Displaying items by tag: Standards

Les évaluations des besoins post-désastres (Post Disaster Needs Assessments/PDNAs) sont conçues pour faire en sorte que les besoins et les opinions de tous ceux qui sont affectés et réagissent à un désastre soient pris en compte.  Il est généralement convenu qu’il faut entendre ceux qui sont directement affectés, et de nombreuses organisations ont mis au point des stratégies et des outils pour le permettre.  Mais il est rare que les enfants et les jeunes gens – qui constituent souvent plus de la moitié de la population affectée – soient consultés.  Les guides pour l’organisation des PDNA ne reconnaissent pas la…

Event report Wendy Fenton, Coordinator , Humanitarian Practice Network welcomed the speakers and attendees and introduced the speakers and discussant.  Amany Abouzeid, Human Security Policy Coordinator, ActionAid and co-author of the report then discussed the ideas behind the research. The research for the report followed the first cluster evaluations of the humanitarian assistance delivered after the conflict. ActionAid felt that these cluster evaluations were too mechanical and raised questions about the effectiveness of the humanitarian response. ActionAid felt there was a need to ask questions about humanitarian principles; perceptions of humanitarian assistance; and the global humanitarian project as a whole…

As part of its role as a neutral forum for debate, the Humanitarian Practice Network convened a public meeting on 26 October 2010 to discuss some of the lessons arising from the response to the earthquake in Haiti in January this year. The three speakers were Sir John Holmes, Director of the Ditchley Foundation and former United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator; Ross Mountain, Director General of DARA International and Director of Director of DFID’s Humanitarian Emergency Response Review; and Linda Poteat, Director for Disaster Response in the Humanitarian Policy and Practice Unit at InterAction. The…

Post Disaster Needs Assessments (PDNAs) are meant to ensure that both the needs and the opinions of everyone affected by and responding to a disaster are taken into account. It is widely accepted that those directly affected should be heard, and many agencies have developed strategies and tools to allow this. But it is rare that children and young people – who often comprise more than half of an affected population – are consulted. Guidelines for conducting PDNAs do not recognise the value of young people’s views. This article shows that children and young people can offer very valuable perspectives,…

The field of humanitarian studies – the study of how humanitarian crises evolve, how they affect people, institutions and societies, and the responses they trigger – is growing exponentially. The International Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA) was established in February 2009 to promote dialogue between policy actors, implementing agencies, academics, consultants, policy researchers, and reflective practitioners, engaged in the study of humanitarian crises caused by natural disaster, conflict or political instability. Addressing a range of different disciplines - including international relations, international law, development studies, anthropology, conflict studies, public health and forced migration studies - the association provides a platform for…

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)’s approach to delivering aid is based on obtaining ‘acceptance’ of its work from the population, authorities and communities concerned. Acceptance here means that MSF seeks a social contract whereby its presence is respected by all parties to a conflict, including civilians, who all understand and accept that MSF’s humanitarian identity is central to its operations, and that MSF is there to assist those in need of emergency medical care. In practice, this approach is more complicated than it first appears. A lack of awareness of how we are perceived is proving to be a growing impediment…

First rolled out following the earthquake in Pakistan and Kashmir in October 2005, the Humanitarian Reform process sought to address gaps in the international response to humanitarian crises, and to improve timeliness, effectiveness and predictability. The reform’s approach was three-pronged: first, the introduction of clusters to better coordinate sectoral responses and identify a lead agency which would provide predictable leadership and coordination and act as the provider of last resort; second, to improve the availability of quick-response funding through the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), established in March 2006; and third, to improve humanitarian leadership by strengthening the role and…

In Issue 39 of Humanitarian Exchange (June 2008), Julian Srodecki of World Vision contributed an article entitled ‘Improving efficiency and effectiveness through increased accountability to communities: A case study of World Vision’s tsunami response in Sri Lanka’. The article outlines how the creation of a Humanitarian Accountability Team (HAT) in Sri Lanka led to various benefits, including increased financial efficiency, better teamwork among World Vision staff and improved coordination with other NGOs. On the fundamental issue of engagement with communities, however, Srodecki is far from convincing. Srodecki explains that HAT was meant to ‘... engage with communities to provide information,…

This Network Paper discusses livelihoods-based livestock programming and its role in humanitarian emergency response. It highlights the importance of taking livelihood assets, in particular livestock, into account in responding to emergencies and describes how the Livestock Emergency Guidelines and Standards (LEGS) Project has been developed to support this process. LEGS aims to promote the use of livelihoodbased livestock responses to emergencies, through building the capacity of humanitarian actors to plan and intervene appropriately. LEGS can also be used to assist in the evaluation of emergency responses by providing a framework and benchmark against which interventions can be reviewed. There is…

For accountability enthusiasts, Jan Egeland’s article ‘Humanitarian Accountability: Putting Principles into Practice’, published in Humanitarian Exchange in June 2005, promised much. Here was a good opportunity for the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator to show how the process of UN reform might enable international humanitarian action to become more accountable to ‘the peoples of the United Nations’, rather than just beholden to the very mixed company that is the governments of the UN’s member states. After all, OCHA must know as well as any institution that most humanitarian crises are provoked or exacerbated by bad governance, and that the most…