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Self Report 2017

The self-report on WHS Commitments below is organized according to the 24 transformations of the Agenda for Humanity. It is based on commitments pledged at the time of report submission. Click on the 'Expand' symbol to expand each section and read the reporting inputs by transformation.

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2D
Take concrete steps to improve compliance and accountability

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility

  • Tearfund commits to ensure prevention of gender-based violence is prioritised throughout all phases of humanitarian response, in line with the Call to Action and IASC GBV guidelines.


  • Operational
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

  • Tearfund commits to mobilise and facilitate the active engagement of faith groups in preventing and responding to sexual and gender-based violence in crisis contexts.


  • Operational
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

  • What led your organization to make the commitment?

    Tearfund is driven to ensure that all programmatic needs assessments are incorporating a gender focus by following IASC guidelines. Tearfund commits to mobilise and facilitate the active engagement of faith groups in preventing and responding to sexual and gender-based violence in crisis contexts. This is a standardised model in all of Teafund’s operational programmes.

  • Achievements at a glance

    So far Tearfund has achieved the following:
    - IASC GBV guidelines have been incorporated in all proposals and emergency strategies by Tearfund’s Emergency Response Committees.
    - In the DRC Tearfund has trained community and faith leaders in how to speak out and respond to SGBV, plus preventing and supporting survivors of SGBV.
    - Trained all staff in Middle East program on responding to sexual assault .
    - Approved policy and revised guidance document on safety and security for Tearfund staff, with a focus on SGBV and responding to sexual assault.

  • How is your organization assessing progress

    Tearfund is currently developing a stronger Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEAL) framework to assess the impact of SGBV projects across all countries.

  • Challenges faced in implementation

    On of the main challenges faced so far is up-skilling all members of Tearfund’s Emergency Response Register, as there is a lack of SGBV humanitarian programme experience and members do not feel well equipped.

  • Next step to advance implementation in 2017

    TANDEM (Tearfund's Approach in Disasters E-Learning Modules) is a website of online training modules and information to support Tearfund staff and partners in disaster response programmes. Tearfund’s next step to advance the implementation of these WHS commitments is to incorporate SGBV into an emergency response so that all staff are equipped.

  • If you had one message for the annual report on what is most needed to advance the transformation 'Take concrete steps to improve compliance and accountability', what would it be

    In order to ensure all IASC SGBV guidelines are fully mainstreamed and implemented it is essential to build the capacity and knowledge of local staff in how to implement these guidelines.

  • Cross cutting issues

    ☑Gender

3D
Empower and protect women and girls

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility

  • Tearfund commit to ensuring that women and girls are protected, their needs are met, and that their ability to engage in decision making is enhanced, as this is a proven strategy for increasing the effectiveness of humanitarian action as a means of building resilience for all members of families and communities.


  • Operational
  • Leave No One Behind

  • Tearfund commits to proactively address the harmful social and gender norms in humanitarian responses, empowering and protecting women and girls.


  • Operational
  • Leave No One Behind

  • What led your organization to make the commitment?

    Tearfund aims to address social and gender norms through a number of initiatives. One of these is through Community Action Groups (CAGs). These are set up with the aim to develop and up-skill 15 members of a community that are trained in law, referral pathways, income generating activities (IGAs), counselling and advocacy. For example in Colombia in areas of guerilla warfare with paramilitary, high numbers of forced displacement and sexual violence, Tearfund aims to build capacity of churches and public actors to support survivors and support survivors in church-based support groups.

  • Achievements at a glance

    In Burundi the diocese of Matana, Tearfund has had the following achievements:
    - 149 young people (71 young men and 78 girls) educated and sensitized on SGBV;
    - 37 local church leaders trained on SGBV;
    - 36 couples sensitized and trained on SGBV;
    - 22 local committees to fight against SGBV established in 22 local churches in Bukemba community;
    - testimonies of families changing their behaviour;
    - 10 trauma healing and counselling centres established on 10 local churches.

    Tearfund is also piloting new base-line research with Queen Margaret University around social connections in Kurdistan region of Iraq to ensure that SGBV responses are contextualised and appropriate, building on existing community resources.

  • How is your organization assessing progress

    Tearfund conducts baseline, midline and endline surveys to track progress against the objectives set in the projects. The Community Action Groups (CAGs) are evaluated on a biannual basis and Knowledge Attitude Practice (KAP) surveys are also conducted on a regular basis.

  • Challenges faced in implementation

    Some of the challenges faced include:
    - Difficulty in changing values that shape the long-held and often harmful attitudes around gender and social norms.
    - Short term and abrupt funding streams often disrupt project implementation.
    - Delays in start dates of funding also causes disruptions.
    - Limited capacity of staff.
    - In many countries the ongoing violence and civil unrest affects the ability to access vulnerable beneficiaries.

  • Next step to advance implementation in 2017

    Tearfund will be translating the guide ‘Transforming Masculinities: Social attitudes and practices of men in relation to gender’ into French, Spanish and Swahili. Tearfund’s strategy is to have a SGBV point person in each region, and where possible strategic countries, in order to manage SGBV programme budgets, liaise with donors, build staff capacity and network with local NGOs/local faith groups. The We Will Speak Out coalition, of which Tearfund is on the Steering Committee, continues to work together to expand the influence of the coalition.

  • If you had one message for the annual report on what is most needed to advance the transformation 'Empower and protect women and girls', what would it be

    It is essential to engage with young people and reach them at a younger age so that they know their rights and also challenge harmful gender and social norms as soon as possible before they become adults.

  • Cross cutting issues

    ☑Gender

  • Other related Agenda for Humanity transformations

    ☑2D - Take concrete steps to improve compliance and accountability

4A
Reinforce, do not replace, national and local systems

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility

  • Tearfund commit to keeping affected persons at the centre of all assistance planned and provided, maintaining robust beneficiary feedback mechanisms.  


  • Operational
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

  • Tearfund commits to deliver change within its own organisational ways of working so that southern-based actors can play an increased and more prominent role in humanitarian response. It will therefore commit to the implementation of the Charter for Change by May 2018.


  • Operational
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

  • Tearfund commits to expand the evidence base identifying the role and added value of using local and national partners in humanitarian response. This will be done through identifying what factors create an effective enabling environment between national governments, local NGOs and the international community.


  • Policy
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

  • Tearfund commits to promote cash transfer programming with national and local level NGOs and innovating with new ways of using cash programming within community based mechanisms and social safety nets.


  • Advocacy
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

  • What led your organization to make the commitment?

    In relation to these 4 commitments Tearfund is:
    - Modifying our Quality Standards to incorporate good practice on beneficiary feedback.
    - Working on improving our systems so that we can assist partners in demonstrating the Common Humanitarian Standards (CHS) in their practises, and by capturing data on the flow of funding from Tearfund to partners.
    - Using research reports like Shifting the Power, Walking the Talk and Transforming Surge Capacities, which will be discussed and developed into management actions across Tearfund systems and procedures.
    - Supporting the increased use of cash transfer programming (incl multipurpose cash) where appropriate.

  • Achievements at a glance

    Tearfund has made the following achievements concerning the commitment on cash:
    - Provided funding or supported access to funding to 12 partner organizations to implement cash transfer programming out of which 5 were pilot projects.
    - Provided organizational capacity assessments and targeted capacity building programmes for approximately 100 partner staff in cash transfer programming in seven countries.
    - Supported the evaluation of partner implemented cash transfer programs and the resulting learning process.
    - Commissioned research into innovative delivery of cash transfer programming through Self Help Groups.

  • How is your organization assessing progress

    Reviewing how we build capacity practises and the value of cash programming for national NGOs in small to medium scale disasters, which be rolled out across a series of countries. Tearfund’s Cash Adviser is responsible for assessing progress on all of these achievements in collaboration with the Humanitarian Support Team. Data concerning the different activities is collected internally through the data management reporting systems. These systems are currently being updated to be able to record pertinent details concerning cash transfer programmes. For the other commitments this is a work in progress across the humanitarian, technical and country teams.

  • Challenges faced in implementation

    Legislation both at the international and national which places heavy conditionality on the transfer of funds to conflict affected settings, and this restricts us working with local partners in some settings.

  • Next step to advance implementation in 2017

    Tearfund is updating its Quality Standards and rolling out to ensure accountability and impartiality is communicated and implemented by local partners. Tearfund continues to invest in capacity building of national organizations to deliver cash transfer programmes through: organizational capacity assessments, targeted capacity building programmes, support in accessing funding. Tearfund will invest in mainstreaming cash transfer programming in preparedness, response and recovery activities globally. Tearfund is currently undertaking research into the delivery of cash grants in emergencies through community networks, this will inform next steps. Tearfund is working through a ECHO funded project to support localisation in a number of countries.

  • Cross cutting issues

    ☑Cash

4C
Deliver collective outcomes: transcend humanitarian-development divides

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility

  • Tearfund commits to continuing to work with national governments to recognise and affirm the role of faith and faith based organisations to provide faith-based assistance to communities in need.


  • Advocacy
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

  • Tearfund commits to facilitate improved coordination between faith, state and humanitarian actors.


  • Partnership
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

  • Tearfund commits to improve the understanding between faith-based actors and humanitarian system, to improve accessibility, networking and opportunities for collaboration in response.


  • Training
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

  • What led your organization to make the commitment?

    Tearfund aims to uphold and expand the significant humanitarian response of faith-based organizations. We see this as a core part of our corporate strategy. For example in 2015 following lessons learned from the Ebola crisis, faith leaders were an instrumental part of the response but were overlooked by the humanitarian community. Tearfund therefore committed to improving coordination and communication between local church leaders, faith groups, government, donors and humanitarian agencies.

  • Achievements at a glance

    So far Tearfund has been involved in a number of initiatives including co-developing papers which will influence church based actors on the Church and Resilience. Tearfund is also working on internal procedures. Tearfund with five UK-based charities is championing the empowerment of local organisations in humanitarian response. This advocacy consortium commissioned four research papers promoting the opportunities of reinforcing, rather than replacing, local organisations in emergency response. The latest of these papers highlighted the positive effects of working through local-based partnerships in the Nepal Earthquake in 2015. The consortium presented the report recommendations to the United Nations in Geneva, advocating for a change in power dynamics of the humanitarian system.

  • How is your organization assessing progress

    Tearfund is working with its Humanitarian and Strategy and Impact teams to develop appropriate monitoring and evaluations tools to measure progress. To date there have been two new internal research projects being launched a) to understand the impact of Tearfund's resource Guidelines for Church Leaders in disaster response and b) identifying where there is replicable good practices in the capacity development of our partners for humanitarian response in African contexts.

  • Challenges faced in implementation

    A key challenge is bringing visibility to the importance and role of faith in humanitarian settings. While we are beginning to see a shift in the humanitarian community recognising the part that faith plays, we still face challenges in making this visible to all parts of the humanitarian system.

  • Next step to advance implementation in 2017

    Tearfund’s key priority in the year ahead is to deepen our understanding of the role that the church and faith organisations should play in protection issues in protracted and crisis settings. We will be working with our Global Protection Advisor on this over the coming year. Tearfund will also be actively engaging in the forthcoming Joint Learning Initiative’s International Forum on Localizing Response to Humanitarian Need: The Role of Religious and Faith-based organizations.

  • Cross cutting issues

    ☑Religious engagement

  • Specific initiatives

    ☑Charter for Faith-based Humanitarian Action

  • Other related Agenda for Humanity transformations

    ☑1D - Develop solutions with and for people

5E
Diversify the resource base and increase cost-efficiency

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility

  • Tearfund commits to increase effective, evidence-based monitoring and evaluation of faith based actors, holding itself accountable to the evidence and learning from its evaluations.


  • Operational
  • Invest in Humanity

  • What led your organization to make the commitment?

    A core element of Tearfund’s corporate strategy is maximising impact and scale, therefore what has motivated us to this commitment. We want to create a culture of learning and having greater impact in our work with faith actors in humanitarian response. We are very much on a journey on this process.

  • Achievements at a glance

    Some of these achievements include:
    - In Nepal Tearfund built the capacity of church leaders and members of 10 churches. Disaster management committees were formed to mobilise local resources for preparedness and post-disaster work. Other sub-committees formed were for First Aid, Relief & Rescue Committee and Emergency Fundraising.
    - As a result of lessons learned from cyclone Nargis, Tearfund translated its resource ‘Disasters and the Local Church’ into Burmese to help better equip church leaders for all stages of disaster management. The guidelines proved especially applicable for a local partner organisation as it scaled up operations.

  • How is your organization assessing progress

    Tearfund is currently seeking to understand the impact of Guidelines for church leaders and understanding the good practise in the capacity development of partners for humanitarian response in African settings.

  • Challenges faced in implementation

    A key challenge is bringing visibility to the importance and role of faith in humanitarian settings. While we are beginning to see a shift in the humanitarian community recognizing the part that faith plays, we still face challenges in making this visible to all parts of the humanitarian system.

  • Next step to advance implementation in 2017

    Tearfund will be actively engaging in the forthcoming Joint Learning Initiative’s International Forum on Localizing Response to Humanitarian Need: The Role of Religious and Faith-based organizations. Tearfund’s aims for this conference include strengthening the evidence, and the monitoring of local faith actors.

  • Cross cutting issues

    ☑Religious engagement

  • Specific initiatives

    ☑Charter for Faith-based Humanitarian Action

  • Other related Agenda for Humanity transformations

    ☑4A - Reinforce, do not replace, national and local systems