Letter from Valerie Amos, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, to the members of the South Sudan NGO Forum (Feb. 2015)
This Article critically assesses the crucial but troubled system for the coordination of international humanitarian assistance—the UN “cluster approach.” Regardless of whether the cluster approach actually helps in disaster response, it exercises substantial power over affected populations by...
International organisations have been providing relief in the occupied Palestinian Territories (oPt) since the war in 1967. Due to the occupation, intermittent conflict and general economic decline, between 1993 and 2003, the oPt received USD 6 billion in international aid - half of these funds...
Summary notes on the MENA NGO fora meeting, held in Amman (Jordan) on July 2-3, 2014
Following the signing of the Geneva Accords on Afghanistan in April 1988 and the subsequent withdrawal of Soviet military forces, the United Nations Office for Coordination in Afghanistan (UNOCA, changed to UNOCHA in 1993) was formed to administer the Afghanistan Emergency Trust Fund established by...
During the 1990s ICVA supported NGO coordination in the field in various ways and, on the basis of that experience, published two resource books: “Meeting needs: NGO Coordination in Practice”, a series of case studies on examples of NGO coordination, and “NGO Coordination at Field Level: A Handbook”...
Networks clearly have wide-ranging applications in the humanitarian sector, yet surprisingly little has been written on the strategic development and management of networks with the humanitarian sector in mind. In this Background Note, we address the question of what networks actually do from this...
Accountability is a process of taking into account the views of, and being held accountable by, different stakeholders, and primarily the people affected by authority or power. Accountability is particularly necessary for organisations that assist or act on behalf of people affected by or prone to...
This study takes a fresh look at coordination dynamics by exploring two situations that were noteworthy both for the difficult challenges humanitarian organisations faced and for their innovative responses. The cases shed light on coordination in general and two contexts in particular: coordination...
This Guide is a companion to the HAP Humanitarian Accountability and Quality Management Standard (2007), the full text of which is attached as Annex 1. The Guide follows the structure and format of the HAP Standard for ease of reference. It is aimed at the leaders, managers, and staff of...
From OCHA Strategic Response (SRP) Plan Guidance 2014, this chart outlines steps from pre-planning, to needs analysis, to strategic planning, to response monitoring. It also includes details about what these steps entail and which actors will primarily be involved.
The Gulf War involved, in effect, two humanitarian upheavals rolled into one. The first was the flight of some 850,000 third country nationals and 300,000 Palestinians, from Kuwait and Iraq mostly into Jordan in the weeks following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. The second was the...
General Assembly Resolution 46/182 led to the creation of the Department of Humanitarian Affairs (DHA). It focuses on the strengthening of the coordination of humanitarian emergency assistance of the United Nations.
When a disaster hits or a conflict erupts, humanitarian actors move quickly to save lives, meet basic needs and protect survivors. In this rush to provide humanitarian response, the appeal to “pay attention to gender issues” often falls on deaf ears and may seem irrelevant. It is not. “Paying...
The information pack for new members of PHF provides relevant information to INGOs who have recently joined the Pakistan Humanitarian Forum (PHF), as well as information for new staff or partners of PHF members. The pack includes: PHF vision, mission and mandate; an introduction to the PHF core...
A common inclusive and simple way to gain input is through an annual member survey to assess perceptions, satisfaction, identify gaps and gain member input on future fora priorities. Overall an annual member survey helps a for a stay in touch with and be responsive to the needs and demands of the...
Southern Sudan has presented a unique operating environment for the NGO community for the better part of 22 years. During the civil war, Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) defined the space for NGO activity regardless of participation in OLS itself; and since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace...
This Guide is not meant to be a definitive “how to” manual, but it focuses on issues and areas to consider when undertaking NGO coordination and when setting up an NGO coordination body. It is an entry point into the world of NGO coordination – an area of humanitarian response that is vast in...
Since the early 1990s, military forces have become increasingly involved in humanitarian assistance. This encroachment into what has traditionally been seen as ‘humanitarian space‘ raises significant issues of principle, as well as policy and operational questions not only for humanitarian agencies,...
The core purpose of this review, commissioned by the Cash Learning Partnership (CaLP) www.cashlearning.org, is to evaluate CaLP’s progress since inception and examine the status and continued needs in cash programming in emergencies. This will enable the CaLP Steering Committee to make decisions on...
Education is a fundamental human right for all people. Education is especially critical for the tens of millions of children and youth affected by conflict and disasters, and yet it is often significantly disrupted in emergency situations, denying learners the transformative effects of quality...
This fifth edition of the Aid Worker Security Report provides the latest verified statistics on attacks against aid workers from the Aid Worker Security Database (AWSD), and examines the particular security challenge of road travel. Although vehicular accidents are a common source of injury and...
"NGO Coordination Bodies: Funding strategies" outlines various funding strategies and the advantages and disadvantages that come with them. These strategies include: core donor, consortium, subscription, and service charges.
In humanitarian settings across the world today, children are likely to make up half or more of the population affected by conflicts or disasters. The many risks facing these girls and boys have a devastating impact on their well-being, physical security, and future. Some children are killed or...
The peace agreement and the establishment of a government in south Sudan pose new challenges to established means of NGO coordination. Working under a tripartite agreement between the UN, Government of Sudan (GoS) and the SPLM meant that NGOs, which came under the umbrella of the UN, were unequal...
When it accepted the introduction of the cluster approach in pilot countries in 2005, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) called for an external evaluation to be performed after two years, to assess the mechanism’s progress and effectiveness. In 2007 the IASC designed the terms of reference...
NGOs are widely recognized as key actors in an effective, efficient and accountable emergency response because they are frontline implementers for the majority of humanitarian operations. As such, the appropriate engagement of NGOs within humanitarian leadership is a critical component for success....
The NGO Coordination Committee in Iraq was established in Baghdad upon the initiative of a number of NGOs operating in the country that felt the need of creating a neutral space of discussion and dialogue amongst humanitarian agencies. Following the withdrawal of the UN from Iraq, NCCI increased its...
This guide has been developed as a “hands-on” resource to help you to use the recently developed Consortium of British Humanitarian Agencies (CBHA) competencies framework in all aspects of working with your staff – we’ve called this the Employee Life Cycle. We have designed the guide so that you can...
The ALNAP Review of Humanitarian Action has been monitoring the quality of evaluations of humanitarian action for the past five years. The positive news is that evaluations have become more deeply ingrained in the humanitarian sector. The not-so-good news is that the quality of the evaluations...
