The humanitarian system seeks adequate answers to the immense and constantly growing humanitarian needs. As part of the local civil society, local actors are usually the first responders after a shock. Effectiveness and efficiency of humanitarian action can be improved through local knowledge, trust and other complimentary capacities, giving local actors an increasingly important role. While local and national humanitarian organisations provide an important work, they often still function as mere implementers of strategic and operational decisions taken by international humanitarian organisations.
It is therefore crucial to support local actors in their own operational preparedness and response capacity, their organisational and institutional ability, in the availability of adequate funding and integration in relevant humanitarian coordination mechanisms. Equally important is the transformation of roles between the different actors within the humanitarian system.
This paper starts out with a cursory overview of coordination experiences by major players in the humanitarian world (Section 2). The aim is only to indicate the wealth of experience there, not to offer a critical analysis of it all. The review indicates that coordination in and by host governments...
This guidance document provides a very detailed list of what to do when facilitating cluster coordination meetings. Many of the elements will not be relevant in all contexts nor to all NGO coordination bodies. Many of the actions required to facilitate a cluster coordination meeting, however, are...
This note summaries IASC coordination structures and capacities in 26 operations (28 locations, taking into account the three components of the Syria response). Data was collected from the field through a rapid survey in late 20192 and is the only standardised method for capturing coordination...
