IWG principals
The ECB project is lead by the Inter-Agency Working Group (IWG) in each of our six member agencies. The Principals are leaders within their organizations for activities including emergency response programming, surge capacity, logistics, human resources, and innovation.
Barbara Jackson, CARE ECB Principal
CARE International’s Humanitarian Director Barbara Jackson has led CARE’s humanitarian and development work in several countries, including ECB consortia countries Bangladesh, Uganda, Ethiopia and Bolivia.
CARE’s engagement with the ECB project builds upon our organizational principle that working in partnership will enable the humanitarian community to have impact to deepen and expand emergency response capacities as well as contribute to building resilience for communities across the globe.
As noted by one of CARE’s Country Directors recently: “The ECB project has taught us how to work together effectively, to maximize our resources and collective commitment, and to optimize opportunities for learning for vulnerable communities as well as government partners.”
Bill Canny, CRS ECB Principal
Bill Canny is the Director of Emergency Operations, based at Catholic Relief Services’ headquarters in Baltimore. Prior to serving in this position he lived and worked in Djibouti, Burkina Faso, Niger, Switzerland, and Haiti.
Immediately following the earthquake in Haiti, Bill returned to help lead the response and brought with him several ECB tools. He ensured that existing and new staff were familiar with the ECB Good Enough Guide in order to assure standards were applied during the traumatic weeks following the earthquake. While Bill has long promoted evaluation measures and emergency preparedness, since leading the emergency team he regularly champions throughout CRS the value of the ECB project and its focus on accountability, disaster risk reduction and staff capacity.
“ECB’s emphasis on collaboration is just what the humanitarian sector needs in order to best help those suffering”.
Michael Bowers, Mercy Corps Principal
Michael Bowers is senior director of strategic response and global emergencies for Mercy Corps. In this capacity, he is responsible for increasing competitiveness, enhanced quality and accountability. He also leads and supports emergency operations globally. From 1999-2006, Michael was country director for countries including Afghanistan, Albania, Croatia and Kyrgyzstan. In 2007 he served as regional program director for Central, East and South Asia covering China, Mongolia and Pakistan among others. With Mercy Corps, he has directed the agency’s activities in sub-Sahara Africa, the Balkans and Asia managing programs in health, shelter, agriculture and economic development.
Graham MacKay, Oxfam ECB Principal
For me the greatest impact of the ECB is in country level preparedness for emergencies. This could be agencies working closely together on a range of issues - cooperation in each of the consortia countries, the focus on national staff capacity development or the focus on disaster risk reduction. If ECB were to make strong advances in each of these areas it would help Oxfam's and other's operations and ultimately make the biggest difference to those affected by disaster.
"The key thing for me about ECB is agencies working together and pooling resources on common goals."
Michael Klosson, Save the Children ECB Principal
The ECB Project is an important platform for us to achieve elements of our Strategic Plan that relate to humanitarian response. We view the ECB Project as a way to drive results for the Agency and to enable the achievement of our mission. In recognition of the obvious synergies between ECB objectives and Save the Children’s own organizational change, activities related to improved emergency response capacity are not differentiated between ECB and other emergency response initiatives. ECB is fully integrated into Save the Children’s emergency programming.
The Project has helped us advance our emergency response efforts through the development and improvement of tools, enhanced coordination amongst peer agencies, improved capacity of staff, dialogue with and exposure to a community of like-minded colleagues and opportunities for joint programming. Throughout the past year I have seen first hand the benefits of ECB related collaborative work from joint evaluations in Haiti, to beneficiary complaints mechanisms in Pakistan to emergency simulations and SPHERE trainings in Bangladesh.
"As we have seen, increasingly frequent and larger disasters are causing harm to greater numbers of children and families. The world’s capacity to respond is being stretched, and the ECB Project represents a model for strengthening our collective ability to save lives and alleviate suffering."
Ian Ridley, World Vision ECB Principal
Ian Ridley is World Vision International’s Senior Director, Humanitarian Operations. After serving with the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) in Azerbaijan and Haiti, he joined World Vision International in 1999, and has had key roles in remaking World Vision’s approach to relief and disaster preparedness.
In his current position, Ian has a strong interest in, and impact on, the issues of Accountability & Impact Measurement, Disaster Risk Reduction and Staff Capacity within WVI’s relief operations, and is committed to cooperation with other humanitarian agencies and maximizing the ECB Project’s impact within the organisation.
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