About this Guide

The Emergency Capacity Building (ECB) Project is a collaborative effort of the six agencies of the Inter-agency Working Group on Emergency Capacity: CARE International, Catholic Relief Services, the International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, Oxfam GB, Save the Children, and World Vision International.

These agencies and their partners are jointly addressing issues of staff capacity, accountability and impact measurement, risk reduction and the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in emergencies, with the goal of improving the speed, quality and effectiveness of the humanitarian community in saving the lives, safeguarding the livelihoods and protecting the rights of people affected by emergencies.

This Emergency Simulations Project was conceived as part of the ECB Project to help build NGO staff capacity to prepare for, plan and manage a response to emergency situations. The intent was to provide NGOs active in emergency response with simulation tools that could be easily adapted to the many different hazards and emergency response situations they confront around the world.

This document is intended to guide NGO managers, facilitators and trainers through the preparation and implementation of the simulations prepared under the auspices of the Emergency Capacity Building (ECB) Project. During the project, two emergency preparedness and response simulations were designed, developed, and piloted. This Guide incorporates the lessons learned from those two pilots.

We wish you luck in your capacity-building efforts!