Welcome to the ECB Project
The Emergency Capacity Building (ECB) Project aim is to improve the speed, quality, and effectiveness of the humanitarian community in saving lives, improving welfare, and protecting the rights of people in emergency situations.
Phase I of the project was launched in 2005; with 5 years of additional funding support from the The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and new project grant from the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Department (ECHO), the ECB project has entered an ambitious second phase.
Phase II of the project spans three Objective areas and three Cross-cutting Themes which are each being developed through Consortia Engagement Plans (CEPs) and Agency Performance Improvement Plans (APIPs). To learn more about each of these initiatives click here
Latest News from ECB
January 12, 2010: Earthquake strikes in Haiti
On January 12 (22:00 GMT), Haiti, poorest and second-most densely populated country in the western hemisphere, was hit by a major earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale. This is the largest earthquake recorded in Haiti in 200 years. The UN OCHA reports that the most affected cities are Port-au-Prince, Carrefour and Jacmel. The IFRC estimates that up to 3 million people have been affected and “…national authorities believe there will be a serious loss of life” (source for entire paragraph: www.reliefweb.int).
The 6 global agencies participating in the ECB Project (CARE, Catholic Relief Services, Mercy Corps, Oxfam, Save the Children and World Vision) have initiated emergency relief efforts – please visit their individual websites for updates on how they are responding.
The tools and approaches developed by these agencies and their partners over five years of collaborative capacity building work offer many opportunities to improve the quality of the support provided to the communities affected by the Haiti earthquake. The Good Enough Guide to Impact Measurement and Accountability in Emergencies offers a set of basic guidelines on how to be accountable to local people and measure programme impact in emergency situations and contains a variety of tools on needs assessment and profiling. Its 'good enough' approach emphasises simple and practical solutions and encourages the user to choose tools that are safe, quick, and easy to implement, even in the early stages of a disaster response. The Good Enough Guide is available in French.
As emergency teams are rapidly formed and deployed, experience suggests that trust is one of the most important factors in launching timely and effective emergency responses. Building Trust in Diverse Teams: The Toolkit for Emergency Response is a toolkit designed for use early in a response to strengthen working relationships and promote good communication and information sharing between the NGOs, partners, national and local government departments, and UN institutions. Building Trust in Diverse Teams supports humanitarian practitioners, human-resource departments, and regional and head-office emergency professionals as they improve team effectiveness during an emergency – and ultimately improve their ability to save lives.
The ECB community stands ready to support emergency response staff deployed to assist those affected, and champion our collective commitment to continually improve the speed, quality, and effectiveness of the humanitarian community to save lives, improve the welfare, and protect the rights of people affected by emergency situations. More news will follow soon.
DFID (UKaid) support new ECB staff development programme
Humanitarian agencies currently use a variety of methods and organizational structures to deliver humanitarian assistance during emergencies. However, irrespective of approach, there are challenges over the quantity and quality of personnel and leadership skills in both national and international NGOs engaged in humanitarian response. Supported by the Department for International Development (DFID), a new partnership programme with the Consortium of British Humanitarian Agencies (CBHA) will seek to address these challenges. Discover how the ECB project will develop and deliver a staff development programme piloted across ECB consortia countries. Read more
ECB Joint Accountability Training & Cyclone Aila Review in Bangladesh
An inter-agency training that took place between 18 -20 August at the BRAC Center in Dhaka, Bangladesh provided the ECB Bangladesh consortium with their first opportunity to review their understanding and implementation of accountability tools and practices in emergencies. This workshop also created an important learning space for ECB agencies, field staff and partners to openly review their accountability activities following Cyclone Aila earlier this year. Read more
New Practitioners Guide to Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)
What is DRR, and how do we reduce risk to disasters in various contexts, in both humanitarian and development scenarios? These questions are frequently asked by field staff and were recently discussed at the ECB Bellagio conference on DRR. Following this event, the team of ECB - DRR advisors are taking forward a new concept that will help field workers to answer these critical questions. Read more
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