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Working Together in the Field for Effective Humanitarian Response 1 WORKING TOGETHER IN THE FIELD FOR EFFECTIVE HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE 1 Working together in the field for effective humanitarian response Background paper 30th ALNAP Annual Meeting 3 –4 March, Berlin Annual Report 01 Main Pattern ALNAP is a unique system-wide network dedicated to improving the performance of humanitarian action through shared learning. www.alnap.org Have you read the ALNAP discussion starter that accompanies this study? An electronic copy of the study, the discussion starter and other related resources are available on the ALNAP website at www.alnap.org/meeting2015. Suggested citation Saavedra, L. and Knox-Clarke P. (2015). Working together in the field for effective humanitarian response. ALNAP Working Paper. London: ALNAP/ODI. © ALNAP/ODI 2015. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Non Commercial Licence (CC BY-NC 3.0). ISBN 978-1-910454-16-9 Publication and communications managed by Maria Gili Edited by Roo Griffiths Copy edited by Alex Potter Design and typesetting by Jeni Burnell and Maria Gili Contents Abbreviations and acronyms 4 1. Introduction 5 2. Coordination in context: are humanitarians moving closer together or further apart? 6 2.1 An increasingly atomised humanitarian system? 6 2.2 Potential benefits of working together 9 2.3 Potential challenges of working together and critiques of greater coordination 16 3. Understanding inter-organisational collaboration: different typologies 18 3.1 The spectrum of humanitarian coordination: different levels of working together 18 3.2 Factors influencing position on the spectrum 22 4. The current situation: structures for working together 26 4.1 Coordination by governments 26 4.2 The IASC humanitarian coordination system 28 4.3 NGO relations: consortiums and country networks 33 4.4 NGO partnerships 37 4.5 NGO families 40 4.6 Working with non-traditional actors 41 5. The current situation: other factors that support working together 44 5.1 Informal arrangements and relationships 44 5.2 Funding 45 5.3 Standards, guidelines and procedures 49 6. The big questions 51 Bibliography 52 4 ALNAPWORKINGPAPER Abbreviations and acronyms ALNAP Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action ADRRN Asian Disaster Reduction and Response Network CAFOD Catholic Agency for Overseas Development CALP Cash Learning Partnership CAP Consolidated Appeal Process CAR Central African Republic CERF Central Emergency Response Fund CHF Common Humanitarian Fund CoP Community of Practice CSO Civil society organisation DFID UK Department for International Development DRC Democratic Republic of the Congo DREP Disaster Response Engagement Protocols EC European Commission ECB Emergency Capacity Building Project ECHO Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Department ERF Emergency Response Fund EWS Early Warning Systems FTS Financial Tracking System HC Humanitarian Coordinator HCT Humanitarian Country Team IASC Inter-Agency Standing Committee ICCM Inter-Cluster Coordination Mechanism ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross ICS Incident Command System ICVA International Council of Voluntary Agencies IOM International Organisation for Migration MIRA Multi-Cluster/Sector Initial Rapid Assessment MSF Médecins Sans Frontières OCHA UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs OECD-DAC Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee PoP Principles of Partnership RTE Real-time evaluation RRM Rapid Response Mechanism SAG Strategic Advisory Group SOHS The state of the humanitarian system STAIT Strategic Transformative Agenda Implementation Team UN United Nations UNHCR UN High Commissioner for Refugees WASH Water, sanitation and hygiene WFP World Food Programme WHO World Health Organization WORKING TOGETHER IN THE FIELD FOR EFFECTIVE HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE 5 1. Introduction Humanitarian responses often involve large numbers of national and international actors who frequently work in the same geographical areas and towards the same broad goals. However, coordination and collaboration among them are often limited at best. Failure to work together can lead to gaps in coverage and to duplications and inefficiencies in any given emergency response. This is an issue that has become more pressing. A combination of factors – climate change, urbanisation and population growth, among others – means that many emergencies are now much larger and more complex than before. This in turn has led to responses becoming larger and more complex. No single agency can meet all needs, even in a specific sector. The number and diversity of humanitarian actors have also increased, which can make coordination seem an almost impossible task. The past decade has seen a variety of approaches to improve the way in which we work together. In 2005 the Humanitarian Reform Agenda began to introduce the Cluster Approach and Humanitarian Country Teams (HCTs), which were aimed at enhancing coordination at the country level. In addition, many countries have active non-governmental organisation (NGO) coordination bodies. Many organisations work in partnership with one another and – increasingly – with non- traditional humanitarian actors, such as the private sector, in the planning and execution of relief operations. From these initiatives have come many success stories that outline the benefits of working together; however, a number of significant challenges have also emerged. It is not easy to achieve coordination and collaboration: competing organisational interests can pull agencies in different directions; differing languages and cultures can impede rapid communication and understanding; coordination can compromise organisational independence; and the time and energy required for successful coordination can prove daunting, particularly for smaller organisations. At the same time there are coherent arguments against too much coordination or collaboration. ‘Humanitarian aid should be left purposely outside comprehensive approaches, integrated solutions and sustainability or resilience objectives’ argues Whittall (2014: 2), because coordination allows political actors to control the humanitarian agenda. ‘[In] recent years there has been broader acknowledgement that the specificities of humanitarian coordination need greater protection from political agendas’ (Donini, 2008: 23). 6 ALNAPWORKINGPAPER Research and evaluations have addressed some – but by no means all – of these experiences of coordination. With humanitarian needs projected to grow, we can “With humanitarian expect coordination and working together to become even more important in the years ahead. For this reason, the Active Learning Network for Accountability and needs projected to Performance (ALNAP) has decided to meet to take stock so as to be able to share grow, we can expect experiences and best practices on working together in the field to ensure effective coordination and humanitarian responses. This, then, is the central theme of ALNAP’s 2015 Annual working together to Meeting and an issue at the centre of the debates on how to improve the way in become even more which diverse humanitarian actors can meet the needs of people affected by crises. important in the years This paper looks at the variety of ways that different organisations work together ahead. at the country level. It considers bilateral relations between organisations (partnerships), as well as relations among multiple organisations (clusters, networks and consortiums). It also looks at other, non-structural, modalities used to support ” working together, such as funding mechanisms and standards. The paper considers the following actors: international and national NGOs; United Nations (UN) agencies, offices, funds and programmes; the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement; government authorities; donors; and the private sector. It does not consider civil-military coordination or look at coordination bodies and approaches at the regional and global levels. 2. Coordination in context: are humanitarians moving closer together or further apart? 2.1 An increasingly atomised humanitarian system? The international humanitarian system is a ‘network of national and international provider agencies, donors and host-government authorities that are functionally connected to each other in the humanitarian endeavour and that share common overarching goals, norms and principles’ (ALNAP, 2012: 8). Perhaps its two most salient features are its size – in terms of the number of organisations involved – and its (increasing) diversity: ‘The international humanitarian system – even narrowly defined … is larger and more diverse than many realise’ (ALNAP, 2012: 28). WORKING TOGETHER IN THE FIELD FOR EFFECTIVE HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE 7 The system is ‘made up of many different moving parts, each with different comparative advantages, different interests and different capacities’ (Scott, 2014: 1). According to ALNAP’s 2012 edition of The state of the humanitarian system (SOHS), in 2009-2010 over 4,400 operational organisations, working in various combinations, responded to 103 natural disasters and 43 complex emergencies (Financial Tracking System data). These included governmental, inter-governmental and international, national and local civil society organisations (CSOs). In many situations ‘non-traditional’ actors, such as those from the private sector (international or, very often, national or local) or the military, joined them in the effort. In some cases the large number of organisations involved makes any form
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