[se-drm] Reminder!! URGENT-Reply by 15 December 2009. StrengtheningSphere' Inter Agency Coordination and Unified ResponseStrategy- Advice, Experience
Vik
Dear Vikrant,
The subject, no doubt, is of great importance but the time allotted for response is too little. This is exactly the case of coordination in humanitarian responses. Everyone recognizes the need for and talks about it but when it comes to practising, it is hard to find time and space.
Over the past few years State IAGs and Sphere URS have made some serious efforts to improve coordination and standards in emergency response with some degree of success and that is appreciable. At the same time I would like to point out the following challenges in coordination that we have come across.
1. All organizations have certain comfort zones and we all prefer to operate within that.
2. Inter agency coordination is yet to become the priority response of many of us. Organizations that have a pre-existing stake in the disaster affected area tend to act on its own without considering coordination or collaboration, for various reasons.
3. While common assessments and collaborative strategies have had some success, common response planning and action has been very hard as response is determined more by organizational priorities and available resource. Common Monitoring and Evaluation remains a distant dream.
Suggestions for improved coordination:
1. Do a thorough review of the coordination and common response planning efforts of past three years to identify challenges.
2. While Sphere may support the efforts of state IAGs, the initiative should be lead and managed by the state IAGs that have developed the capacity to do so. Sphere URS may act on its own where there is no IAG or it is dormant/non-functional.
3. Assist state IAGs to develop a coordination protocol at state levels through a process of consultations and build capacity of state IAGs to practice it as per need.
4. Influence Sphere India members to join, honour and actively participate in state IAGs. This commitment from the country offices of humanitarian organizations is crucial.
5. In order to be effective and member owned, IAG operating budget should be shared by members and not by one or two organizations.
With regards,
Sebastian T V
Emergency Programme Manager
Concern Worldwide India
From: Vikrant Mahajan
[mailto:v...@sphereindia.org.in]
Sent: 14 December 2009 10:43
To: 'Disaster Management Community'
Subject: [se-drm] Reminder!! URGENT-Reply by 15 December 2009.
StrengtheningSphere' Inter Agency Coordination and Unified ResponseStrategy-
Advice, Experience
Moderators Note: We would like to remind you about this query on Strengthening Sphere' Inter Agency Coordination and Unified Response Strategy. This is an urgent query, and we request our members to kindly find some time to respond to this. Thanks.
Sphere India, with active support of UNDP, UNICEF and NDMA, has been supporting Inter Agency Humanitarian coordination in some of the states in India. Sphere India has launched an exercise to capture the learning from the working of the interagency platforms that were involved in handling some of the emergencies in the states. The purpose of this exercise is to identify issues that need to be addressed collectively to make such platform robust and efficient. Disaster Management Community (supported by UNDP) and Sphere India Unified Response Strategy google group are jointly facilitating the process of getting inputs from Disaster Management Practitioners in India.
Dear Members,
The analysis and evaluations of the response of some of the recent disasters in India and elsewhere has highlighted the need of improved coordination between different actors. In absence of clear policies, institutional capacities and processes, initiatives like Orissa Disaster Mitigation Mission (for Orissa Super Cyclone), Abhiyaan (for Gujarat Earthquake) and Tamilnadu Tsunami Resource Centre (for Tsunami) emerged during disaster times. These early experiences provided the learning and inspiration for Sphere India Unified Response Strategy (URS) to build capacities on humanitarian coordination in the vulnerable states in India as a pilot and then replicate to other states. The focus of the URS was to develop common understanding for coordination during immediate response.
Sphere India URS led to reactivation/strengthening/creation of Inter Agency groups in different states that started filling in the institutional gaps and brought in the much desired continuity in Humanitarian coordination in India. This has been a mix of success and challenges which led to increased understanding of the URS coordination processes (Common Assessment, Joint/Collaborative Strategies, Common Response Planning and action, Common Monitoring and Evaluation) and IAG institutionalisation in 12 of the most vulnerable states in India. However, a lot is desired to be achieved for Inter Agency Humanitarian Coordination to optimise the quality of our collective response and our collective accountability to the affected community we are committed to serve.
Towards all this we request members of the Disaster Management Community to:
· Suggest main components for an all-encompassing policy framework that can ensure effective functioning of Inter Agency Humanitarian Coordination in India;
· Share limitations and challenges faced by State level Inter Agency Groups or of working with Inter Agency Groups and;
· Provide suggestions and new innovation ideas for improving the Current URS Processes (Common Assessments, Collaborative Strategies, Common Response planning and action, Common Monitoring and Evaluation) and working of State level IAGs.
Your responses will help us devising better coordination processes and thus better emergency management at all levels.
Regards
Vikrant Mahajan
Sphere India
New Delhi