Briefing Note The management of humanitarian emergencies caused by extreme climate events UNHCR Emergency Preparedness and Response • April 2009

Commitment, capacity and experience

he Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees increasingly - those directly affected by extreme climate events and natural (UNHCR) continues to up-date and strengthen its overall ability disasters, is a commitment of the High Commissioner for Refugees. T to respond to complex humanitarian emergencies through the application of internal emergency rosters, Standby Agreements with partners, While natural disasters are not included in the Office’s mandate, UNHCR use of a Central Emergency Stockpile (CES) of non-food items, early warning has increasingly been called upon to assist the overall humanitarian effort in mechanisms, contingency planning, and the ongoing development of more the aftermath of a natural disaster. This is mainly due to its local or regional effective emergency management mechanisms and surge capacities. capacity for a particular location, and because of its global expertise in Ensuring UNHCR’s emergency preparedness and response capacity in emergency response in the field of protection, emergency shelter, camp relation to refugees, internally displaced persons, and exceptionally - yet management and other humanitarian protection related activities.

CAPACITY sanitation and health. Another way of meeting 4. Early Warning and Preparedness, the ’s evolving responsibilities and including Training and Capacity-building A FOUR-FOLD EMERGENCY urgent needs in terms of skills and qualifications a UNHCR has developed its emergency RESPONSE STRATEGY • has been the strong partnership developed with training programs to reinforce its institutional At any given time UNHCR has the capacity to the United Nations Volunteer program. capacity and to strengthen its situational respond to an emergency directly impacting preparedness and response. Emergency up to 500,000 people. 2. Emergency Stockpiles: Non-Food Items training sessions are up-dated with the latest and Operational Support Items developments, best practices and lessons- This response capacity consists of four UNHCR’s relief item capacity is composed of learned from actual deployments. The key components: a Central Emergency Stockpile (CES) - located workshops are: in Copenhagen and Dubai - of non-food items 1. Emergency Staffing (NFIs) covering the needs of up to 500,000 • The Workshop on Emergency (including through partnership) beneficiaries. Items include blankets, light Management (3) (WEM) which aims to UNHCR’s staffing surge capacity consists of weight tents, plastic sheeting, jerry cans, prepare members of UNHCR’s ERT roster for more than 150 staff selected from UNHCR kitchen sets, all-terrain vehicles, heavy-duty deployment to emergency operations. The offices worldwide, placed on an Emergency trucks, prefabricated warehouses, office and WEM is an intensive, field-oriented, practical Response Team (ERT) roster. The Office also accommodation modules, health kits, IT and and highly participatory training. Every effort has agreements with external partners(1) telecommunications equipment, and other is made to create the atmosphere of an creating an additional standby capacity of essential support items. All of these items can actual emergency deployment. The main several hundred personnel, mostly NGO be shipped within 24 hours to any location subjects include team-building, operations personnel, ready to be deployed to an thanks to long-standing agreements with freight planning, financial and administrative systems, emergency alongside UNHCR staff. This forwarders, logistics companies, and the use of operational partnerships, communication combined capacity enables UNHCR to mobilize specially chartered aircraft. and negotiation skills, security, coordination within 72 hours more than 300 trained and information-sharing, telecommunication personnel. In most situations, this would In addition, UNHCR can also draw from its network structure, needs assessment, and suffice to provide an emergency response regional stockpiles located in South Africa, humanitarian protection. during the first six months for situations Ghana, Tanzania and Jordan, as well as in- affecting up to 500,000 people. country stockpiles related to refugee and IDP • The Situational Emergency Training operations worldwide. (SET) is offered to mid-level managers and UNHCR has sought to broaden the support staff with some emergency and qualifications on its roster and deployments, 3. Accelerated Internal Financial Surge .../... by, amongst others, strengthening the Procedures existing agreements with Standby Partners, In order to respond faster and more efficiently reviewing all technical agreements,(2) and to emergencies, UNHCR has developed developing an additional in-house capacity mechanisms for the immediate mobilization for technical expertise, in particular in the of financial resources, including access to an areas of protection, emergency shelter, camp Operational Reserve, within hours of the request management / camp coordination, water, being received and approved. field experience. Initiated by a request from disaster management plans adapting to their such as training for refugees, partner agencies, UNHCR offices in emergency-prone countries specific needs aimed at saving lives and local host population and government entities. or regions, the SET focuses on a particular ensuring the continuity of essential services As UNHCR often operates in remote areas of emergency situation (or an evolving crisis in the areas of water, sanitation, food, shelter a country where development partners and scenario) in a given region, and places high and health. These plans include setting-up government activities have limited access, priority on team planning. contingency measures to respond to disasters its contribution in the domain of disaster in and around refugee camps as well as management and risk reduction plays an • The Emergency Team Leadership preparedness and capacity-building activities important role at the local level. Programme (ETLP) is organized by UNHCR 1. Current standby partners include: the Norwegian and Danish Refugee Councils, the Swedish Civil Contingencies on behalf of the Inter-Agency Standing Agency, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Civil Defence Committee (IASC) with the aim to strengthen (EMERCOM), the Directorate for Civil Protection and Emergency Planning of Norway, AUSTCARE, the United Nations individual leadership skills of senior managers, Volunteers, DFID and . 2. Technical agreements were reviewed with: Save the Children Norway and Sweden, RedR and the Centre for and to foster the ongoing development of best Disease Control and Prevention. practices in emergency leadership. 3. In 2008, four workshops were held, each hosting up to 40 participants, 25 of whom were UNHCR ERT roster members. Up to 15 places were offered to stand-by and operational partners, United Nations agencies and donor representatives. b • UNHCR’s eCentre in Tokyo is helping improve emergency preparedness and response capabilities in the Asia-Pacific region UNHCR AND NATURAL DISASTERS through targeted training and other capacity- A SIGNIFICANT INVOLVEMENT IN RELIEF EFFORTS building measures. UNHCR has undertaken a number of trainings such as for ECOWAS monitoring officers in early warning indicators. UNHCR’s involvement in providing relief A CASE STUDY: to people displaced within their own UNHCR actively contributed to the inter- country as a result of natural disasters has , agency endeavour to enhance early warning traditionally been determined on a case-by- and preparedness, including the IASC case basis. Sub-Working Group on Preparedness and UNHCR provided a significant contribution Contingency Planning and the efforts to Generally speaking, when UNHCR has to the inter-agency and international develop early warning policies, procedures an established presence and operation response in assisting those affected by and tools. The on-line contingency planning in a country that has been struck by a Cyclone Nargis. toolbox, targeting humanitarian country teams natural disaster, the High Commissioner Despite administrative difficulties with obtaining was, for example, launched in 2008 and has offered support to the government entry visas for Myanmar, UNHCR - in only has received positive feed-back from field and local authorities in a show of solidarity a few days - identified and deployed an operators. The related inter-agency training responding to the human imperative, Emergency Response Team (ERT) to support module was also finalized. and as a contribution to the broader the UNHCR country representation in Yangon. international and UN relief efforts. Indeed, Initial tasks of the ERT included critical needs assessments, managing non-food item UNHCR also contributes to the inter-agency UNHCR’s presence in deep-field locations distributions, establishing an operational effort to design a portal for real-time, on-line, and its strategically located emergency presence in the affected areas, and liaison and forecasting of potential conflicts; known as stockpiles allow the Organization to provide coordination with all actors and partners. HEWSWeb II. Scaled according to needs, it immediate humanitarian assistance. The following was mobilized: will provide daily monitoring of situations, and assist decision-makers in emergency UNHCR also participates in UN and ■ Human resources Nine ERT members were deployed; preparedness and response decisions. Humanitarian Country Team contingency planning for natural disasters, and is ■ Material resources Non-food items were dispatched, including UNHCR facilitates inter-agency efforts in committed to working with systems for over 90,000 plastic sheets, 3,000 plastic rolls, bridging information gaps in the response to / disaster management, particularly with the 120,000 blankets, 52,000 kitchen sets, or the need for contingency planning such as IASC cluster leads in natural disasters. 120,000 mosquito nets, and 100,000 jerry in (floods affecting refugees and local cans. population), Myanmar (cyclone) and South Some notable examples of UNHCR’s ■ Coordination Africa (xenophobia and mixed migration flows). emergency interventions include the During the initial phase of the relief operation, following: the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, UNHCR assumed the cluster-lead role for Emergency Shelter and NFI (due to the UNHCR operations in the field, particularly in the 2005 South-Asian earthquake, the delayed arrival of the IFRC team). UNHCR tropical and semi-tropical regions that are 2006 floods in Somalia, the 2007 floods in at the capital and field levels significantly often subject to climate-induced disasters , the floods in Yemen in 2008, the contributed to inter-agency collaboration such as floods, hurricanes and tropical earthquake in China and cyclone-related including informally coordinating the Protection storms, and landslides, have developed flooding in Myanmar all in the same year. Cluster.

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