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ECB consortia develop ground breaking Disaster Response Engagement Protocols

Published on 16 November 2010

Recent disasters in Indonesia and Bangladesh have witnessed significant co-operation and co-ordination between ECB Consortium agencies. Building upon strong relationships and working practice forged through ECB capacity building initiatives, Consortium partners have shared resources, funding and staff in order to ensure the most effective and appropriate response to a wide range of disasters including floods, earthquakes and cyclones of varying severity and impact.

This recent experience of working together in disaster responses provides the inter-agency teams with the opportunity to learn valuable lessons and improve how the agencies may engage in future disasters.

Although, the recent engagement between ECB agencies in disaster responses was effective, it highlighted some areas where it might be useful to define best practice. Consortium agencies with the support of an external consultant set about this task with gusto; seeking to define how ECB agencies should interact in a disaster and develop a common understanding of the rules and models of engagement. ECB agencies identified a number of key areas where better co-ordination and co-operation would significantly improve the speed, quality and effectiveness of their response. These Statement of Principles were slightly different in Indonesia and Bangladesh, but included;

Response Triggers and Co-ordination Meetings
Response Roles and Responsibilities
Rapid Joint Needs Assessment methodologies
Information Sharing
Response Strategies/ Models
Fund Raising and agreements for joint proposals
Developing common advocacy strategies
Staff Safety and Security
Coordination with the wider humanitarian sector and existing coordination mechanism such as the clusters
International Standards

By agreeing upon a set of key principles across these engagement areas, understanding what their obligations to each other should be and identifying a framework and a process through which a spectrum of engagement options would be identified and rapidly enacted, the ECB Consortium partners in Indonesia and Bangladesh now share a common understanding of how they might coordinate during forthcoming emergencies.

The Disaster Response Engagement Protocols in each country share a similar structure, but were developed in different ways. In Bangladesh the Field Facilitator worked with the Consultant upon developing the results of the ECB Rapid Assessment Protocol into a tangible and flexible set of Protocols. In Indonesia, we conducted a detailed consultative and drafting process which included liaison and discussion with Regional and Global offices in order to ensure broader support and endorsement of the policies at senior levels of the Consortium.

The result is a set of Protocols which share a similar root, but that are tailored for the specific dynamics and threat in the two countries. In both cases there was a desire for a usable and practical document, but one which struck a balance between requiring detail in order to avoid ambiguity, and the added value of creating a quick reference guide to refer to under the pressure of initial emergency response.

Building upon the lessons of the West Sumatra Earthquake, where the imperative to respond was sufficient enough to override locally defined engagement and working practice, the Indonesia Protocols are made up of a Quick Reference Flowchart, Response Model Digest, Statement of Principles, Standard Operating Procedures and a set of supporting Annexes. In Bangladesh there is a Statement of Principles supported by visual and graphic representations of where the Consortium is currently at and where it would like to be in the co-ordination of key issues within the Statement of Principles.

The development of these Protocols in both Bangladesh and Indonesia is highly significant. It represents organic development and recognition of the utility of building upon the capacity building foundations of the ECB Project to ensure better co-ordination in order to meet the needs of those affected by disaster. The Disaster Response Engagement Protocols have made some ground breaking progress, such as defining a spectrum of engagement across all disaster response activities in Indonesia, identifying what future/ further engagement should look like in Bangladesh, as well as developing policies and mechanisms for possible joint funding proposals and response in both countries.

The Engagement Protocol development process has also identified areas in which further co-operation is desirable and considered achievable in the medium term – future development may include co-ordinated procurement and supply chain management, detailed interagency contingency planning and joint disaster response team training and capacity building which remain at the heart of the ECB Project objectives.

For both Indonesia and Bangladesh, the Protocols and their development process have been a significant opportunity which will help to ensure that ECB partners are best placed and best able to respond to future disasters in the most effective, timely and highest quality manner possible. A possible next step may to consider adapting the Protocols in other countries such as Bolivia in order to meet the specific needs and requirement of this Consortium.

Furthermore, it is critical to link these Protocols to other future ECB project activities such as Simulations and Joint Needs Assessments. A multi-stakeholder Simulation that brings together national NGOs, government and UN actors during ‘peacetime’ will build further understanding amongst all parties of their various capacities, mandates and constraints, and will ensure that ECB agencies, together with other partners, can engage more effectively with cluster coordination mechanisms in times of emergency.

The engagement Protocols are an important first step; but as a recent experience in Indonesia highlighted, the real proof for these agreements is when they are tested in a real emergency.

Read more about the ECB Indonesia’s first protocol testing experience during a tsunami response on the Mentawai Islands, West Sumatra and following the Mount Merapi volcano eruptions in Yogyakarta and Central Java.

With special thanks to James Staples, a consultant at HumEx, who supported the development of the draft Protocols and the written content for this article.

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