Amongst its key conclusions, the IASC’s Kenya RTE found:

“...that once mobilized, that the IA humanitarian response was significant and met many beneficiary needs. However, the response and mitigation measures were delayed despite clear early warning data. This can be prevented in the future by investing in scalable DRR programming, and augmenting the IA community’s collective ability to create dynamic analyses and contingency planning that guide better forward leaning decision making.”

The ECB Project’s Accountability and Impact Measurement (AIM) advisers are currently providing feedback on the report.

The report joins the paper A Dangerous Delay by ECB agencies Oxfam and Save the Children and the Humanitarian Practice Network (HPN) publication System Failure in making the case for an overhaul of the way that early warning data is used and acted upon by humanitarian agencies.

A tripartite collaboration between UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), ECB Project agencies and The Assessment Capacities Project (ACAPS) is being explored in Kenya to improve the capacity of agencies to carry out coordinated needs assessments.

These conversations will represent an excellent opportunity to build on the robust and practical relationships already developed with ACAPS in ECB’s other consortia countries.

The ECB Project will support OCHA’s preparedness approach, facilitated and supported by ACAPS.  This could further link together the ECB Project and OCHA initiatives, and potentially strengthen UN and NGO country-wide assessment preparedness.

Meanwhile the ECB Uganda country team is developing a harmonised community vulnerability capacity assessment (VCA) tool under the leadership of Oxfam.

A common approach was developed and field-tested in two locations, and is now being used to help two communities develop preparedness plans:

With potential benefits to 177 households, this activity is aligned to ECB Project commitments under the theme of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR).

ECB agency staff were particularly keen to involve local authorities; this widespread support resulted in 25 District Disaster Management Committees trained on the application of the tools.

The ECB Global Field Project Manager will give his feedback to the module’s design team. Meanwhile, the draft module has been circulated amongst ECB stakeholders so they too may offer voluntary feedback.

Each of the five ECB consortia has a CEP, the function of which is to focus on collaborative activities that will:

The CEPs also enable each agency to clearly communicate field-level priorities with their head office.

The Niger event brought together participants from CARE, Catholic Relief Services, Save the Children and World Vision to review some of the challenges and successes of the past twelve months.

In one example, the agencies in attendance concluded they were keen to continue building on the success of the recent Joint Needs Assessment (JNA) process in which seven leading aid agencies called on donors to act to prevent humanitarian disaster in the region.

Proposed new CEP activities for Year 5 of the ECB Project include further training on accountability and capturing some of the lessons learned from the application of accountability tools, plus implementation of the WASH E-Learning module under development by Oxfam.

The ELRHA Guide to Constructing Effective Partnerships is based on the organisation’s report "Effective Academic-Humanitarian Collaboration: A Practical Resource to Support Academic and Humanitarian Organisations Working Together" and draws on the evidence base of six core case studies.

The first of these examines the collaboration between the University of East Anglia and Oxfam, the latter working on behalf of the ECB Project, to create “an evidence-based methodology and practical guidance on impact assessment for field staff across the sector”. This new impact measurement methodology has been undergoing field-testing in Guatemala and will eventually become part of ECB’s Good Enough Guide to Impact Measurement, to be released later in 2012.

Hosted by the Humanitarian Practice Network at the London headquarters of the Overseas Development Institute, the launch event brought together representatives from a wide variety of academic and humanitarian actors.

Speakers at the event included:

The ELRHA Guide to Constructing Effective Partnerships is available now both as an online resource and as a free Android smartphone application for use in poor coverage areas (search “ELRHA Effective Partnerships”).

Standing Team members from CARE UK and Mercy Corps are currently in Bolivia preparing for a workshop this week that will bring together members of the ECB consortia agencies, United Nations agencies and other actors in the field to discuss how to better incorporate the principles of accountability and impact measurement  into their work. 

In Bangladesh, AIM experts from Mercy Corps and World Vision will be deployed until May 6 in order to assess and document current practices in accountability and impact measurement, and to then advise and assist consortium agencies on improving and developing their practices accordingly.

During their deployments both teams will be using and providing feedback on the new Standing Team Toolkit. Updates on the progress of the deployments can be found on the AIM Standing Team blog.

The first Standing Team workshops were held in late 2011, and the workshop reports are now available:

Download ECB Standing Team, AIM Fundamentals learning workshop: THE REPORT.

Download ECB Standing Team, Joint Evaluation Workshop Report Lessons Learned.

Both workshops were documented in real time on the AIM Standing Team blog, including live online broadcasts. Each session is presented on the blog, and key learning and discussion points are summarized. In addition, participants and ECB members, in particular AIM Advisers, added comments.

Hugh Earp, the ECB Project Shelter Accountability Advisor, hosted by CARE UK, has just spent three weeks in Côte d'Ivoire supporting the humanitarian country team and the Shelter Cluster there.

Hugh's role has been to support and collaborate with many agencies, beyond just the ECB member agencies, including:

Two components of the mission were to:

Workshops were conducted to address both components, and reports from the various aspects of this mission will be available shortly on the ECB Project website.

Standing Team members from CARE UK and Mercy Corps Colombia will deploy to Bolivia to facilitate a five-day Accountability and Impact Measurement workshop beginning April 23.

In Bangladesh, a deployment will take place from April 22 to May 6, including staff from Mercy Corps and World Vision India. The deployment will assess and document current practices in accountability and impact measurement towards disaster-affected communities, and then advise and assist consortium agencies in improving and developing their practices accordingly.

During their deployments both teams will be using and providing feedback on the new Standing Team Toolkit. Updates on the progress of the deployments can be found on the AIM Standing Team blog.

On April 12-13 Linda Poteat will visit in New York City to meet senior officials from the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR). Linda will meet with Margareta Wahlström, Special Representative to the Secretary-General on Disaster Risk Reduction, as well as her deputy Helena Molin-Valdes. Linda will speak on a humanitarian policy panel for the Inter-Agency Standing Committee / Executive Committee on Humanitarian Affairs (IASC/ECHA), attend the UN’s Thematic Debate on Disaster Risk Reduction and meet with academics from New York University’s Center on International Cooperation.

For more information, contact us.

Source: Agence France Presse, April 11, 2012 and CRS Indonesia Country Representative.

The case study focuses on the learning from implementing the ECB Project multi-agency simulations at the national level between April 2010 and March 2012, using the ECB Simulations Administrators Guide.

In this period, nine simulations were successfully conducted in all five ECB consortia including three in Bangladesh, one in Bolivia, Indonesia and Niger, three in the Horn of Africa (two in Kenya and one in Uganda), involving a total of more than 200 participants from over 50 agencies.

The simulations were all multi-agency, facilitated by staff experienced in running such events from global, regional and national levels. Where possible, national staff work alongside international facilitators in order to build a cadre of national staff experienced in facilitating simulations.

The simulations case study highlights five key recommendations for future simulation organisers and facilitators:

1. Start planning at least three months in advance
Learning and debriefing carried out by ECB simulation organisers and facilitators has consistently highlighted that the time required to organise a simulation – particularly a multi-agency initiative – is frequently underestimated

2. Get the budget right
Cost can vary considerably depending on where the simulation is held and can range from $5,000 to $25,000.

3. Get the right people in the room
Senior staff should not delegate attendance to another staff member as this is unlikely to happen in an emergency – simulations need to have decision-makers in the room in order to role-play decision-making in an emergency response.

4. The debrief is the most important part of the simulation.
The debrief provides an essential space for reflection on opportunities and recommendations to improve practice.

5. Experienced facilitators are essential
The role of the simulation facilitator is to ensure participants feel stretched and challenged but in a way that enables positive learning to be established. This requires a specific skill set in a facilitator.

Download the simulations case study in English, French and Spanish. Visit our ECB case study library.

The learning journeys of 41 participants have already begun at the residential workshops being run in Bangladesh and will last throughout the first two weeks of April. The dynamic and interactive events on Core Skills and Management & Leadership Skills have attracted humanitarian professionals from international NGOs including ACF, CARE, Concern Worldwide, HelpAge, Islamic Relief, Muslim Aid, Oxfam, Save the Children, World Concern and World Vision.

In addition, there are 12 participants from national NGOs, whose costs are subsidised either by INGO partners or by The Directorate General for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO), the largest donor for ENHAnce.

Meanwhile, potential participants can still apply for the ENHAnce events in Niger until the 6th of April.  Staff from any agency in the region are invited to apply for the program, which has already met with enthusiastic support from the staff of ECB Project member agencies.

Participants in either the Core Skills or Management & Leadership Skills training programs will have the opportunity to take advantage of 3- to 4-day workshops; 1-to-1 coaching sessions; self-directed learning; buddy groups and an emergency simulation.

The inter-agency AIM Standing Team supports improved accountability practices across ECB agencies, through field deployments to build capacity, collaboration and learning.

Improving accountability and impact measurement is a multi-faceted task, so the six ECB agencies found that addressing these issues collectively provided a more powerful approach. The Standing Team comprises members from all six ECB agencies, who are experienced humanitarian staff with the necessary accountability, monitoring, evaluation, and assessment experience.

Three Standing Team members from Mercy Corps, Save the Children and World Vision, will be deployed to Bangladesh for one to two weeks, in order to assess and document current practice of accountability and impact measurement.

The team will then advise and assist consortium agencies on improving and expanding such practice. 

Team members will be using and will provide feedback on the standing team toolkit.

The ECB Project website has a range of accountability materials including an online Good Enough Guide in English, French and Spanish and as a PDF in 13 languages.

The tool is under development, led by Oxfam GB’s EFSL program, which aims to assist those affected by humanitarian crisis to prevent malnutrition and to protect, diversify and recover their livelihoods.

The five-day training session covered the rationale, contextualisation and adaptability of the new tool and brought together representatives from 16 organizations including:

Feedback from the event will be incorporated into a final version of the tool, also to be translated into local language, which is planned for release in June or July 2012.

In the meantime, the findings of the pilot training will be fed into:

A facebook page will be created for those interested in following progress. Check the ECB Project facebook page for a link to the new page when it goes live.

The final of the five workshops was held in Niger on Monday 26 March, in advance of the second practitioner's guide summit to be held in Bangkok 3 – 6 April 2012.

The workshops brought together key country stakeholders to:

The workshops are a critical step in the process, to ensure that the end product is practical and accessible for a practitioner audience. The guide will be published by August 2012.

Feedback from the consultation workshops is currently being put together by the consortia. This will be reviewed and considered by the consultants responsible for the development of the guide, prior to the Bangkok summit, supported by Save the Children.

In this period, nine simulations were successfully conducted in all five ECB consortia including three in Bangladesh, one in Bolivia, Indonesia and Niger, three in the Horn of Africa (two in Kenya and one in Uganda), involving a total of more than 200 participants from over 50 agencies.

The simulations were all multi-agency, facilitated by staff experienced in running such events from global, regional and national levels. Where possible, national staff work alongside international facilitators in order to build a cadre of national staff experienced in facilitating simulations.

The simulations case study highlights five key recommendations for future simulation organisers and facilitators:

1. Start planning at least three months in advance
Learning and debriefing carried out by ECB simulation organisers and facilitators has consistently highlighted that the time required to organise a simulation – particularly a multi-agency initiative – is frequently underestimated

2. Get the budget right
Cost can vary considerably depending on where the simulation is held and can range from $5,000 to $25,000.

3. Get the right people in the room
Senior staff should not delegate attendance to another staff member as this is unlikely to happen in an emergency – simulations need to have decision-makers in the room in order to role-play decision-making in an emergency response.

4. The debrief is the most important part of the simulation.
The debrief provides an essential space for reflection on opportunities and recommendations to improve practice.

5. Experienced facilitators are essential
The role of the simulation facilitator is to ensure participants feel stretched and challenged but in a way that enables positive learning to be established. This requires a specific skill set in a facilitator.

Download the simulations case study in English. The case study will soon be available in French and Spanish. Visit our ECB case study library.

As a result of funding provided by The Directorate General for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO), we are working with selected clusters in order to support the clusters and their members in improving accountability to affected populations.

The ECB Project will be working with the Shelter Cluster and the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Cluster, building on work that Oxfam recently implemented with the WASH Cluster, to further develop tools such as the WASH Accountability Checklist and provide accompanying resources for emergency response staff.

The objectives of this project include:

The main purpose of each of these objectives, however, is to support agencies in developing their own accountability systems, so the objectives remain flexible according to the needs of each agency.

The majority of this work is funded by DG ECHO together with World Vision International funding to support deployments within both WASH and Shelter Clusters.

The shelter component of this work will be undertaken by Hugh Earp, who recently joined the ECB Project as Shelter Accountability Advisor. Hugh is hosted by CARE International UK. Deployments to the WASH Cluster are being coordinated by Lucy Heaven-Taylor, Program Officer Accountability for Oxfam GB and one of the ECB Accountability and Impact Measurement (AIM) Advisors.

Additionally, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Task Team on the Cluster Approach (TTCA) Sub-Group on Accountability to Affected Populations recently developed an Operational Framework to ensure downward accountability of all international actors.

This framework was endorsed by the IASC Principals in December 2011. ECB Project agencies worked with the TTCA Sub-Group since their inception in 2010, and through working together it is clear that this latest ECB Project initiative could further support the TTCA Sub-Group’s joint activity workplan. For example, the deployments undertaken as part of this ECB Project activity will be used by the TTCA Sub-Group in order to pilot the Operational Framework.

Read more about the initiative and download WASH Accountability Resources and the The WASH Accountability Checklist.

The Participant Charge is the only financial contribution which participants’ organisations are required to pay. Accommodation and meals during workshops are covered at no extra cost to the participants’ organisations.

There are two separate learning programmes:

ENHAnce supports participants to learn through various methods including two 3 to 4 day workshops; 1-to-1 coaching sessions; self-directed learning; buddy groups and an emergency simulation.

Niamey (Niger), March 21, 2012 – According to a recent field study conducted in communities in western and eastern Niger, between 70 and 90 per cent of people estimate their food stocks will run out before the next harvest, creating an imminent ‘hunger gap’. A full 100 percent of families surveyed say they have already reduced the amount of food consumed each day because they do not have enough to eat.

The study was conducted by the Assessment Capacities Project (ACAPS) and the ECB Project, with input from the World Food Programme and the Government of Niger. It is the latest in mounting evidence pointing to a potentially massive humanitarian disaster in the Sahel if the world does not respond quickly with urgently-needed assistance to those already in crisis, and mitigation activities to prevent more families from going hungry.

In the villages we see more and more mothers not being able to feed their children more than once a day. We can’t wait any longer. We can’t wait until it becomes one meal every second day, and those children are starving, and suffer crippling, life-long effects from malnutrition,” said Johannes Schoors, Country Director of CARE Niger. “Many families haven’t recovered from the 2005 and 2010 crises. They need help now.”

While in a typical year the hungry season, when people usually start cutting back on meals, does not usually start until May or June, the surveyed communities in Diffa and Tillabéri said that this year it has already started, and that the situation is already critical and will get worse. Key findings of the assessment include:

Instability in neighbouring countries is making things worse, communities said. Remittances have plummeted since people cannot move freely for work, a typical coping strategy, and refugees from conflict in Mali have crossed into Niger, putting additional strain on families already facing food shortages.

People are arriving exhausted, hungry and in need of the very basics. But Niger is struggling to cope with the influx of refugees and the extra strain is pushing families to the brink of survival," said Chris Palusky, World Vision's Food Crisis Response Manager for Mali and Niger. "Poor villages have been overwhelmed with people, some expanding seven-fold in just a few months, with refugees forced to live in overcrowded homes and makeshift shacks. Time is running out to support host families before they themselves reach breaking point. A large and speedy response will not only save lives but strengthen communities who are already bearing the brunt of this disaster."

Some 13 million people are at risk from a food crisis in the Sahel region of West and Central Africa, including one million children at risk of severe malnutrition. Erratic rains and an attack of pests and locusts destroyed entire harvests in 2011, leaving families with nothing to eat through this year’s hungry season. High food and fodder prices are leaving people with few options. In Niger alone, more than six million people are at risk of hunger; nearly two million of those are in critical need of food and assistance now.

People in Niger are facing a multifold crisis. This year, we’re witnessing a lethal cocktail which is putting enormous strain on households across the country. Following several crisis since 2005, their coping mechanisms have reached their limit and already pushed thousands over the edge,” said Samuel Braimah, Country Director of Oxfam in Niger. “The worst can be avoided and thousands of lives will be saved if we act now. It's that simple.”

Based on the results of the assessment, the seven agencies recommend the following:

Download the full report in English and French:

- Joint Needs Assessment Tillabéry and Diffa Regions – NIGER
- Evaluation conjointe des besoins dans les régions de Tillabéry et Diffa - NIGER

Read further details at www.acaps.org.   

For further information, and to arrange interviews, please contact members of the Emergency Capacity Building Project - a coalition including CARE, Catholic Relief Services, Mercy Corps, Oxfam, Plan International (ECB Niger Consortium), Save the Children and World Vision: