential according to some, and as also outlined in the UNOCHA-drafted Duty of Care Minimum Standards document. 5.1.2 Risks to Programme Quality A further challenge for remote management was ensuring that activities were always relevant, feasible, and of good quality. With a lack of certain skilled technical staff on the ground (for example, vascular surgeons, psychiatrists, or GBV caseworker managers who could no longer be found in opposition held southern Syria after several years of war) and limited direct oversight and information, Amman-based INGOs faced constraints ensuring programming was always based on appropriate needs assessments. Moreover, with the paucity in capacity assessments of local partners discussed in Section 3.3.2, INGOs lacked confirmation that a partner SNGOs had the necessary capacity to carry out the activities. One sector lead felt that some INGOs faced with high needs and willing donors were too inclined to design and attempt to implement programmes which SNGO partners did not have the capacity to carry out or which were extremely difficult to monitor. While it was sometimes challenging enough to verify that activities were even taking place, monitoring and evaluating the impact of the programming posed even further difficulties. According to one coordination lead, INGOs displayed a reluctance to implement resilience programming due to concerns about the challenges of monitoring these activities: ‘While certain parts of south Syria experienced daily conflict, others, especially certain rural areas, were well known to receive a mortar a year. In those areas… for example minor home repairs could have provided far more protective and cost-efficient shelter solutions for IDPs than tent distributions in camps that lasted a few months and were accompanied by limited multi-sectoral support. Indeed, the vast majority of IDPs throughout the crisis were housed without cost by southern civilians in their homes to begin with. Solar panels, more resilient solutions, where implemented, helped lighten the burden on both host families and their needy guests for a period of years rather than months,’ (Coordination lead) A further challenge was presented in 2015 when the Government of Jordan asked INGOs and the UN to nationalise their staff by hiring more Jordanians. Some felt that this was not handled well by many of those INGOs which embraced this idea. Risks were exacerbated as Jordanian national staff, lacking the experience, were rapidly swapped into positions that required senior-level understanding of the INGO industry and humanitarian mechanisms and working practices. Tacit knowledge and institutional history were lost in the rapid transition, resulting, some felt, in poorer quality programming. One INGO representative believed the lesson is that it is not possible to so rapidly nationalize staff without significant prior capacity building efforts, and with short-term emergency funding cycles this is not easy to do. 5.1.3 Financial Risks Lack of fully competitive procurement, insufficient oversight, and the absence of adequate internal controls for obtaining, storing, and delivering relief supplies can jeopardize the integrity of humanitarian efforts.33 Corruption and fraud in cross-border aid delivery into Syria became an issue in 2016 when investigations of USAID funded projects by the US’ Office of the Inspector General revealed isolated instances of fraud schemes cross-border from Jordan-Syria. These involved the collusion between vendors and implementers’ procurement and logistics staff, who accepted bribes or kickbacks in exchange for contract steering. Other schemes involved product substitution of food and NFI, inflated billing, and making false claims.34 This was less of an issue in southern Syria than it

33 Office of the Inspector General (July 14, 2016). Fraud investigations expose weaknesses in Syria humanitarian aid programs. Statement of the honourable Ann Calvaresi Barr, Inspector General, US Agency for International Development. 34 Ibid.

was in the cross-border response to northwest Syria from Turkey, but it did result in the suspension of the activities of at least one Amman-based INGO, and after this a number of agencies upgraded their internal controls. Some, however, felt that the focus on mitigating fiduciary risks came at the expense of addressing protection-related risks to staff and beneficiaries. 5.2 Remote Monitoring 5.2.1 Triangulation A number of interviewees said many lessons had now been learned and published globally about how to minimise the risks involved in remote monitoring.35 A couple of themes emerged from interviews in the southern Syria response. First, the most important is that SOPs should be built based on the principle of triangulation—multiple data points from multiple sources, with at least one of these being an independent data source such as third-party monitoring (TPM). One INGO representative described the importance of ‘layer[ing] vertically and horizontally pieces and sources’ of information. Second, a solid and sufficiently sized technical monitoring team must be put in place at the outset to properly process the amount of information and data necessary. Interviewees explained how triangulation helped identify problems that would not otherwise be uncovered, and as a result most mismatches across data sources could be discussed and usually an explanation found. For example, if a partner reports buying and distributing 100 food baskets, and has dated, geo-tagged photos but the procurement invoice is dated one year in the future, this can be discussed with partners. Occasionally, discrepancies uncover other problems and corrective action can be taken. If only one data source exists, usually issues will not be uncovered. 5.3.2 Types of Data Data sources for triangulation mentioned by those interviewed included daily phone calls with field staff, Post Distribution Monitoring (PDM), direct monitoring by INGOs (CARE for example directly hired field monitors on independent contracts and triangulated the information they provided against that of TPM and of donor and UN agency TPMs), third-party monitoring (see Case Study 4 for one donor example), and virtual field visits. Tools mentioned included information technology (including WhatsApp), beneficiary feedback and complaint mechanisms (see Good Practice Example 7 in Section 5.1 for a description of IRC’s approach), mobile data collection (see Good Practice Example 8 below for one INGO’s approach to this), date, time, and geo-tagged photos and videos and the use of Quick Response (QR) codes (see Case study 3 for examples of how QR codes can be used). Most INGOs have moved from paper-based to using technically more innovative methods including mobile data collection approaches. The UN Health sector working group lead used WhatsApp because it was ‘secure, encrypted, used low band width, and allowed them to keep track of conversations back and forth.’ It was also described as user-friendly and most medical field staff had smart phones and already used that technology amongst themselves, along with photos and videos. The same UN health lead also recommended that information exchange is enhanced by bilateral informal meetings with INGOs who share the same partner.

35 A number of these are included in the Key Document Repository and Key Document Index (Annex D)

Good Practice Example 8: Mobile Data Collection Approach

‘Monitoring is a challenge but we have made good progress in our ability to monitor. At first we were relying on paper but the end we used mobile data collection, which was real time data collected and directly available outside Syria using GPS, mobile phone signals, and videos. We paid for software called Mobemzi. It is similar to Kobo but has more benefits. This software was installed on our partner staff mobile phones. Staff in Amman created surveys and these were downloaded by partners on the ground. We could do needs assessments, capturing beneficiary signatures at distributions, post distribution monitoring, exit interviews – any kind of interaction with beneficiaries can be captured here and in real time. The information is shared in to the cloud and I have access and can see the data in real time with GPS coordinates. We have one information management officer per sector who downloads and cleans this raw data. It is then used as one method in the triangulation process. The main advantage of mobile data collection approaches such as this are that we are almost 100% sure that the data hasn’t been manipulated in the sense that when you collect paper information, it has to go to the office and then they complete it on a computer and send it. We used to ask for scanned documents but there is still room for manipulation. [With mobile data collection] there are GPS coordinates and the time the survey was started and ended is displayed, you can see if it took 10 seconds or the appropriate 30 minutes to complete. This decreases the potential for manipulation and increases our confidence it the data collected.’ (INGO representative)

Case Study 2: Use of Quick Response (QR) Codes

‘We used Quick Response (QR) codes to support monitoring of products as we progressively moved into Syria. This system is not successful unless you have a network of people inside Syria. We had doctors inside Syria who would hold the phone on which the reader sat. On the Jordanian side we had two staff who would do this and be on their phones all day. Every product was colour coded with a marker and every bag of goods had a list of what was in it and a QR code. Each was zap-strapped so we would know if it was tampered with. We needed proprietary software …[which] is expensive but for the financial volume we worked with it was worth it,’ (Health INGO representative)

5.3.3 Third Party Monitoring (TPM) TPM was viewed as one tool among many which together could be used to boost confidence in the completeness and accuracy of the data, and donors were prepared to invest the cost this required. Interviewees were quick to point out that TPM is not foremost a fraud detection mechanism but rather a programme tool, although at times they pointed out that fraud and waste can be detected. In fact, the purpose of TPM varied sometimes even within the same organisation, at times used as a compliance mechanism and at other times as a feedback mechanism to learn and improve programming and implementation. In the case of UN agencies, TPMs were often used and in addition donors would also do TPM visits. This at times resulted in fatigue on the part of implement partners from being monitored so much. To reduce this, some suggested that TPMs should be ‘bundled’ at the sector or even donor level although some felt this would be very difficult practically to achieve. Case Study 3: Donor TPM ‘TPM has led to some interesting outcomes… we've had issues come out of that where we've detected fraud, waste, and abuse. [TPMs] might say “50% of people we talked to in this one village said they never got anything or we checked on the implementation of this part and there were no activities that were done in that location according to the people who were there. And then we would dig into it further,’ (Donor representative) 5.3.4 Costs of Doing Business A number of INGO respondents raised the point of the high cost of doing business in remote management responses, particularly those using multiple sub-contracting systems such as that used in this response. Compliance demands, capacity-building costs, and the high costs of monitoring and verification due to the need for extra resources to process triangulated data were viewed as the

major contributing factors to higher costs. In addition however, subcontracting via multiple organisations necessarily increased administrative overheads (to as much as 50% or more in some cases). Important savings were made therefore later in the response as some big partnerships became direct partnerships between two parties rather than three or even four layers of subcontracting, removing as much as half the cost of implementation. Conclusion: Actors delivering aid in the cross-border Jordan-Syria response using remote management approaches were required to manage complex financial, programme quality, security, and protection risks. Maintaining programme quality, always a substantial challenge in remote management, was helped in this response by improvements and technological innovations in remote monitoring systems. Triangulation of data sources, building trusting relationships with field and management SNGO staff, and ensuring at least one independent source of monitoring data helped to increase confidence in the quality of data. While mitigating financial risk was less of an issue in southern Syria than Turkey, some felt this was at the expensive of attention to the management of other types of risks, notably protection.

SECTION SIX: ENGAGEMENT

Introduction. Reaching of hundreds of thousands with lifesaving aid and services in southern Syria required the engagement and collaboration of a wide range of actors, each with different and sometimes competing interests and values. In addition to UN agencies, INGOs, SNGOs, and donors, other actors included the Government of Jordan, local de facto authorities, non-state military actors, and stabilisation actors. Section 6 describes this engagement, related challenges, and outlines some good practices and lessons learned in this response. 6.1 Government of Jordan The Government of Jordan, keen to prevent instability arising from massive unserved humanitarian needs at the border and to deter potential mass arrivals of Syrian refugees in country was instrumental in drafting as well as lobbying to pass UNSCR 2165. The government collaborated actively with the UN to support demands for a formal humanitarian response from Jordan into areas accessible from the kingdom’s territory. The Government of Jordan, drawing on historical, geographical and security links with the southern areas, and Dara’a Governorate in particular, acted as a key liaison with the Free Syrian Army (FSA), and coordinated access on behalf of the UN to ensure safe passage for convoys crossing and driving in areas controlled by the FSA. As noted in Section 2.5, UNOCHA was viewed by many interviewed as being largely successful in establishing a relationship of trust with and managing the expectations of the Government of Jordan. This took considerable effort on UNOCHA’s side, not least given the number of approvals required across multiple layers of Jordanian authority, but was facilitated by high-level buy-in and alignment of goals with the Government of Jordan. To discuss issues to do with the formal convoy, UNOCHA, on behalf of the cross- border humanitarian partners, would communicate daily with Jordanian border authorities and the Jordanian Intelligence Department bringing in relevant partners when necessary. These efforts were also bolstered by the support of member-state representatives in the country. UNOCHA Jordanian interlocutors at the border comprised four separate government entities with distinct reporting lines: (a) Border Police (Ministry of Interior) responsible for border security and controlling the passage of people and vehicles; (b) Customs Department (Ministry of Finance) responsible, inter alia, for necessary tax exemption paperwork; (c) Jordanian Intelligence Directorate (Ministry of Defence) who worked closely with UNOCHA and partners sharing information on the situation in southern Syria, supporting communication with the FSA in southern Syria, and helping to promote the security of the convoys, and (d) the Jordanian Armed Forces (Ministry of Defence) which also helped promote convoy security.36. The police and the intelligence were responsible for searching the trucks upon their return from Syria after offloading the humanitarian items in the warehouses of the SNGOs. A UNOCHA representative described the challenges of working with the multiple authorities: ‘If the Jordanian authorities had an issue they would raise it with us immediately and if security concerns necessitate they would ask or advise us to stop. The tricky thing was the difficulty to have one discussion with the Government of Jordan because there is no one body that coordinates with us on behalf of the Government. We formally seek approvals through Note Verbales (NV) shared with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), however, further approvals related to the technicalities should be obtained from the different security apparatuses, which might not accommodate the initial request in the NV. For example, MOFA would approve the dispatch of 40 trucks per each convoy, but this might not be found acceptable by the border guard due to security or other technical concerns who indicated that the security at the borders would not allow such request.’ (UNOCHA representative) The UN Monitoring Mechanism (UNMM) team worked hard to ensure their autonomous status shaped their relationships with the local authorities as well as with humanitarian partners seeking to

36 UNOCHA Jordan (September 2018). Operational briefing on Ramtha: Cross-border operations from Jordan to Syria under UN Security Council Resolutions 2165 / 2191 / 2258 /2332/2393

maintain effective working relationships and practices that did not compromise their independence. For example, as one UNMM team member explained, ‘if I want to take a photo of a content of a box, I would make sure that I don’t take the whole view of the Al-Ramtha vicinity [guidelines on taking photos were disseminated by the authorities through UNOCHA], this might be suspected by the local authorities or at least make them uncomfortable. This way, we gained their respect and full trust.’ Relationships between Government of Jordan with INGOs involved in informal border crossings at Tel Shihab and Nassib crossing were less direct and, as a consequence, more strained. The main interlocutor for INGOs engaged in informal border crossings was the ACU (introduced in section 2.7), and INGOs interviewed say it was not always clear if an opinion was the opinion of ACU or whether the ACU transmitting a directive of the Government of Jordan. Most INGOs ‘preferred the plausible deniability’ of not having direct relations with the Government of Jordan (usually an intelligence representative would have been the option available) which meant the intermediary process endured even longer. As such at times INGOs were burdened by unclear or political requirements by those authorities. Some felt that UNOCHA could have done more to support INGOs using the informal crossing in mediating with authorities. However, the challenge for UNOCHA was that the Government of Jordan made it clear they should focus on the formal convoys covered under UNSCR 2165. 6.2 Non State Actors The most significant non state actors in the southern Syria were the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the Al Nusra Front (ANF), and Jayesh Khalid bin-Walid (JKBW).37 The FSA emerged as the main Syrian armed opposition group following the Government of Syria crack down on peaceful protests in March 2011 and remained overwhelmingly the main armed force in those southern territories falling outside of the control of the Government of Syria from 2012 to 2018. The southern FSA brigades, later unified in the loose ‘Southern Front’ alliance, were led by a combination of former civilians and defected professional army officers and included many former Syrian army conscripts. Despite its size, the FSA had scarce resources and its leadership was never able fully centralize or establish hierarchical command and control over the many brigades nominally falling under the FSA umbrella.38 The opposition but more hard line and Islamist ANF, despite its micro-minority share of southern fighters, was welcomed on the front lines against Government of Syria forces in the South. However away from the battle, local civilian populations in the small number of villages where ANF shared an element of governance overwhelmingly perceived the organisation as problematically ‘extremist’ in their interpretation of Islam and governance. The Islamic State-affiliated JKBW operated in a limited pocket of the far southwest of Dara’a and was responsible for small scale warehouse lootings both in the pocket and during periods of temporary expansion to a thin ring of villages around it. In February 2017, JKBW made a significant territory gain in Dara’a that even necessitated the temporary re-routing of the UN convoys destined for locations in northwest Dara’a. Partially due to the more hard-line ideological distribution of armed groups in the north of Syria, humanitarian organisations operating in the north experienced more problems in engaging with non- state actors and local councils compared to their southern counterparts. In the south, hard line groups controlling certain key check points would ‘stop the traffic to allow the convoys through’, according to interviewees who said this was because ‘they knew that their extended families were among the civilians in needed the assistance’ on offer. The Government of Jordan undertook the majority of the publicly-acknowledged liaison with non- state actors, a role the key Jordanian agencies considered should be exclusively managed through them, though behind the scenes, UNOCHA also held regular important discussions with non-state

37 Jaysh Khalid bin-Walid, also known as the Khalid ibn-Walid Army, was a Salafi-jihadi extremist group active in the Dara’a governorate in southern Syria and the area where the Israeli, Syrian, and Jordanian borders meet. The group formed in May 2016 after the merger of the Islamist groups Liwa Shuhada al-Yarmouk (Yarmouk Martyrs’ Brigade), Harakat al-Muthanna al- Islamiya (Islamic Muthanna Movement), and Jaysh al-Jihad (Army of Jihad). These groups were closely aligned with ISIS and helped maintain its presence in southwestern Syria, where the group had less influence than in the north of the country, ‘What is Jaysh Khalid bin- Walid?’ Gavin James, 2017, Institute for Global Change 38 https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/whos-who-syrias-civil-war

actors. The Government of Jordan and, less visibly UNOCHA, were able to liaise with the FSA and the ANF to facilitate humanitarian access. Access into areas controlled by the ISIL-affiliated JKBW throughout remained an unresolved obstacle to humanitarian programming. By 2018 all humanitarian programming in JKBW areas had closed due to JKBW’s publicly stated policy stance that all humanitarian workers, as well as local opposition council members, were related to international powers and thus ‘infidels’. Since this designation implied even a messenger seeking to initiate access negotiations on behalf of the humanitarian community would be at great personal risk, no overtures were made with JKBW. The policy of JKBW was unique in Syria, more hard line even than Islamic State in the north of Syria which permitted limited humanitarian operations to continue areas under their control. 6.3 Local Councils At the height of the war, the Government of Syria had lost control of half of sovereign Syrian territory. The resultant vacuum of governance as well as the deliberate targeting of key civilian infrastructure like hospitals and schools in opposition held areas by the Government of Syria and its allies, encouraged the emergence of (opposition) local councils who sought to provide gap filling essential public services such as water, electricity, education and healthcare. Since internally displaced people (IDPs) were required to register with a local council to receive services, the local councils were often considered to have the most comprehensive and up-to-date information on IDP movements as well as information on the local community. Humanitarian actors wishing to deliver services and assistance locally often required approvals from and collaboration with local councils who usually provided initial lists of possible beneficiaries, against which SNGO partners applied the humanitarian actors’ vulnerability selection criteria. While local councils claimed to be civilian and ‘grassroots’, one INGO representative noted ‘they are just individuals nominated by the opposition and in practice tended to be the strongest males in the community. We as humanitarians are a bit blind as to who they really are.’ Most NGOs had reservations about the professionalism of the work of at least some local councils staff and were keen to distance themselves from the sometimes uncomfortably close relationships council members had with opposition groups. As a result, most INGOs left local council and non-state actor engagement to their SNGO partners rather than addressing and resolving issues through a coordinated approach. Many, in retrospect, felt that engagement with local councils should have been done more strategically. Local councils in the south, like most SNGOs, lacked any significant understanding of the nature of humanitarian work since most independent organisations had been banned in Syria before 2011. Nor were local councils necessarily aware of humanitarian principles including the requirement to prioritise the needs of the most vulnerable due to limited resources, leading some local council members to try influence who received assistance although this was in line with patronage systems that have long characterised governance in Syria. At one point, when a number of local councils attempted to impose onto the World Food Programme (WFP) beneficiary lists comprising all village residents, rather than applying any vulnerability selection criteria, WFP took the issue to the sector for collective and coordinated action. Upon examining the issue, Food Security sector working group participants interviewed said they came to understand better the particular concerns of local councils and started to see the value in building trust with them. As a result of this engagement, the Food Security sector working group created guidelines39 for all actors on how to engage well with local councils. This was later adopted by the ISWG as the foundation for a model of work for collective humanitarian action against pressures of local authorities. A number of those interviewed felt that in terms of accountability to local populations in the humanitarian response more could have been done by INGOs and UNOCHA to engage with local councils and non-state actors. Insufficient attention was paid to building awareness on humanitarian

39 Food Security Sector, Jordan Hub (August 2018). Guidelines on humanitarian engagement with stabilisation actors in Syria August 2018- draft.

principles, or to discussing the expectations and formalizing agreements with local councils. Nor was there sufficient consideration of collective measures that could be taken by humanitarian agencies when local authorities impeded programme implementation. Some sectors also engaged with their technical counterparts within local governance structures. For example, the Directorate of Health affiliated with the opposition government of Dara’a and its representative in Jordan had regular coordination meetings and calls with the health sector coordinator. On an ad hoc basis UNOCHA did engage with the governorate and local councils in Dara’a and Quneitra on behalf of some agencies to successfully resolve access issues with armed opposition groups and/or local councils. However, UNOCHA was constrained from taking on a larger roll with local councils due to the Jordanian authorities’ concern that UN engagement with entities the Government of Syria considered political opposition might impact Jordanian-Syrian diplomatic relations. By contrast such intense sensitivities did not exist for the Government of Turkey, which had a strong publicly pro-opposition stance and long broken diplomatic relations with the Government of Syria, and therefore encouraged direct and public UN/NGO discussions with opposition local councils in the north of Syria. 6.4 Stabilisation Actors Stabilisation actors had a strong presence in southern Syria with projects of a scale many times larger than humanitarian projects. In southern Syria, stabilisation and humanitarian actors often shared the same field of operation and at times implementing partners, even if their objectives varied. Although many recognised the challenges, some felt that in the southern Syria response opportunities were missed for principled and selective information sharing with certain stabilisation actors. They felt that information sharing would have resulted in benefits for the humanitarian response through improving actual programming and funding decisions based on information that arises as a result of this mutual sharing. Instead, in the Jordan-Syria cross-border response, coordination between humanitarian and stabilisation actors remained limited, usually in the name of preserving humanitarian principles. The remainder of this section discusses these issues in more detail. Interviewees pointed out that the success of humanitarian work in southern Syria sometimes relied on the forward movement of stabilisation projects, where stabilisation funds would provide the necessary pre-conditions or enabling environment required for the provision of humanitarian assistance. For example, one health programme relied on a stabilisation project’s rehabilitation of a hospital before they could implement a programme providing medical services. This stabilisation actor explained the consequences of an absence of information sharing: ‘Last year we were forced to suspend a number of grants due to funding uncertainty (we were hoping to un-suspend later). One of them was a grant to rehabilitate a hospital. We later learned, through coordination with the health sector, that this hospital was critical to the health sector response for all of one side of Dara'a, and [so] therefore [we] decided to make some additional payments which allowed the project to be partly finished and some new parts of the hospital to be functional. This wasn't easy for us but we decided we had to do it anyway.’ Another example is as follows: ‘We have substantial budgets, more than humanitarian actors, but our timetables are often short. Even if we are not required to serve the most needy we definitely do have the prerogative to serve the most needy within the confines of particular areas of control. That is within our mandate. Humanitarian actors spend a huge amount of time and energy on needs assessments and vulnerability assessments but often have much more limited implementation budgets than we do. If a humanitarian actor [lacking funds] has anyway carried out a detailed assessment… to inform their programming and can help point us to a particularly needy facility to carry out an expensive infrastructure intervention, we all win,’ (a comment by a stabilisation contractor as told by a coordination lead). 6.4.1 Disagreements about Information Sharing Disagreements among humanitarian actors over how much information exchange should occur with stabilisation actors were common, with some keen to share information while other humanitarian individuals and agencies refused to speak to stabilisation actors altogether. Traditional concerns on the humanitarian side were primarily around issues of neutrality and lack of attention to protection

considerations, although many questioned the extent to which humanitarian actors (who indirectly negotiated with a range of political actors in southern Syria) could take the moral high ground. Most sector working groups did not allow stabilisation actors to attend regularly. Occasionally they were invited to speak informally to a sector working group lead but whether or not any actual information exchange occurred was ultimately driven by the personal views of the sector working group coordinator, and many had the approach of ‘sharing as little as possible.’ 6.4.2 Information Sharing between Stabilisation and Humanitarian Actors Given the scale of stabilisation work in southern Syria being undertaken, UNOCHA Jordan and some sectors recognised the need to understand what stabilisation activities were taking place and the need to prevent duplication, and wanted to be aware of ‘any problems recorded [like Preventing Sexual Exploitation and Abuse or duplication] to know who was behind it to know where to go to resolve them.’ It should also be noted that those involved in the humanitarian response believed that in the southern Syria context this issue was perhaps ‘less murky’ and ‘somewhat easier to address’ than in other parts of Syria since stabilisation actors worked solely in opposition areas coinciding with areas worked in by humanitarian actors, and therefore allowing stabilisation actors manoeuvrability to target on the basis of need, and also limiting the likelihood of reprisals to SNGO partners by the Government of Syria. In this context, as one donor representative put it, UNOCHA and some sectors were able to take a ‘principled, pragmatic’ approach to information exchange resulting the identification and resolving of a number of issues. Donors worked with UNOCHA and also put pressure on stabilisation actors to share information. Stabilisation agencies, for their part, were also willing once donors put pressure on them to open dialogue: ‘UNOCHA took a step forward and said, “Look, we want to engage you and have a conversation about why it's important to share information and what we would like to see from here.” It wasn't easy in the beginning, but we were lucky in the southwest because the key stabilisation donors were the UK and the US. The people in charge of those portfolios were very open and keen to share information. They didn't see a problem with it and they were very happy to do that.’40 (Donor representative) From the point of view of US government stabilisation actors, the lack of coordination and information sharing was in part because of the following: ‘USAID generally prohibits us sharing any information without first getting approval. Getting donor approval is often a contractual requirement. It's partly due to the nature of our work. As US Government contractors much of what we do is a contractual deliverable. It's inappropriate to send the client's contractual deliverable to a third party unless they authorize it’. As a result of UNOCHA’s approach and donor support, one stabilisation agency involved in health infrastructure work attended a number of WASH and Food Security sector working group meetings to present their projects. This stabilisation agency did not complete a ‘Who is doing what, when, and where’ (4Ws) due to time constraints, the inapplicability or irrelevance of several excel data fields, and the fact the agency ultimately was not held accountable to the document. This agency also shared areas of overlap, names and locations of schools with the Education sector working group to identify and avoid any duplicative or conflicting activities. Other areas for potential mutual information sharing that some felt were not taken advantage of included mutual learning on risk minimization, capacity building of SNGOs, triangulation of data for needs assessments, and understanding the dynamics of local councils (one area where stabilisation actors undertake large amounts of research. A number of suggestions were made by interviewees as to how stabilisation and humanitarian actors could work together without compromising humanitarian principles. An overarching suggestion was

40 Note also that the UAE actively coordinated and provided much coordination assistance, for example by sharing all of their military food basket information on a monthly basis

for humanitarians to ask, ‘how can we use this opportunity, what do we need to get out of this dialogue to meet humanitarian needs without compromising particular humanitarian principles?’ These suggestions are summarised below. 6.4.1 Stabilisation Spectrum Stabilisation actors provide a vast range of work along a spectrum from projects that are clearly political (for example, helping to ‘legitimise’ or ‘empower’ local councils to publicise their successes and helping armed groups with their communications strategies) to projects with political impacts whose outputs overlap with traditional humanitarian work (Food Security Sector, WASH, livelihoods, health, and education work such as hospital and school education infrastructure projects). Different stabilisation agencies work at different ends of the spectrum.41 One stabilisation actor stated: ‘One problem is that when humanitarians think of stabilisation actors, they often think of the extreme end, but if we provide pipes and solar to a hospital and then a health INGO comes in, why should they care that our objectives are different? Clearly it is not relevant. Humanitarians need to dig into this objection in more detail. In some contexts, the objectives are not relevant,’ (Stabilisation agency representative) 6.4.2 Guidance is Necessary More than one interviewee said that detailed and specific guidance would be necessary on how to facilitate information exchange as there is the need to ‘get down in the weeds’ rather than engaging in a superficial exchange involving for example just exchanging location information. Some criticised the current available guidance for what they see as its implicit assumption that humanitarians need to ‘protect themselves from the damage of stabilisation actors’ by such things as encouraging humanitarian actors to dissuade implementing partners not to do stabilisation work, and to only ‘share [with stabilisation actors] what you must if you must’. However, many humanitarian actors acknowledged that the area ‘needs coordination even if we don’t want to.’ 6.4.3 Opportunity to Shape Standards There can be an opportunity to shape standards during this process. For example, the Food Security sector working group document guidance for working with local councils identified red lines about the point at which obstructions by local councils mean humanitarian aid should be discontinued. These were drawn up appropriately although some humanitarian actors remained concerned that some stabilisation actors would not adhere to these even with dialogue. Good Practice Example 9. WASH and GBV Sector and Stabilisation Engagement

1. At a certain point it became clear to the WASH sector working group that some WASH programmes on the stabilisation side had not adhered to SPHERE minimum standards. The WASH sector working group coordinators were able to communicate with the stabilisation contractor the importance of working to SPHERE standards. 2. Towards the end of the response GBV sub-sector and Protection sector working groups met with stabilisation actors funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) to encourage them to shape Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) standards of behaviour among their local council partners. The UK Embassy organized a gender training for stabilisation actors in Southern Syria. They invited the GBV sub-sector working group co-lead as resource person to discuss GBV programming in humanitarian intervention and the services available – a topic about which the stabilisation actors had received little previous information.

41 Supporting technical directorates (like the Directorate of Health or Water that emerged in opposition held areas) fell in between the two extremes, given that technical directorates are often considered by humanitarian actors as ‘political bodies’ yet are key to modern public health systems and key to vital humanitarian response such as organizing vaccination campaigns

6.4.4 Donors Can Play a Role Some of those interviewed felt that stabilisation donors are best placed to facilitate information flows between humanitarian and stabilisation actors through requiring contractors to share relevant information. Without such donor direction, contractors may be less likely to share this information as some donor contracts prohibit the sharing us sharing of information without first getting approval (usually this is a contractual agreement with the donor).

Conclusion: The successful delivery of large amounts of humanitarian aid into southern Syria was helped by both the enabling role played by the Government of Jordan and the fact that it occurred a context in which engagement with non-state military and local governance actors was less fraught than those humanitarian actors faced responding cross-border from Turkey. Early on in the response, most INGOs left local council and non-state armed group engagement to their SNGO partners rather than resolving issues through a coordinated approach. In not having engaged more strategically with local councils, which for the most part were accommodating in the South, humanitarian actors missed an opportunity to better address protection-related issues in particular. The Food Security Sector- created guidelines for all actors on how to engage well with local councils can be used as a model for future similar situations. Stabilisation actors were also a constant presence in the Jordan-Syria cross- border response and some stabilisation actors, UNOCHA and some sector working groups did a commendable job in enabling and encouraging pragmatic yet principled information sharing. Given that in this response stabilisation actors work was closely related to humanitarian activities, the pragmatic approach taken by UNOCHA and certain sector working group leads could be built upon further in future responses.

SECTION SEVEN: Inter-Agency Contingency Planning, Continuity of Services, and Close Down

Introduction. Ongoing contingency planning is essential to ensure humanitarian organisations are as ready as they can be to manage changes in the context during humanitarian responses. Section 7 discusses contingency planning undertaken during the Jordan-Syria response. Inter-agency contingency planning led by UNOCHA is reviewed in Section 7.1. Section 7.2 discusses the emergency response during the final offensive, and 7.3 considers the challenges involved for all actors during the final transition including the difficulties in trying to ensure continuity of care for beneficiaries, and in closing down operations safely. 7.1 Contingency Planning 7.1.1 UNOCHA’s Role in Contingency Planning 2015-2018 Between 2015 and 2018, UNOCHA Jordan led multi-agency consultations on access scenarios in southern Syria which formed the basis of UNOCHA led inter-agency contingency planning. 42 Coordinated sector and inter-sectoral response plans were drawn up on the basis of these scenarios and UNOCHA coordinated with donors to enable pre-positioning required for these scenarios. Over the four-year period, seven of eight contingencies planned for occurred and pre-positioned resources assisted over 460,000 crisis-affected civilians across five sectors who could not have been accessed otherwise. When relevant, UNOCHA Jordan also engaged in coordination of the response process with the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) in Amman and the HCT in Damascus to increase the complementarity of response across conflict lines and national borders. 7.1.2 Contingency Planning for Transition From the beginning of 2018 it became increasingly clear to the contingency planning leads that the conclusion of hostilities in the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus would see Government of Syria forces turn their attention to southern Syria. As such, long-term decisive changes in territorial control was likely for most of southern Syria previously outside of Government control and served by cross- border assistance from Jordan. Humanitarian actors had been preparing for this eventuality to varying degrees. Consequently, the ISWG, chaired by UNOCHA, and its sectors intensified efforts to pre-position humanitarian assistance and services in southern Syria in accordance with previously identified planning figures. Even in 2018, after multiple rounds of preparedness planning, there were challenges however. While some INGOs and UN agencies thought that UNOCHA-led exercises were ‘very top down,’ ‘did not translate down to the granular level at the agency level,’ it was also certainly true that many INGOs and SNGOs were ‘slow to make plans’. Many INGOs did not have emergency planning components built into their budgets from the outset and did not seem prepared for what was required. Those sector working groups, UN agencies, INGOs and SNGOs who started early and took the time to consider what the scenarios meant for them were better prepared. ‘I cannot emphasise the importance of contingency planning around scenarios enough. Each agency needs these built into grants at the outset. They should have an emergency component they can trigger because as the end came closer and closer there were NGOs whose head were in the sand. They would say, “let’s just keep going.” Even after the bombing had started, in cluster meetings some INGOs were talking about activities, and I would say, “do you realize that this city will fall by tonight?” So one month before they saw it coming, we realigned our activities. We stopped all activities, prepared, so we could focus on the emergency,’ (WASH INGO working group co-lead). In retrospect, coordinators and operational agencies alike agreed that the contingency plans could have provided more inter-agency guidance on closing down safely. This was emphasized in the sharing of a lessons learned document by UNOCHA in September 2018 with those involved in the Turkey-Syria response. Coordinators and operational agencies understood, though, that it was

42 UNOCHA (Q2 2018), Inter-agency preparedness plan for humanitarian assistance: Southern Syria.

extremely difficult to plan or achieve the desirable depth of continuity of service provision, or protection, in the context of massive and decisive changes in territorial control. Indeed, this issue was highlighted as a critical unresolved issue requiring more research and thought by humanitarians who will certainly deal with similar questions in future conflict zones. 7.2 Emergency Response during the Final Offensive in Southern Syria The ground offensive in south Syria began on 15 June 2018 and at the peak of this crisis over 270,000 people were displaced. By the end of July, the Government of Syria had re-established control over all the territory formerly controlled by armed opposition groups through a combination of military offensive and local truce agreements.43 Convoys continued to cross from Al-Ramtha until 26 June 2018 when the security situation deteriorated to make crossing impossible. The Government of Syria fully re-established control of the border with Jordan by early July. During this time daily bilateral and weekly CBTF meetings were held. The emergency response was largely successful. Stocks were prepositioned early as laid out in detail by the inter-agency preparedness plan and 260,000 people who could not have been reached by any other mechanism were served by humanitarian aid and services pre-positioned by the inter-agency contingency planning process. Pre-positioned stocks finally ran out some months after even the end of the military crisis, and when permissions by the new parties in control of the border were not forthcoming in September 2018, this marked the de facto ending of the cross-border response from Jordan. 7.3 Continuity of Services and Closing down Safely 7.3.1 Continuity of Services Given the concern that major changes in territorial control and a sudden cut in cross-border assistance might lead to a complete absence in humanitarian services, UNOCHA (Amman and Damascus) felt it was worthwhile to try to engage the Government of Syria in continuity of services planning. Although some felt this was unrealistic and a UNOCHA representative reflected that ‘there was an element of scramble about engaging with the Government of Syria and that in terms of good practice it would have been better to engage earlier,’ the aims of the discussions were understandable: to try to assure that at least some key services could continue (using the same SNGOs) or be handed over to Damascus (or both), that aid programming would continue through them, and that the safety of humanitarian workers in the south would be ensured. To this end, UNOCHA lobbied the Russians with the message that the approach by humanitarians in the south was humanitarian rather than political. UNOCHA (Amman and Damascus) likewise coordinated a joint broad consultation in Beirut between Amman and Damascus-based humanitarian partners, as well as WoS coordinators, to align programming during transition and advocate for continuity of service and protection of humanitarian workers. However, in light of the constrained political operational context for humanitarians on both sides of the conflict lines and the inability of SNGOs (previously cross-border) to register in Damascus, implementable practical measures were hard to identify. In the end, the complete shift of the line of control in southern Syria was quick as was the subsequent closure of programmes, leaving scant possibility of handover or continuity of services in any form. Nevertheless, there were some small successes. For example, facilitated by Beirut discussions, some medical NGOs were given permission able to work in southern Syria until the end of 2018. 7.3.2 Closing Down Safely Some INGOs and SNGOs had exit strategies in place to plan the withdrawal of resources while ensuring that civilians accessing assistance were not exposed to further risk or actual harm as a consequence of the exit. Some had plans in place to ensure that stakeholders were supported during the preparation for departure to minimize possible risks.

43 UNOCHA Jordan (September 2018). Operational briefing on Ramtha: Cross-border operations from Jordan to Syria under UN Security Council Resolutions 2165 / 2191 / 2258 /2332/2393

‘We spread risk, shared risk, and prepositioned half on each side. But these were very difficult conversations to have with our Syrian partner staff. We felt it was too dangerous for them and to preserve the safety of the staff we closed down. Our Syrian partners did not want to stop activities. We had a very difficult conversation where we had to say, “all you’ve prepared has to stop because we believe this scenario is likely to happen. Our security manager has made the decision based on the probability of what will happen.” We had triggered this before the offensive started, and even then we had setbacks because our partner staff then fled from Qunetra to Dara’a. After a few days they mobilized on the other side, found a vendor, procured and somehow were able to continue… ’ (INGO representative). Good Practice Example 10: GBV Sector Closing Down Safely Guidance44

The GBV Whole of Syria (Turkey and Jordan hubs) in September 2018 published a guidance note designed as a practical tool to support GBV actors in the development of exit strategies for all emergency GBV programming, in particular to support actors to formulate appropriate exit strategies that follow the do no harm approach. The guidance note explains that the exit strategy should be built in from the beginning of a programme, should ensure a smooth process that does not impact negatively on the community served, ensures Duty of Care for staff, and does no harm to beneficiaries, especially survivors of gender-based violence. Phases of a GBV violence programme closure should include: design exit plans from the start, identify other service providers and establish referral pathways, identify options to continue provision of case management, ensure capacity building and Duty of Care to staff, prioritize the activities that need to be kept running on the basis of their lifesaving potential and available technical capacity, coordinate with the GBV coordination body, consult with staff and beneficiaries, inform key stakeholders, develop data protection systems and protocols, consider visibility issues, and plan for assets disposal.

The speed at which the final offensive occurred and the stance of the Government of Syria toward SNGO partners severely constrained the ability of operational agencies in southern Syria to close down carefully or safely. Many felt powerless to protect their SNGO partner staff, many of whom immediately went into hiding. One SNGO representative said, ‘for us it was a nightmare, I still cannot believe what happened. We worked together for seven years, and now some are hiding, some joined the Syrian army, and some travelled.’ The speed of the closure meant data protection standards could not be adequately adhered to, with staff leaving without destroying beneficiary files, or using whatever was available in the final moments at the office, such as smashing computer hard drives and burning paper. Some SNGOs felt that international organisations ‘dumped’ them at the time of closure without any support or understanding of the difficulties experienced by them. One SNGO representative said: ‘Some organisations don’t care about continuity of care. There was no planning for a smooth exit, leaving behind facilities and beneficiaries with no support. We felt like there was no plan. We felt like after closure they seemed to not value the risk or appreciate us or support us, especially after June and July,’ (SNGO representative) Conclusion. Significant challenges arose for all actors in the transition of territorial control when it came to knowing what best actions to take at the time of the mid-2018 conclusion of hostilities in terms of closing down safely, after the end of emergency response. The issue of how to close down operations safely in southern Syria was a real challenge for all actors. While UNOCHA attempted to engage the Government of Syria in advocacy to allow continuity of services and protection of humanitarian workers, this effort proved largely fruitless and ultimately the complete shift of line of control in southern Syria meant little possibility of handover or continuity of services in any form. Some sector working groups, UN agencies, INGOs and SNGOs started early and took the time to consider what various scenarios implied for their agency’s continuity of services, but many were too

44 Gender Based Violence (GBV) Whole of Syria – Turkey/ Jordan Hubs (September 2018), Guidance note on ethical closure of GBV programmes.

slow to develop plans and caught off guard and unprepared when the final offensive occurred. Operational actors would have benefitted from more inter-agency guidance on closing down safely as most had no closure plans in place to ensure beneficiaries were not exposed to risk or harm. More consideration on how to address closing down by humanitarians is necessary as they likely to face future similar scenarios.

SECTION EIGHT: CONCLUSIONS

Against the particularly challenging backdrop of the Syrian crisis, the overall humanitarian response achieved some notable successes. That such a wide range of actors could pull together to deliver a coherent and comprehensive response reaching hundreds of thousands of people in desperate need with lifesaving supplies and services in a region inaccessible to international actors is remarkable. Prior to the passing of UNSCR 2165, INGOs and Syrian individuals and networks came together to implement low-profile cross-border humanitarian programming through informal mechanisms in a challenging environment. UNOCHA and the Government of Jordan had a large part to play in the enacting of Resolution 2165, and activated and managed the subsequent formal cross-border convoy and coordination response commendably. UNOCHA helped build trust among actors, and remote monitoring systems were well-developed in this response. The response understandably struggled at times in dealing with the myriad challenges, and many lessons were learned. Significant challenges were faced by the overarching response, including the following: coordinating and sharing information in an atmosphere of concern about confidentiality breaches and resultant risks to the security of SNGO staff and families; coordinating within the complicated WoS coordination architecture; determining how best to support SNGO’s development, capacity, participation, and Duty of Care needs; knowing how to address the huge physical protection needs of those in the south; ensuring remotely managed programmes target the most vulnerable and do not put beneficiaries at further risk of sexual exploitation and abuse; obtaining feedback from beneficiaries and gaining an accurate picture of programme activities and outcomes given the lack of physical presence; interacting effectively with other actors working in southern Syria; and knowing how to keep beneficiaries and Syrian partner staff safe during and after the transition to government control. Challenges existed coordinating in the context of trust deficits between and among the various actors, in particular the distrust resulting from UN agencies being viewed as being too close to the Government of Syria. The lack of information sharing especially early on in the response negatively affected the effectiveness of formal coordination structures and had a significant impact on the coordination of capacity building plans. Trust deficits also played a role in the lack of collective attention to protection related work in this response. Smooth and open sharing of information in the early stages of the formal response would have increased actors’ understanding of needs and response gaps in southern Syria and facilitated the implementation of strategic capacity building plans for Syrian organisations. Coordination issues were also not helped by the fact that the WoS coordination structures were complicated and sector leads were overstretched. This was not the first humanitarian response to rely heavily on local actors to carry out the vast majority of the implementation work, however local Syrian partners were not always supported sufficiently. INGOs who built responsible partnership management systems and approaches early on, who brought in experienced staff to establish programming, and who recognised the need to adequately resource partnership management including partner capacity building fared better than others in this regard. Capacity building of local NGO partners is not currently well-served by existing mechanisms and structures and consideration should be given to the development of a global framework to spell out responsibilities for capacity building of local NGO partners in remote management contexts. UNOCHA’s guidance for minimum Duty of Care standards was widely commended and is now used as a model at the WoS level. However, Duty of Care issues as a whole towards SNGOs were not addressed deeply or comprehensively enough. Donors are now showing a willingness to fund advanced final salary payments, something that was tested for the first time in this response, but funding is required for other forms of Duty of Care as well. Certainly too, some INGOS did financially support staff and families of staff inside Syria in situations such as death or detention, but this was unsystematic and ad hoc and INGO headquarters thwarted attempts at systematic planning for this support. There are tough questions to be asked about how future remote management responses can do more to support local staff. Another important lesson learned in this response was the need to address protection mainstreaming as well as PSEA issues early and substantively. In remote management contexts where direct staff are not on the ground, where engagement with local councils, non-state actors, and stabilisation actors is

difficult or impossible, and where local partners are not experienced in humanitarian work and principles, the risk of protection violations at the level of the response (let alone as a result of the conflict itself) are significant. From the outset of a response, attention to protection issues and PSEA requires more prioritisation, a clear sense of where responsibility for protection and PSEA lies at the overall response level, and adequate funding must be factored into programme budgets for training and staff with the appropriate expertise at the coordination and implementation levels. Perhaps one of the most significant common contributors to the major challenges in this response— the provision of capacity building and Duty of Care with local partners, ensuring accountability to affected populations (particularly protecting beneficiaries from sexual exploitation and abuse), and increasing the humanitarian benefits of information sharing with stabilisation actors—was the need for an earlier common harmonised approach which likely requires a very deliberate, focused attention and funding in future, especially remotely managed, humanitarian responses. Half a year after the Government of Syria retaking control of opposition-held areas of southern Syria, the cross-border response has been fully suspended, and this suspension looks unlikely to be reversed. Hundreds of thousands of those most in need in southern Syria were reached with lifesaving support by the cross-border Jordan-Syria humanitarian response. Many lessons have been learned about partnership management, capacity building, the centrality of protection, engagement with local authorities and stabilisation actors, and Duty of Care to local partner staff which can be drawn upon in the future where remote management responses is not only becoming more common but perhaps indeed the new normal.

TIMELINE Cross-Border Operations Jordan to Syria under UN Security Council Resolution 2165

2011—2013

2011—2013: Informal cross-border humanitarian operations commence. Syrian and International NGOs start informal cross-border humanitarian operations from Jordan into southern Syria.

2014

14 July 2014: UN Security Council Resolution 2165 is adopted authorizing UN agencies and implementing partners to use routes across conflict lines and border crossings at Al-Ramtha (among others) to deliver humanitarian assistance.

2 August 2014: Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) deployed a core team of UNOCHA staff from headquarters, first in Turkey and subsequently in Jordan, to set up the UNMM. The team consisted of senior surge staff (D-1, P-5), Emergency Response Roster (ERR) staff and United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) members.

6 August 2014: First crossing of UN convoy from Jordan into southern Syria. Over the next four months, the UN organized a further 12 convoys to locations which had previously been hard-to- reach in opposition-controlled areas of the south.

August—December 2014: Formal Cross-Border coordination structures established in Jordan. Jordan hub Inter-Sector Working Group; Health; Food Security; NFI/Shelter; and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) sector working groups activated.

September 2014: Whole of Syria (WoS) Coordination Architecture established linking coordination structures in Syria, Turkey and Jordan hubs together by formal information sharing frameworks.

November 2014 First WoS Syria Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) innitiated. This HNO and following HRP were the first time the the Whole of Syria was represented in a single appeal.

2015

May 2015: first specialized meeting of the Cross Border Task Force (CBTF) of the Jordan Humanitarian Country Team established with participation by INGOs, UN agencies, and later donors and SNGOs, to provide highest-level strategic guidance to the Inter-Sector Working Group (ISWG);

Mid 2015: Education sector working group also established. GBV and Child Protection sub-sector working groups formalized.

2016

Page | 1

November 2015—December 2016: Intensified displacement and scaled up emergency response. The onset of Russian Federation air support to Government of Syria forces intensifies conflict in southern Syria and triggeres successive waves of displacement in both eastern and western Dar’a peaking at 80,000 IDPs by February 2017 with unprecedented needs. To step up the response humanitarian agencies scale up prepositioning and emergency cross-border activities in accordance with inter-agency preparedness planning figures. Even at the height of conflict in February 2016, 206 trucks crossed Ramtha border point, compared to 58 in January.

January 2016: Protection sector working group established.

March 2016: Clashes between government of Syria and armed opposition forces decreased significantly and aerial bombardment dropped in Dar’a or Quneitra, enabling substantial IDP returns. More limited clashes occur between opposition and ISIL-affiliate JKBW causing more limited displacement. Despite challenges, including periodic access constraints to reaching the NW of Dar’a and Qunaitra, cross-border Jordan-Syria humanitarian actors continued to deliver life-saving support to IDPs and other conflict-affected communities.

June 2016: Jordan-Syrian border declared ‘closed military zone’ after a vehicle based explosive targeted a Jordanian Armed Forces outpost on Jordan’s far north-eastern border in close proximity to the the Rukban IDP Camp. The attacks left six Jordanian soldiers dead and 14 injured. A side effect is that SNGO staff are also prevented from crossing the border to attend trainings for 18 months.

2017

12 February 2017: 9,350 people displaced from eastern Dar’a governorate due to intensified hostilities between armed opposition and the pro-Government of Syria forces. Security challenges to cross-border convoys increased.

19 February 2017: ISIL-affiliate Jaysh Khalid Bin al-Walid (JKBW) launched an offensive in the western area of Dar’a, displacing a further 7,000 people. Both sets of hostilities, while limited, occurred along a key convoy transportation route which represented the unique pathway to reaching more than 450,000 people in need with physical assistance from Jordan.

March 2017: UNOCHA operationalizes a de-confliction processes on behalf of the CBTF, with both with the Governments of Russia and Syria and with anti-ISIL coalition forces for all formal convoys passing through Ramtha and any humanitarian partners using the informal route who wised to be involved.

9 July 2017: Southwest Syria De-escalation Zone (DEZ) implemented following a tripartite agreement between Jordan, the US and the Russian Federation. A major decrease in hostilities is witnessed in Dar’a and Qunaitra Governorates as a result of the SW DEZ until March 2018.

2018

January—June 2018: Inter-Agency preparedness activities undertaken in anticipation of ground offensives. At beginning of 2018 it became increasingly clear to the ISWG preparedness planning mechanism that the conclusion of hostilities in the East Ghouta DEZ which resulted in the return of that territory to GoS control, would see the attention of the Syrian armed forces turn to southwest Syria. Consequently, the ISWG intensified efforts to pre-position humanitarian goods and services in south west Syria in accordance with the planning figures in the inter-agency contingency plan,

Page | 2 efforts would later prove vital in meeting the needs of the unprecedented number of IDPs who would eventually flee the upsurge of fighting in Dar’a and Quneitra Governorates in mid-2018.

15 June 2018: Government of Syria launched ground offensives in southwest Syria leading to what to date has been a definitive change of territorial control. Over 280,000 people are displaced with accompanying unprecedented humanitarian needs for the South. The prepositioning of humanitarian supplies and services in strategic locations in southern Syria, coordination with the Damascus hub ISWG, and the fact that convoys continued to cross from Ramtha despite the upsurge hostilities enabled humanitarian partners to respond to the emergency needs of more than 250,000 people through the height of the displacements in June/July 2018.

End July: Syrian Government forces re-established control over all territory formerly outside of state control in South Syria through a combination of military offensives and local truce agreements.

26 June 2018 last formal Cross-Border Convoy crosses before suspension due to the the Government of Syria re-establishing control of the full length of the southern border with Jordan. CB convoy activities suspended since.

Page | 3

ANNEX C

Jordan-Syria Cross Border Response Key Document Repository

Index1

Borrel, A. (December 20, 2015), Review of lessons learned for the United Nations Monitoring Mechanism for Syria (UNMMS), UNMM.

Building Markets & Orange Door Research (2017). What is the point... If nothing changes? Current practices and future opportunities to improve remote monitoring and evaluation in Syria.

CARE (October 2016), Gender dynamics in southern Syria: An analysis of gender, protection, and inclusive governance issues in southern Syria.

CARE (June 2018). Quick Needs Assessment: Amal Camp, Rafid, Quneitra.

CARE (June 2018). Quick Needs Assessment: Karamah, Rafid, Quneitra.

CARE (June 2018). Quick Needs Assessment: Rahmah Camp, Sayda, Quneitra.

Chaudhri, S., Cordes, K., and Miller, N. (February 2017), Humanitarian programming and monitoring in inaccessible conflict settings: A literature review, Health Cluster.

Chaudhri, S., (23-24 June 2016), Humanitarian programming and monitoring in inaccessible conflict settings: Preliminary Findings, Columbia University and UNICEF.

Child Protection Sub-Sector Jordan Hub (received December, 2018), Child protection and third party monitoring in Syria.

Child Protection Sub-Sector Jordan Hub (February 2018), Practical guidance child protection case management for south and central Syria. Child Protection Case Management Task Force – Jordan Child Protection XB AoR.

Child Protection Sub-Sector Jordan Hub October 2016), Tips from child protection actors in Syria for providing trainings through remote modalities.

Collinson, S. & Duffield, M. (March 2013), Paradoxes of presence: Risk management and aid culture in challenging environments. Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG).

Creac’h, Y. & Leidecker, H. (June 2018), Remote management: Meeting operational challenges, The Operations Partnership.

Cross Border Task Force (March 2016) Review of cross-border operations in southern Syria reference review, UNOCHA Jordan.

Duncalf, Jeff. (December 21, 2017). An Independent Review of UNMM Monitoring Operations in Turkey and Jordan, UNMM.

Egeland, J., Harmer, A., & Stoddard, A. (2011), To stay and deliver: Good practice for humanitarians in complex security environments, UNOCHA Policy Development and Studies Branch.

1 The documents indexed are all those included in the Jordan-Syria Cross-Border Key Document Repository at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iJlq8vMng59Ym8truZKLJub2VosZHUsV. Inter-sector working group (ISWG), cross border task force (CBTF) meeting minutes, and preparedness planning documents are also included in the Key Document Repository but not indexed individually due to the large number. Similarly, PSEA documents are not included in this index due to the large number – the PSEA Key Document Repository can be found at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yv2S9MucVL2I8Q5AB5AGT9LAAAM_amsC?usp=sharing_eil&ts=5bd1afe9.

1 Food Security Sector, Jordan Hub (August 2018). Guidelines on humanitarian engagement with stabilization actors in Syria August 2018- draft.

Food Security Sector, Jordan Hub (November 2018), South Syria food security cluster – Jordan Hub, lessons learned, November 2018.

Gender Based Violence (GBV) Whole of Syria – Turkey/ Jordan Hubs (September 2018), Guidance note on ethical closure of GBV programmes.

Gender Based Violence (GBV) Sub Working Group Jordan Hub (2015), Terms of reference.

Gender Based Violence (GBV) Sub Working Group Jordan Hub (2018), GBV sub WG work plan.

Global Protection Cluster (received 2018), Brief on protection mainstreaming.

Global Protection Cluster, Whole of Syria, Gender Based Violence Area of Responsibility (2017). VOICES: Assessment findings of the Humanitarian Needs Overview.

Global Protection Cluster, Whole of Syria, Gender Based Violence Area of Responsibility (2019). VOICES: Assessment findings of the Humanitarian Needs Overview.

Haver, H. & Carter, W. (November 2016). What it takes: Principled pragmatism to enable access and quality humanitarian aid in insecure environments: Final report. Secure Access in Volatile Environments (SAVE), SAVEresearch.net. Global Public Policy Institute (GPPI).

Health Cluster (March 2018), Programming in access-constrained environments: Organizational accountability framework, WHO.

Health Cluster (2017), Programming in access-constrained environments: Introduction to practical guidance, WHO.

Health Cluster (2017), Programming in access-constrained environments: Practical guidance, WHO.

Health Sector Working Group Jordan Hub (December 2018), Amman cross-border health sector working group – Summary and closure report.

Health Sector Working Group Jordan Hub (October 3, 2018), Cluster coordination performance monitoring: Final report.

Health Sector Working Group Jordan Hub (June 2018), Health sector preparedness plan for southern Syria- June 2018.

Health Sector Working Group Jordan Hub (2018), 2018 health sector working group work plan: Jordan hub.

Health Sector Working Group Jordan Hub (March 2018), Health services and population status report: southern Syria.

Health Sector Working Group Jordan Hub (June 28, 2018), Health cluster Jordan hub flash update No. 1).

Health Sector Working Group Jordan Hub (July 7, 2018), Health cluster Jordan hub flash update No. 2).

Health Sector Working Group Jordan Hub (July 19, 2018), Health cluster Jordan hub flash update No. 3).

Health Sector Working Group Jordan Hub (December 2018), Amman cross-border health sector working group- summary and closure report.

Howe, K. (January, 2016). Planning from the Future Component 2. The Contemporary Humanitarian Landscape: Malaise, Blockages and Game Changers. No End in Sight: A Case Study of Humanitarian

2 Action and the Syria Conflict. Kings College London, Feinstein International Center, Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG).

Howe, K. Stites, E., & Chudacoff, D. (February 1, 2015), Breaking the hourglass: Partnerships in remote management Settings— The cases of Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan. Feinstein International Center, Tufts University.

Huls, V. (2011), Remote management of humanitarian assistance: A primer, lawanddevelopment.org. iMMAP MENA (2018), Research and Analysis. iMMAP (2018), Southern Syria Population Monitoring Initiative (PMI): Methodology Note. iMMAP and Auranitis Life Line (26 July, 2018), Southern Syria Flash Update 26 July 2018.

International Rescue Committee (IRC) (August, 2016), SYRIA remote management guidelines (http://www.orange.ngo/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/IRC-Syria-Remote-Management-Guidelines- External.pdf) Retrieved 21 March 2019

International Rescue Committee (IRC) (received December 2017), Syria’s Feedback and Response Mechanism (FARM). IRC

Jackson, A., & Zyck, S.A. (2016), Presence and proximity: To stay and deliver, five years on. NRC, UNOCHA, and Jindal School of International Affairs

James, G. (2017), What is Jaysh Khalid bin- Walid? Institute for Global Change.

Landale, J., & O’Dowd, V. (2018), Syria conflict: Women ‘sexually exploited in return for aid,’ BBC news.

Leidecker, Y.K. C. (June 2018). Remote Management: Meeting Operational Challenges. The Operations Partnership.

Logistics Cluster Jordan Hub (October 2016), Syria lessons learned report.

Mercy Corps (received March 2019), Duty of care in the Syria response: Funding principles.

Mercy Corps (received March 2019), Duty of care in the Syria response: Staff insurance policy - sample.

Mercy Corps (received March 2019), Guidance for organisations regarding staff insurance cover.

Mine Action Area of Responsibility, Jordan Hub (December 2018), Protection cluster, Mine action AOR- South Syria.

Niland, N., Polastro, R., Donini, A. , & Lee, A. (May 2015), Independent whole of system review of protection in the context of humanitarian action.

Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) (February 2016), Remote management study. NRC.

Office of the Inspector General (July 14, 2016). Fraud investigations expose weaknesses in Syria humanitarian aid programs. Statement of the honourable Ann Calvaresi Barr, Inspector General, US Agency for International Development.

Pavanello, S. with Fast, L., Larissa and Svoboda, E. (July 2018), Fostering local partnerships in remote management and high-threat settings: Emerging lessons from child protection programming in Syria. Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG), Overseas Development Institute.

Protection Sector Jordan Hub (December 2018), Lessons learned document for the cross border review

3 Protection Sector Jordan Hub (2017), Southern Syria response protection sector update annual report 2017.

Protection Sector Jordan Hub, UNHCR and iMMAP (April, 2018), Southern Syria Population Monitoring Initiative (PMI): April Context Report.

Sagmeister, E., & Steets, J. (October 2016), The use of third-party monitoring in insecure contexts: Lessons from Afghanistan, Somalia and Syria. Secure Access in Volatile Environments (SAVE), Humanitarian Outcomes, Global Public Policy Institute (GPPI).

Shelter/ NFI Sector Working Group Jordan Hub (December 2018), Lessons learned document for the cross border review.

Shelter/ NFI Sector Working Group Jordan Hub (January 2018), Lessons learned: Blanket targeting pilot cash assistance program, Qseibeh & Qarqas, Queneitra, S. Syria.

Shelter/ NFI Sector Working Group Jordan Hub (June – July 2018), Lessons learned: southern Syria emergency response.

Shemesh, M. (June 26, 2017). The Jaish Khelaid bin Al-Walid organization – ISIS branch in southwestern Syria in all but name, Inquiry & Analysis Series No. 1323, the Middle East Media Research Institute.

Sida, L., Trombetta, L., and Panero, V. (March 2016), Evaluation of OCHA Response to the Syria Crisis.

SNGO/ INGO Forum (27 October 2016), Task team meeting on engagement and capacity building of Syrian NGOs Amman.

SNGO/ INGO Forum (May 16, 2017), Minutes of meeting. Arabic.

SNGO/ INGO Forum (May 16, 2017), Minutes of meeting. English.

SNGO/ INGO Forum (July 12, 2017), Minutes of meeting. Arabic.

SNGO/ INGO Forum (July 12, 2017), Minutes of meeting. English.

Steets, J, Sagmeister, E., & Ruppert, L. (October 2016), Eyes and ears on the ground: Monitoring aid in insecure environments. Secure Access in Volatile Environments (SAVE), Humanitarian Outcomes, Global Public Policy Institute (GPPI).

Stoddard, A. & Jillani, S. (November 2016). The effects of insecurity of humanitarian coverage. Secure Access in Volatile Environments (SAVE), SAVEresearch.net. Global Public Policy Institute (GPPI).

Strategic Steering Group (SSG) (2017). Whole of Syria Strategic Steering Group Protection Strategy 2017-2018.

Svoboda, E. (April 2014), The interaction between humanitarian and military actors: Where do we go from here? Policy Brief 58. Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG), Overseas Development Institute.

UN Monitoring Mechanism (UNMM, September 9, 2014), United Nations Monitoring Mechanism (UNMM) Guideline – Working Version 09/09/2014.

UN Monitoring Mechanism (September 6, 2014), United Nations Monitoring Mechanisms pursuant to Security Council Resolution 2165 for United Nations and implementing partners’ humanitarian consignments for Syria.

UN Monitoring Mechanism for Security Council Resolution 2165 (August 13, 2014), Set-up of the UNMM.

4 UN Security Council, Security Council Resolution 2165 (2014), adopted by the Security Council at its 7216th meeting, 14 July 2014, S/RES/2165 (2014), available at: http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/doc/2165

UN Security Council (19 June 2018), Review of United Nations cross-border operations, report of the Secretary-General, S/2018/617, available at http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3- CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/s_2018_617.pdf

UNOCHA Jordan (July, 2018) Agreed Duty of Care Minimum Standards, on behalf of Anders Pedersen, RC/HC for Jordan, endorsed by the CBTF, 18th July, 2018 with Annex ‘operationalizing advanced salary and/ or severance payments’ added 31st July 2018.

UNOCHA Jordan (Q2 2018), Inter-agency preparedness plan for humanitarian assistance: Southern Syria.

UNOCHA Jordan (December 9, 2018). Major UN aid delivery to Syria from Jordan (Press release), UNOCHA.

UNOCHA Jordan (29 July 2018), Southern Syria operational response plan southwest Syria, UNOCHA Jordan.

UNOCHA Jordan (2018), Jordan cross-border review: Objectives

UNOCHA Jordan (September 2018). Operational briefing on Ramtha: Cross-border operations from Jordan to Syria under UN Security Council Resolutions 2165 / 2191 / 2258 /2332/2393

UNOCHA Jordan (29 July 2018), Southern Syria operational response plan - South-West Syria

WASH Sector Jordan Hub (November 2018), WASH sector lessons learned south Syria.

Whole of Syria (WoS) Food Security Sector Jordan Hub (November 2018), South Syria Food Security Cluster Jordan Hub lessons learned November 2018

Whole of Syria (WoS) Gender Based Violence (GBV) Sub Sector Turkey/ Jordan Hubs (September, 2018), Guidance note on ethical closure of GBV programmes. English version.

Whole of Syria (WoS) Gender Based Violence (GBV) Sub Sector Turkey/ Jordan Hubs (September, 2018), Guidance note on ethical closure of GBV programmes. Arabic version.

Whole of Syria (WoS) Health Sector Jordan Hub (December 2018), Amman cross-border health sector working group – summary and closure report.

Whole of Syria (WoS) Logistics Cluster Jordan Hub (October 2016), Syria lessons learned report

Whole of Syria (WoS) Protection Cluster Mine Action AOR South Syria (December 2018), Lessons learned

Whole of Syria (WoS) Protection Sector (April 2018), Whole of Syria protection response: Who we are.

Whole of Syria (WoS) Shelter and NFI Sector Jordan Hub (January 2018), Lessons learned document for the cross border review.

Whole of Syria (WoS) Shelter and NFI Sector Jordan Hub (December 2018), Lessons learned: Blanket targeting pilot cash assistance program: Qseibeh & Qarqas, Quneitra, S. Syria.

Whole of Syria (WoS) Shelter and NFI Sector Jordan Hub (June - July 2018), Lessons learned: Southern Syria emergency response.

5 Whole of Syria (WoS) WASH Sector Jordan Hub (November 2018) WASH sector lessons learned south Syria