Thank you all for your contributions, very helpful. Mohamed ------------------------------ Mohamed Khaled DRR & Resilience Consultant Independent/Consultant Kenya ------------------------------ More
Hi Mohammed, From my experience working through local partners in South Sudan, the starting point should be creating a good working relationship with you partner field staff based on trust and respect. There you will be in position to freely communicate with them through phone calls/emails, if there ... More
Hello Mohamed, I deeply appreciate the answers of Julia. The approach will depend upon the time of intervention and/or duration of the project. I have been working in a fragile environment in the WASH/SHELTER sector. We use phones, video recording and sometimes WhatsAp video calls to see how activities ... More
Hi Mohamed, I can contribute to the topic only from my experience in Afghanistan - I think the situation is comparable to what you describe. What type of monitoring is reasonable depends on the type of intervention. Here are some approaches I personally or close colleagues of mine made good experiences ... More
Dear Allissa; I am so grateful to hear such a nice insight. The community latrine was designed initially as a paid job, but because of prolonged crisis the partners want the community to clean their latrine on a rotation basis as "community participation". However, the community leaders didn't accept ... More
Dear Fahim; Many thanks for the wonderful demystification. Definitely, the points you have mentioned are core responsibilities for the camp management agency. As camp management, all community governance structures (Community High Committee (CHC), Youth Committee, Women Committee, Community Disabled ... More
Hi all, I would agree with Alissa -- sometimes community involvement won't work and that must be accepted and the consequences managed. Rarely does the community do a very good job at cleaning and emptying latrines, for example. So then the question becomes -- what is the priority? Community participation ... More
Great thoughts Alexei. The Global Fund Tuberculosis program provides free drugs and testing for patients. In some countries, the principal recipient org has collaborated with a few private clinics which have high patient loads on a daily basis by providing them with testing kits and drugs. This ensures ... More
From experience in a fragile state in East Africa, you could use third party monitoring who use either or a combination of on the ground verification and phone system. The phone system is extremely difficult in some contexts because of the dependency that has been created by donor funding. You are likely ... More
Hi, there is infrequent access with strict security measures on international staff. Local staff of implementing partners are based at Community level. Thank you ------------------------------ Mohamed Khaled DRR & Resilience Consultant Independent/Consultant Kenya ------------------------------ More
Hello Bany Reath. I am curious. Did the community have decision-making power over the purchase and installation latrines and then not want to clean them? Or is the decision-making held by internationals and the cleaning of latrines given to the community as a proxy for "ownership." I am curious and want ... More
Hello! Just a quick question: Is this a remote management situation or do you have direct access to the area with specific security measures? If you can clarify this point, I can try to help. Best, Simone ------------------------------ Simone Sarcia Head of Mission Cooperazione Internazionale (COOPI) ... More
Hello, Thanks for sharing your situation, the question about ownership is definitely an important one. I think a crucial point on ownership is deciding, alongside community members, what ownership means (what they can or wish to "own"), and agree on a clear division of responsibilities between the ... More
Dear Mohamed, I like your question - very practical. So this is what I want to share with you. Working in humanitarian contexts due to conflicts and natural disasters is challenging since you have to make sure that the support has reached and benefited the most vulnerable and affected. One thing ... More
Dear Bany, Your concern is quite valid and in camp settings it is a challenging situation as camps are in most cases a temporary settlement. I don't know how it works in your context but here we used to have a structure of coordination and community engagement and community services as an integral ... More
Hi everyone, I would appreciate if you could share based on real life and practical experience some tips, examples, or practices to help ensure effective monitoring procedures in high risk program contexts. I am referring to contexts where your program was implemented by local partners, either government, ... More
In my country, South Sudan, we engage the affected population for community participation and ownership. However, we find that the community is reluctant or even sometimes possesses robust resistance to accept that the community should have ownership over WASH facilities, e.g. latrines cleaning. As the ... More
It very much depends on the situation on the country (situation of internal conflict? situation of international conflict?) and which parts of IHL you can refer to. Also, it depends on the nature of each end every case. Example: a woman was killed. Is it IHL violation, IHRL violation or a criminal law ... More
Dear All, I hope you are well & safe. I'm preparing a plan of online interactive activities for people seeking asylum during Covid times. It's part of a program I manage on Empowerment. If you could suggest ideas, guidelines, best practices that I can look into, that will be helpful. Defining ... More
In my country, there is an armed conflict between the communist-led insurgents versus the armed forces of the government. As an NGO tasked to monitor and report violations of international law in this conflict, we often are faced with situations where both International Human Rights Law (IHRL) and International ... More
Hi Amel You're focusing on an important topic/set of topics concerning gender, humanitarian action, policy and practice. You've already had some excellent and informative replies. I would encourage you to keep participating in collegial activities with others - I saw Sarah mentioned a GBV Community ... More
Hi Patrick, I would agree with that statement strongly. I am interested though to hear from those who may not agree with it and why they think differently. Veronique ------------------------------ Veronique Barbelet Senior Research Fellow Humanitarian Policy Group Overseas Development Institute ... More
Hi Veronique, Your explanation has also added to my understanding. And, the facts I am taking home are that, both Humanitarian Assistance and Protection are inter connected and, can also stand alone. Although, a quality Assistance should have protection mainstreamed into it to uphold the principle of ... More
Dear Patrick, To add to Raman's excellent explanation. Some people refer to humanitarian aid as encompassing both humanitarian assistance and protection. Some organisations would also argue that humanitarian assistance is essentially protection too but this is perhaps more controversial and not necessarily ... More
Dear Raman, I am good with the clear explanation. Thanks. ------------------------------ Patrick Igbana Deputy Head of Department, Food Security and Livelihoods Action Against Hunger (ACF) - Nigeria Nigeria ------------------------------ More
Hi Patrick, It's not exactly the same. Sometimes there are dedicated protection programs only which do not have any assistance components such as logistics or relief distribution etc. Protection program encompasses all activities aimed at obtaining full respect for the rights of the individuals in ... More
Thanks for this clear explanation. I want to seek more clarification on this matter: Is it right to state that, Humanitarian Protection is a sub-set of Humanitarian Assistance? Meaning that while we provide the assistance, protection is also observed in the process. You may throw some more light on this. ... More
Hi Alexei, Thanks for the additional thoughts! Will keep these in mind when approaching our prospective partners. Best, Sylvia ------------------------------ Sylvia Wamalwa Kenya ------------------------------ More
Hi, Humanitarian protection is about improving safety, well-being and dignity for crisis-affected populations. Protection refers not only to what we do but the way we do it . It involves actively applying core protection principles and responsibilities to our humanitarian work across all sectors. ... More
Hi everyone, I have been providing humanitarian training, mainly in international humanitarian law, for a couple of years. Course participants are often confused about the difference between humanitarian assistance and humanitarian protection. How would you explain this to someone who is new to the ... More
Hi Sylvia, Great to hear it was useful! Just one more thing: don't base your choice on who to work with in the private sector on finding "common values". Businesses are there to make money (no matter what they say in their "values' statements"), and most NGOs, by default, are subconsciously suspicious ... More
Hi Lucy, Thanks for sharing this to the other community members. I am a big fan of online learning. I wouldn't be where I am in my career if I didn't take online learning seriously. I encourage other members of the team to seek more skills and become more employable through online learning. It's an ... More
Hi! I also don't have documents, but an example only. In Nepal after the earthquake in 2015 a large telecoms company provided a package of communications services for the aid community -- international, national, local, to help with the response; this was free of charge. In this way corporate interest ... More
Hi Alexei, This is actually really well put. I am currently working for a local not for profit in Nairobi Kenya and for the better part of 2019, we have been working on getting on board partners from the private sector on a poverty eradication initiative and admittedly we have been falling into the ... More
Hello, Compliment of the day to you. I am aware that Oxfam International has some experience in partnering with the private sector and you may contact the Country Office in Abuja to give more information on this. In one of their projects in Adamawa State, there was an Outreach Farming arrangement ... More
Hello there, Here is a resource that could be useful for you: The Partnership Guidebook . Though it's more oriented at development, much of the content is relevant to humanitarian sector also. It provides useful guidance on various elements of partnership, and talks about some of the differences between ... More
In case you haven't seen them yet, I recommend these COVID-19 IEC materials, available in Hausa and Kanuri: https://www.humanitarianresponse.info/en/operations/nigeria/document/borno-covid-19-iec-materials-hausa-kanuri ------------------------------ Abdiwahab Ali UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) ... More
Dear Amel, Gender and women studies is a very important subject. For a PhD, I suggest that you should first identify the specific area of research you are interested in and then develop a clear process ahead based on your analysis of the present situation and available data. Research in this area is ... More
Hello! I don't have any documents or templates to share, but only some thoughts based on learning experiences :-) The most common mistake both NGOs and businesses do is looking at private sector simply as donors for NGO programmes. So, rather than falling into the same trap, it usually makes sense ... More
I'm the Country Director for an INGO operating in Nigeria. I'm looking for success stories or any experience of humanitarian organizations working with the private sector. I am particularly looking at private sector partnerships at field-level with NGOs. If any one has any documents to share, e.g. ... More
The reciprocal relation between humanitarian field work and academic action based research has always been quite intense. As far as I know, humanitarian science and practices are one of the social research areas where the interlinkages are very close; also, most of the well known researchers in humanitarian ... More
Dear Amel, Thanks for posing the question. I hope my contribution can be of help to you and others who wish to shift from (or simply integrate) the humanitarian field to/with the academia. As a necessary relevant introduction, I have worked for the Federal Ministry of Health in Sudan (your neighbor) ... More
Simplified, well illustrated and context specific tool kits can be developed. These can comprise guidelines for different users, at different levels, as follows: 1. A training guide for community based organizations and social workers on psychosocial support. This guide can be used to train community ... More
Hi Amel I'm an academic and transitioned from aid practice many years ago. Processes differ around the world and I have an Australian perspective, but many principles will be transferable. Here we don't have a coursework component - you get straight into researching and writing your thesis, with the ... More
BTW, in case of interest, here is the poster in larger file size for printing - see attached ------------------------------ Joost Butenop Senior Public Health Advisor, Refugee health Government of Lower Frankonia, Public Health Office Germany ------------------------------ More
Hi Amel, I am a PhD student at the University of Leeds and my topic is 'investigating the livelihoods and the resilience of internally displaced people in Nigeria" (displaced as a result of the Boko haram insurgency). Prior to my studies, I was a volunteer in the humanitarian field, working with the ... More
Hi Joost, Please see below the link to an online library of tools - specific to West and Central Africa - for Covid related community engagement, health promotion and community mobilization that IOM, UNHCR, MSF and many others organizations from the RCCE working group for West and Central Africa ... More
Dear Amel, I like your idea of alternating between field and academic work and I have just finished my Ph.D. with a major in Peace Studies. Do you wish to continue to work while doing your Ph.D. or you could spend some time off doing so? I completed mine part-time extramural while teaching and raising ... More
Hi Amel Do you have any specific programs in mind? Have you been accepted into a program? Consider a range of programs including those with broad a "peacebuilding" focus. You might look here for lists I have compiled of programs. ------------------------------ David J. Smith, JD, MS President ... More