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Self Report 2018

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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  • 1B
    Act early

    Individual Commitments (8)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • As a permanent member of the Security Council, France calls on the UN Secretariat to provide a regularized background briefing to the Council for greater situational awareness, in line with Article 34 of the Charter. France also commits to encourage the Secretary-General to use his perogative under Article 99 of the Charter to brief the Security Council proactively on emerging issues.


    • Advocacy
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts

    • France commits to actively use early warning findings to identify, address and defuse critical risks before they deteriorate into intractable conflicts by using preventive diplomacy tools such as good offices, Peace and Development Advisors, groups of contact and mediation.


    • Operational
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts

    • France commits to strengthen and if necessary, develop comprehensive, shared frameworks for conflict and risk analysis including early warning mechanisms at the local, national, regional and international level.


    • Operational
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts

    • France commits to support the UN's conflict prevention capacities, in particular conflict analysis and the good offices function and will advocate for the use of regular budget funds for conflict prevention.


    • Operational
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts Invest in Humanity

    • France pledges to increase early engagement with countries at risk of conflict, their regional partners and relevant regional/sub regional organizations, using tools such as timely visiting missions,interactive dialogues, and the role of the Presidency.


    • Operational
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts

    • France requests that the Secretary-General develop a comprehensive plan to strengthen conflict prevention at the United Nations based on lessons learnt and recommendations emanating from the Advisory Group of Experts on the 2015 Review of the United Nations Peacebuilding Architecture, the Report of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations and the Global Study on the implementation of resolution 1325, in time for the World Prevention Forum by 2020.


    • Policy
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts

    • France will encourage the United Nations in convening a World Prevention Forum by 2020 to identify how Member States, the UN Secretariat, the Security Council and regional organizations can work more effectively together on conflict prevention and resolution.


    • Policy
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts

    • France commits to take measures to comprehensively reduce risk, vulnerability and fragility, in particular to update its fragility-related national strategy.


    • Operational
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts

    Core Commitments (2)

    • Commitment
    • Core Responsibility
    • Commit to act early upon potential conflict situations based on early warning findings and shared conflict analysis, in accordance with international law.
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts
    • Commit to make successful conflict prevention visible by capturing, consolidating and sharing good practices and lessons learnt.
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts
    1. Highlight the concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2017 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures.

    Since 2014, France has developed its own Early Warning System (EWS) for potential risks. In order to comply with international standards, this mechanism has evolved throughout 2017 and is still evolving: data is widely collected on open sources (international bodies, NGOs, think tanks and universities) for multiple variables (political, social, economic, security, environmental, technological, and distinctive statistical models  based on quantitative indicators are used according to needs. Thus, risks are calculated on a 3 to 12 months period depending on four factors, according to the best practices defined during the International Decade for Natural Disasters Reduction: nature and importance of hazards, degree of exposure, lack of coping capacity and vulnerability.

    Arising recommendations lead to France’s mobilization in preventive diplomacy such as contributions to multilateral initiatives (i.e. to the Basket Fund established by the United Nations Development Program for the upcoming election process in Madagascar). France is also sharing risks assessments and methodologies through specific fora dedicated to early warning and early action mechanisms, both on European and international scenes (i.e. at the Stabilization Leaders Forum), in order to implement comprehensive frameworks for conflict analysis.

    2. A. How are you measuring progress toward achieving your commitments? Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Through existing, internal systems or frameworks for monitoring, reporting and/or evaluation.
    B. How are you assessing whether progress on commitments is leading toward change in the direction of the transformation?

    Risk assessments are registered to be analyzed by machine-learning system (computerised processing of big data in order to identify patterns and correlations with accuracy and rapidity) once events have occurred in order to test and improve the EWS.

    3. A. Please select no more than 3 key challenges faced in implementing the commitments related to this transformation. Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Data and analysis
    • Preparedness
    • Strengthening national/local systems
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    Open-sources data is easily available but not always accurate: acting early requires fine analysis only made possible by combining historical information and data on current situations. Moreover, databases are not always collecting disaggregated data over all territories. For some countries or regions, there is not enough data for structural risk assessment.

    4. Highlight actions planned for 2018 to advance implementation of your commitments in order to achieve this transformation.

    France will continue to develop its own Early Warning System (EWS) to produce risk assessments on a regular basis, yet to be defined, and to share both its method and its results with partners to improve international awareness and to mobilize collective tools of preventive diplomacy for more effectiveness.

    5. What steps or actions are needed to make collective progress to achieve this transformation?

    France will continue to strengthen its dialogue with other European countries on early warning and early action, and in taking part in different fora on that specific topic. Regular meetings will be useful to reach shared conflict analysis with EU and UN. France will also strengthen dialogue with civil society (academic organizations and NGOs) to update its own model of EW.

    6. List any good practice or examples of innovation undertaken individually or in cooperation with others to advance this transformation.

    In 2017, France has focused its efforts on developing early warning capacities dedicated to conflict analysis and is committed to pursue it in this way. Meeting and training the staff working on those issues in different departments helped to develop and define more precisely early warning mechanisms.

     

    Keywords

    Disaster Risk Reduction

  • 1C
    Remain engaged and invest in stability

    Individual Commitments (6)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • France will support cooperation between countries on how to build resilience after crisis and manage complex aid relationships in accordance with the principles of the New Deal for engagement in fragile states.


    • Operational
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts

    • France commits to actively focus on addressing long standing human rights concerns and grievances, including patterns of discrimination and marginalization recognizing this as a key structural cause of conflict and instability within society.


    • Operational
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts

    • France commits to establish Contact Groups or Groups of Friends, when possible and feasible, at the onset of a crisis and use their political leverage for continued support through to post-conflict reconstruction. France commits to provide political support by organizing high-level dialogue, conferences and sustained engagement with a view to mobilizing support to prevent or resolve a crisis. In this regard, France will inter alia support the organization of a high-level meeting for post-conflict recovery in Central African Republic (by the end of 2016).


    • Operational
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts

    • France commits to strengthening the active participation of women and youth in peacebuilding by linking the implementation of the New Deal to the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) and 1612 (2005).


    • Operational
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts Leave No One Behind

    • France commits to take measures to comprehensively reduce risk, vulnerability and fragility, in particular to update its fragility-related national strategy.


    • Operational
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts

    • France will continue to invest in conflict analysis, prevention and resolution capacities, including through the training of the staff working on such issues.


    • Capacity
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts

    Core Commitments (3)

    • Commitment
    • Core Responsibility
    • Commit to improve prevention and peaceful resolution capacities at the national, regional and international level improving the ability to work on multiple crises simultaneously.
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts
    • Commit to sustain political leadership and engagement through all stages of a crisis to prevent the emergence or relapse into conflict.
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts
    • Commit to address root causes of conflict and work to reduce fragility by investing in the development of inclusive, peaceful societies.
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts
    1. Highlight the concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2017 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures.

    Following the Paris Conference on 8 September 2015, France launched a fund to support victims of ethnic and religious violence in the Middle-East. The fund’s objective is two-fold: addressing urgent humanitarian needs, and allowing for the voluntary return to their regions of origin of the populations that have been persecuted. A follow-up committee was set up after the Paris conference. It held its third meeting in January 2017. In May 2017, France took part in the follow-up Conference on victims of ethnic and religious violence in the Middle-East, held in Madrid.

    In support of the G5 Sahel’s decision to launch a joint force (FC-G5S) to counter terrorist activities in the Sahel, France has proposed and supported the adoption of UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions 2359 and 2391. France has provided the force with 9 million EUR worth of equipment and, together with Germany, organized international conferences in June and September 2017 to pledge in favor of international support to the FC-G5S.

    In 2017 in Africa, France supported various programmes and institutions in favor of human rights, such as: the special criminal court in Central African Repubic (CAR) and the justice system in Niger to help it judge suspected terrorists; programmes to prevent conflicts and radicalization  in Cameroon, Niger and CAR; and programs to provide education to former child soldiers and help them in their economic integration in Nigeria and CAR. France also supported projects to look after victims of fighting against their stigmatization and pleading for their rights (Nigeria and CAR).

    2. A. How are you measuring progress toward achieving your commitments? Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Through existing, internal systems or frameworks for monitoring, reporting and/or evaluation.
    • By reporting to, or using reports prepared for, UN principal organs, UN governing boards, or other international bodies
    • Through multi-stakeholder processes or initiatives (e.g. IASC, Grand Bargain, Charter for Change, etc).
    3. A. Please select no more than 3 key challenges faced in implementing the commitments related to this transformation. Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Field conditions, including insecurity and access
    4. Highlight actions planned for 2018 to advance implementation of your commitments in order to achieve this transformation.

    France will pursue its efforts to support victims of ethnic and religious violence in the Middle East, in particular through its dedicated fund.

  • 1D
    Develop solutions with and for people

    Individual Commitments (4)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • France will promote gender and gender based violence risk analysis including the use of community and women informed local early warning mechanisms to identify and defuse conflicts early.


    • Advocacy
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity Leave No One Behind

    • France will continue to strengthen dialogue with civil society, including humanitarian and human rights organizations, with components of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, including the International Committee of the Red Cross and the French Red Cross, and with UN agencies and programmes, in order to reach collective conflict prevention and resolution strategies based on shared conflict analysis.


    • Partnership
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts

    • France will encourage civil society, regional organizations and sub-regional organizations to work on conflict analysis, prevention and resolution, through the organization of regular meetings and conferences, and the strengthening of its communication on humanitarian and human rights issues.


    • Advocacy
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts

    • In line with its second national plan (2015-2018) to implement UN Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) on women, peace and security, France commits to ensuring meaningful participation of women and adolescent girls in all formal and informal decision-making processes from refugee camp committees to peace processes.


    • Operational
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts Leave No One Behind
    1. Highlight the concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2017 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures.

    France conducted regular dialogue with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on questions related to the implementation of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). In this framework, the President of ICRC was invited as guest of honor of France’s “ambassador’s week” organized by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in August 2017. The French Government was also a partner of ICRC in the organization in Paris, in November 2017, of a colloquium to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions.

    Moreover, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) organized several consultations with NGOs in order to prepare for France’s universal periodic review at the Human Rights Council. The MFA also organized several consultations with NGOs, within the framework of the “humanitarian concertation group” in order to prepare its 4th national humanitarian conference (2018) and its new humanitarian strategy. The “humanitarian concertation group” is indeed a formal forum of dialogue between French NGOs and the MFA on humanitarian issues.

    More generally, French authorities have met on a regular basis with French, local and international NGOs to collect their views on the most urgent humanitarian crises. The same dialogue has been conducted with the main UN humanitarian agencies and program.

    2. A. How are you measuring progress toward achieving your commitments? Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Through existing, internal systems or frameworks for monitoring, reporting and/or evaluation.
    • Through multi-stakeholder processes or initiatives (e.g. IASC, Grand Bargain, Charter for Change, etc).
    B. How are you assessing whether progress on commitments is leading toward change in the direction of the transformation?

    As regards the preparation of France’s humanitarian strategy, the dialogue with NGOs was essential to collect the civil society’s views on humanitarian challenges and their solutions and to adapt the strategy to today’s challenges.

    4. Highlight actions planned for 2018 to advance implementation of your commitments in order to achieve this transformation.

    France will pursue its dialogue with civil society organizations, UN organizations and ICRC on humanitarian issues, especially with regards to the implementation of its new humanitarian strategy.

     

    5. What steps or actions are needed to make collective progress to achieve this transformation?

    Efforts must be pursued to include the views of civil society organizations, be they local or international, on humanitarian issues. This is notably important when international conferences on specific countries are organized, such as the Brussels Conference on Syria.

    6. List any good practice or examples of innovation undertaken individually or in cooperation with others to advance this transformation.

    The regular consultations organized by the French MFA with NGOs, in order to prepare its new humanitarian strategy, is an example of how civil society can be associated to the reflection on humanitarian challenges.

  • 2A
    Respect and protect civilians and civilian objects in the conduct of hostilities

    Joint Commitments (1)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • France remains particularly committed to enhance the exchange of information, the technical assistance and cooperation on countering improvised explosive devices presenting one of the largest threats to the civilian population. To that extent, France has, inter alia, co-authored resolution A/RES/70/46 with Afghanistan and Australia and is currently coordinating, together with the Republic of Moldova, an informal group of experts under Amended Protocol II to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (Vienna, 3 May 1996).


    • Operational
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    Partners: Afghanistan, Australia, Moldova

    Individual Commitments (5)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • In light of the publication in 2015 of the Ramos-Horta and Rosenthal reports, the fifteen-year anniversary of the "women, peace and security" agenda and the ten-year anniversary of the first resolutions on the protection of children in armed conflict (2017), as a permanent Member of the Security Council, France is engaged to identify ways to improve and strengthen UN action on the contribution of peacekeeping operations to the protection of civilians.


    • Operational
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • France commits to collect and exchange good practices and lessons learned in avoiding and minimizing impacts on civilians and civilian objects, especially in the conduct of hostilities, and to develop and promote practical proposals for protecting civilians, including by strengthening cooperation and coordination between humanitarian actors and armed forces, while fully respecting the principles of action of humanitarian actors, namely humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence.


    • Operational
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • France commits to support programs aimed at clearing explosive remnants of war (ERW) including by providing training for relevant countries and organizations and commits to support public information campaigns, education and training, and liaison with communities aimed at reducing the risk of injury from explosive remnants of war (ERW) including by providing training for relevant countries and organizations.


    • Training
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • France will host an international conference in 2017, in order to promote the protection of children in armed conflict, a decade after the adoption of the Principles and Guidelines on Children Associated with Armed Forces or Armed Groups ("the Paris Principles").


    • Operational
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • In the framework of the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, France commits to exchange on good practices to protect cultural properties in the event of armed conflicts.France also pledges to continue to ensure the dissemination of IHL related to the protection of cultural properties in armed conflict to its military personnel.


    • Operational
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
    1. Highlight the concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2017 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures.

    As regards explosive remnants of war (ERW), France continues to deliver assistance for the clearance of ERW to numerous countries, on a bilateral basis, in the UN framework, and through NGOs. For instance, France provides direct and financial support to the Center for Humanitarian Demining Training (CPADD), in Benin. France has also sent experts for short-term training missions in several States, and provides training to the Iraqi internal security forces. Moreover, France includes mine-removal teams when deploying armed forces: they carry out clearance operations and provide sustainable capacity-building by sharing their expertise with local teams.

    As announced in its WHS commitments: 10 years after the adoption of  Paris commitments and Paris principles, France organized in Paris in February 2017, in partnership with UNICEF, a high level conference to set up renewed international mobilization for the protection of children in armed  conflict.  To this date, 108 countries have endorsed these texts.

    2. A. How are you measuring progress toward achieving your commitments? Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • By reporting to, or using reports prepared for, UN principal organs, UN governing boards, or other international bodies
    3. A. Please select no more than 3 key challenges faced in implementing the commitments related to this transformation. Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Multi-stakeholder coordination
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    The number of relevant international fora and the diversity of actors involved can pose a challenge for the international coordination of efforts in the fight against Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).

    4. Highlight actions planned for 2018 to advance implementation of your commitments in order to achieve this transformation.

    France aims to maintain efforts in planning, funding and carrying out assistance programs and awareness campaigns focused on ERW. As regards the fight against Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), France is further planning to support discussions in international fora in order to increase cooperation.

    France will continue, in line with UNICEF, to promote universalization of Paris Principles and Paris commitments, as underlined in its new humanitarian strategy (2018-2022) adopted in March 2018.

    5. What steps or actions are needed to make collective progress to achieve this transformation?

    • A preventive approach combining awareness-raising, training of armed forces, and data recording and sharing is key to fighting the scourge of ERW.
    • A comprehensive approach (awareness-raising, armed and security forces training, exchange of best practices) is also necessary to counter the effects of IEDs.

    Keywords

    IHL compliance and accountability, Protection

  • 2B
    Ensure full access to and protection of the humanitarian and medical missions

    Individual Commitments (8)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • As a permanent member of the Security Council, France commits to use leverage and influence in order to facilitate and ensure safe humanitarian access to all people in need in armed conflict.


    • Advocacy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • France also commits to continue to offer international humanitarian law and human rights law training for foreign armed forces


    • Training
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • France also commits to contribute to the effective implementation of Security Council resolution 2175 (29 August 2014) on protection of humanitarian personnel.


    • Operational
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • France commits to continue to actively promote the principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence in humanitarian action, including by implementing its partnership both with the International Committee of the Red Cross (Convention of 22th of October 2014) and the French Red Cross (Convention of 9th of September 2014).


    • Advocacy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • France has promoted and commits to contribute actively to the effective implementation of Security Council resolution 2286 (3 May 2016) aimed at strengthening the protection of health care in armed conflict. France also pledges to continue to strengthen and consolidate military rules of engagement and operational practice to include measures to protect the delivery of humanitarian assistance, in particular health care.


    • Policy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • France is committed to train armed forces to respect the obligation to allow and facilitate rapid, safe and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief and pledge to support impartial humanitarian actors' efforts to engage in dialogue with, and operate in areas controlled by, non-state armed groups. France is committed to enhance close cooperation between its armed forces and humanitarian actors in order to facilitate and ensure humanitarian access to all people in need.


    • Training
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • France re-commits to the proper and coherent use, and the effective coordination of foreign military assets in humanitarian action, taking into account the necessary respect of the humanitarian principles.


    • Operational
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • In accordance with its national legislation, France will continue to ensure the obligation to respect and protect humanitarian and health care workers and facilities against attack and to train the military on the applicable legal framework for the protection of health care, as well as ethical duties of health care personnel.


    • Policy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    Core Commitments (2)

    • Commitment
    • Core Responsibility
    • Commit to ensure all populations in need receive rapid and unimpeded humanitarian assistance.
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
    • Commit to promote and enhance efforts to respect and protect medical personnel, transports and facilities, as well as humanitarian relief personnel and assets against attacks, threats or other violent acts.
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
    1. Highlight the concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2017 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures.

    In 2017, France conducted training courses in international humanitarian law (IHL) to foreign officers of troops contributing countries to United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, in conjunction with the International Organization for La Francophonie (IOF). Since the beginning of this program in 2016, more than one hundred African and Asian officers have benefited from the training.

    Moreover, France actively participated in the training of the Malian and Central African Armed forces within the framework of the European Union Training Mission (EUTM) in Mali and Central Africa, and provided similar training to the G5 Sahel’s task force. One of the main objectives of the EUTM is to ensure the respect of IHL by these Armies.

    Finally, in 2017, legal advisers of the ministry for the Armed Forces continued to teach IHL and international human rights law (IHRL) to national and foreign soldiers in various fora such as in the International Institute for Humanitarian Law of San Remo with which France has a partnership.

    With regards to the protection of the humanitarian and medical personnel, France organized on October 31 2017 in New York, in the framework of its presidency of the UN Security Council (UNSC), a ministerial event on this subject. At the end of this event, 13 UN Member States endorsed a political declaration proposed by France, in which they committed to strengthening their national legislation and operational practices for the protection of healthcare in armed conflict, in line with UNSC resolution 2286.

    2. A. How are you measuring progress toward achieving your commitments? Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Through existing, internal systems or frameworks for monitoring, reporting and/or evaluation.
    • By reporting to, or using reports prepared for, UN principal organs, UN governing boards, or other international bodies
    3. A. Please select no more than 3 key challenges faced in implementing the commitments related to this transformation. Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Adherence to standards and/or humanitarian principles
    • Field conditions, including insecurity and access
    • IHL and IHRL compliance and accountability
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    With regards to the protection of humanitarian and medical personnel, the multiplication of attacks against the latter, has made it increasingly difficult to promote actions to ensure this protection.

    4. Highlight actions planned for 2018 to advance implementation of your commitments in order to achieve this transformation.

    For the first time in 2018, France will conduct training courses on “the protection of women in armed conflicts” to nationals of a Member State of NATO at the San Remo International Institute of Humanitarian Law.

    France will pursue its efforts to rally more support to its initiative launched in October 2017 for the protection of medical personnel. As announced during the 4th national humanitarian conference (2018), it will also pursue its efforts to enhance the protection of humanitarian personnel.

    5. What steps or actions are needed to make collective progress to achieve this transformation?

    It is essential that all UN Member States collectively strive to enhance the protection of humanitarian and medical personnel, in order to preserve the essential mission of relief they undertake.

    Keywords

    IHL compliance and accountability

  • 2C
    Speak out on violations

    Individual Commitments (1)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • France is committed to support efforts to track, collect data, and report on trends of violations of international humanitarian law.


    • Operational
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    Core Commitments (1)

    • Commitment
    • Core Responsibility
    • Commit to speak out and systematically condemn serious violations of international humanitarian law and serious violations and abuses of international human rights law and to take concrete steps to ensure accountability of perpetrators when these acts amount to crimes under international law.
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
    1. Highlight the concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2017 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures.

    The fight against impunity is a priority, to help held those responsible of IHL violations accountable. France is fully mobilized, particularly in international organizations, to ensure that perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria are placed under their responsibility and accountable to the courts.

    France fully supports the resolution adopted at the UN General Assembly on 21 December 2016 at the initiative of Liechtenstein, which France co-sponsored, and which aims to establish an "international, impartial and independent inquiry mechanism" (IIIM) under the control of the United Nations to facilitate investigations and to assist in the trial of those responsible for the most serious crimes in international humanitarian and human rights law committed in Syria since March 2011. This mechanism is a first step before those responsible can be judged.

    France welcomes the Security Council’s adoption, on 21 September 2017, of resolution 2379 on the fight against impunity for crimes committed by Daesh in Iraq. The aim of this text co-sponsored by France is to establish an investigative team to assist the Iraqi authorities.

    France also supports projects to document crimes committed by Daech against people belonging to minorities in Syria and Irak, notably Yazidis. The objective is to collect testimonies and proof in order to allow for the opening of legal proceedings.

    2. A. How are you measuring progress toward achieving your commitments? Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Through existing, internal systems or frameworks for monitoring, reporting and/or evaluation.
    • By reporting to, or using reports prepared for, UN principal organs, UN governing boards, or other international bodies
    • Through multi-stakeholder processes or initiatives (e.g. IASC, Grand Bargain, Charter for Change, etc).
    3. A. Please select no more than 3 key challenges faced in implementing the commitments related to this transformation. Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Data and analysis
    • Multi-stakeholder coordination
    • Strengthening national/local systems
    4. Highlight actions planned for 2018 to advance implementation of your commitments in order to achieve this transformation.

    France will remain mobilized on these issues, as highlighted in its new humanitarian strategy adopted in March 2018. It is financing the IIIM for Syria. France will keep the fight against impunity high on the agenda of the UN bodies.

    Keywords

    IHL compliance and accountability

  • 2D
    Take concrete steps to improve compliance and accountability

    Joint Commitments (1)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • France reaffirms its support to the United Kingdom led PSVI "Declaration of Commitment to End Sexual Violence in Conflict".


    • Policy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    Partners: United Kingdom

    Individual Commitments (11)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • France will promote gender and gender based violence risk analysis including the use of community and women informed local early warning mechanisms to identify and defuse conflicts early.


    • Advocacy
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity Leave No One Behind

    • As party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court since its establishment, France promotes universal adherence to it and commits to continue to fully cooperate with the International Criminal Court.


    • Policy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • At national level, France commits to pursue the implementation of its strategy on the protection of civilians and commits to designate focal points in relevant government branches responsible for promoting respect for international humanitarian law and human rights law through diplomatic, economic and military relations.


    • Operational
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • France also commits to developing and implementing strategies for the involvement of men and boys as part of the solution to prevent and respond to gender-based violence in crisis. France has sponsored a resolution at UNESCO on school-related gender-based violence and leads cooperation programmes in this field with three West African countries.


    • Policy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • France also commits to ensuring that its national legislation on sexual and gender-based crimes is in line with international standards and to implement General Recommendation 30 of the CEDAW Committee on Women in Conflict and Post-Conflict Situations.


    • Policy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity Leave No One Behind

    • France commits to continue its efforts to sue alleged foreign authors of crimes perpetrated abroad on foreign victims that usually reside in France, through its specialized section of judges, prosecutors and investigators on torture, genocide, crime against humanity and war crime.


    • Operational
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • France commits to continue to improve and strengthen implementation of national legislation outlawing all forms of sexual and gender-based violence, exploitation or abuse.


    • Policy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • France commits to promoting the Call to Action and its Roadmap.


    • Policy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • France has proposed in 2013 the suspension of the veto in case of mass atrocities through an informal, voluntary and collective agreement by the five permanent members of the Security Council. In order to set an example and draw the path for the future, France has committed itself unilaterally not to use the veto against a credible draft UN Security Council resolution aimed at ending or preventing mass atrocities (Speech by the French President before the United Nations General Assembly, 28 September 2015).


    • Policy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • France is prohibiting members of its armed forces who have not attained the age of 18 years from taking a direct part in hostilities, and calls upon other countries to do so.


    • Operational
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • France reaffirms its commitments to end sexual violence in conflicts, including those made in its second national action plan (2015-2018) to implement UN Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) on women, peace and security.


    • Policy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity Leave No One Behind

    Core Commitments (4)

    • Commitment
    • Core Responsibility
    • Commit to promote and enhance respect for international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and refugee law, where applicable.
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
    • Commit to speak out and systematically condemn serious violations of international humanitarian law and serious violations and abuses of international human rights law and to take concrete steps to ensure accountability of perpetrators when these acts amount to crimes under international law.
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
    • Implement a coordinated global approach to prevent and respond to gender-based violence in crisis contexts, including through the Call to Action on Protection from Gender-based Violence in Emergencies.
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
    • Fully comply with humanitarian policies, frameworks and legally binding documents related to gender equality, women's empowerment, and women's rights.
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity Leave No One Behind
    1. Highlight the concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2017 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures.

    IHL and IHRL compliance and accountability

    France supports the International Criminal Court (ICC) and promotes the universality of the Rome Statute in all international fora, but also in its bilateral relations.

    France provides intensive cooperation with the Court, and in particular the Office of the Prosecutor. France is in fact the State that cooperates most with ICC. In this framework, France and Senegal hosted a conference in Paris in 2017 to strengthen cooperation between the ICC and the States Parties to the Rome Statute, related to the recovery of assets. This initiative led to the adoption, in December 2017 in New York, of a declaration strengthening methods of cooperation with the Court in this field, thus notably contributing to improved compensation for victims.

    With regards to the issue of withdrawals from African countries, France remains fully mobilized and has initiated a dialogue with all countries involved, both bilaterally and within the framework of the European Union.

    2. A. How are you measuring progress toward achieving your commitments? Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Through existing, internal systems or frameworks for monitoring, reporting and/or evaluation.
    • Through multi-stakeholder processes or initiatives (e.g. IASC, Grand Bargain, Charter for Change, etc).
    B. How are you assessing whether progress on commitments is leading toward change in the direction of the transformation?

    Working groups in The Hague or New-York as well as the annual Assembly of State Parties give the opportunity for State parties to discuss about ICC issues and to observe progress made or to build on.

    3. A. Please select no more than 3 key challenges faced in implementing the commitments related to this transformation. Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Funding amounts
    • Institutional/Internal constraints
    • Strengthening national/local systems
    4. Highlight actions planned for 2018 to advance implementation of your commitments in order to achieve this transformation.

    In the framework of the 20th anniversary of the Rome Statute, France will organize in 2018 an event to raise public awareness. 

    5. What steps or actions are needed to make collective progress to achieve this transformation?

    It is essential that the international community continues its efforts so that perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity are held accountable and brought to justice.

    6. List any good practice or examples of innovation undertaken individually or in cooperation with others to advance this transformation.

    The seminar co-hosted by France and Senegal in Paris in October 2017 on the recovery of assets is a good example of international partnership to foster increased cooperation between ICC and the States Parties to the Rome Statute.

    Keywords

    IHL compliance and accountability

  • 2E
    Uphold the rules: a global campaign to affirm the norms that safeguard humanity

    Individual Commitments (6)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • As a party to the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, the Arms Trade Treaty, the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, France commits to continue to promote universal adherence to them.


    • Policy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • France commits to continue to engage constructively in an intergovernmental process, based on the principle of consensus after the adoption of Resolution 2 of the 32nd Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and in line with the guiding principles enumerated in operative paragraph 1 of the Resolution to find agreement on features and functions of a potential forum of States and to find ways to enhance the implementation of IHL using the potential of the International Conference in order to submit the outcome of this intergovernmental process to the 33rd International Conference.


    • Partnership
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • France commits to examine the possibility of its accession to the Second Protocol to the Hague Convention of 1954 for the Protection of Cultural Property in the event of armed conflicts (The Hague, 26 March 1999).


    • Policy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • France commits to promote the universal ratification of the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance and to call upon all State Parties to the Convention to declare that they recognize the competence of the Committee on Enforced Disappearances to receive and consider communications. France commits to support the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, which work is complementary of the action of the Committee on enforced disappearances.


    • Policy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • France commits to promoting the universal ratification of the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court as well as the ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Optional Protocol.


    • Advocacy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity Leave No One Behind

    • In accordance with Resolution 1 of the 32nd Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, France is actively committed in the pursuit of further in-depth work, in accordance with this Resolution, with the goal of producing one or more concrete and implementable outcomes in any relevant or appropriate form of a non-legally binding nature with the aim of strengthening protection and providing legal safeguards including against unlawful detention for all persons deprived of their liberty in relation to armed conflict, in particular in relation to non-international armed conflict.


    • Policy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    Core Commitments (1)

    • Commitment
    • Core Responsibility
    • Commit to promote and enhance respect for international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and refugee law, where applicable.
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
    1. Highlight the concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2017 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures.

    In 2017, France acceded to the Second Protocol to the Hague Convention of 1954 for the Protection of Cultural Property in the event of armed conflicts (The Hague, 26 March 1999).

    On arms treaties:

    • Regarding Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), France was in 2017 co-coordinator of the experts group under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) amended Protocol II, before assuming the presidency of that protocol for 2018.
    • Regarding the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), France was a member of its management committee in 2017, and has been vice-president of the Conference of state parties since September that year. It actively participates in numerous assistance programs that aim to promote the universalization and effective implementation of this treaty.
    • France has also assumed in mid-2017 the presidency of the 3rd Review Conference of the UN Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) in All Its Aspects (PoA), which will be held in New York at the end of June 2018. While recognising that the PoA is not a legally-binding instrument of international law, France believes it contributes to the operationalisation and synergies between many norms that safeguard humanity.

    France also continued to take an active part in the negotiations to implement resolution 2 of the 32nd Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. With regards to resolution 1: on April 2017, France participated in the first formal meeting of States. Since then, the process has been suspended.

    2. A. How are you measuring progress toward achieving your commitments? Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Through existing, internal systems or frameworks for monitoring, reporting and/or evaluation.
    • Through multi-stakeholder processes or initiatives (e.g. IASC, Grand Bargain, Charter for Change, etc).
    • Other: Creation of donor-recipient coordination groups aimed at boosting the complementarity between projects assisting West Balkan countries (fight against SALW trafficking).
    B. How are you assessing whether progress on commitments is leading toward change in the direction of the transformation?

    The provisions laid down in the Second Protocol to the Hague Convention of 1954 were already applied before France’s accession.

    3. A. Please select no more than 3 key challenges faced in implementing the commitments related to this transformation. Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Human resources/capacity
    • Institutional/Internal constraints
    • Multi-stakeholder coordination
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    Fear of administrative / resource burdens may discourage some governments from adhering to a number of arms Treaties. After adhesion, the lack of resources may hinder the full implementation of some provisions. Conversely, efforts at remedying such constraints through assistance programs for ratification and implementation require careful coordination.

    4. Highlight actions planned for 2018 to advance implementation of your commitments in order to achieve this transformation.

    France will pursue its diplomatic efforts for the universalization of arms treaties. It will also continue providing cooperation and assistance to requesting States to steer coordinated implementation of the ATT, through funds allocated to the Treaty’s Voluntary Trust Fund, through the European Union’s outreach efforts, and through bilateral assistance.

    France will, moreover, continue to participate actively in the negotiations to implement resolution 2 of the 32nd Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent.

    5. What steps or actions are needed to make collective progress to achieve this transformation?

    Advocacy by UNESCO and the relevant international organizations is needed to convince the States which are not party to the Second Protocol to accede to it.

    Political will and diplomatic mobilisation can help foster the universalisation of the main international instruments promoting peace, security and stability. Efforts to strengthen compliance with international humanitarian law must be pursued to enhance protection of civilians in armed conflict.

    6. List any good practice or examples of innovation undertaken individually or in cooperation with others to advance this transformation.

    In 2017, together with the United Arab Emirates, France created the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas (ALIPH) foundation with a view to protecting cultural heritage in conflict areas.

    Keywords

    IHL compliance and accountability

  • 3A
    Reduce and address displacement

    Individual Commitments (16)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • Recognizing the importance of financing long-term refugee and internally displaced persons caseloads in protracted crises and of countries hosting these refugees as a global public good, France commits to using its position on the Boards of the International Financial Institutions, and as a contributor to their concessional funds, to ensure that they deliver a relevant, coherent and cost effective response to the challenge of the consequences of fragility, disasters, and crises.


    • Advocacy
    • Leave No One Behind Invest in Humanity

    • France commits to address the protection needs of people displaced across borders in the context of disasters and climate change, in particular through the promotion and implementation of the Protection Agenda of the Nansen Initiative at relevant levels, and through its active engagement within the new Platform on Disaster Displacement.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

    • France commits to strengthen measures to prevent and avoid disaster-induced displacement by integrating this risk into climate change adaptation and disaster risk management strategies.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

    • France will also continue to facilitate access to civil registration and documentation for refugees, including birth registration, identity cards and other personal documentation.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind

    • France will continue its assistance programmes in favor of countries with large numbers of displaced population and initial countries of reception.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind

    • France will continue to ensure the full and effective implementation of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol and actively promote their universal ratification.


    • Policy
    • Leave No One Behind

    • France will continue to expand the legal, social and economic opportunities for refugees to access to education, health care, livelihoods and labor markets, without discrimination.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind

    • France will continue to promote refugees' legal rights to a secure stay in host countries, including through adequate, safe and dignified reception conditions and registration.


    • Advocacy
    • Leave No One Behind

    • France will continue to provide free access to education to refugee children in France.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind

    • France will ensure special attention is given to girls and women in hosting zones, so that their safety is guaranteed.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind

    • France will help countries to address the causes of internal displacement, and to support the voluntary return home in safety and dignity, local integration or settlement elsewhere if needed.


    • Policy
    • Leave No One Behind

    • France will help integrate refugees and IDPs into national development plans, in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind

    • France will promote and continue to implement its commitment towards legal pathways for admission of refugees, including resettlement and humanitarian admission, family reunification, and educational opportunities.


    • Advocacy
    • Leave No One Behind

    • France, through its assistance programs, will also create incentives for countries with large IDP populations, to prevent potential tensions between communities and ensure IDPs’ full enjoyment of their rights, in accordance with the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind

    • To do so, France will prioritize solutions that improve the self-reliance and resilience of IDPs and host communities.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind

    • France will develop partnerships to encourage innovative approaches to support the self-reliance of refugees and IDPs.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind

    Core Commitments (5)

    • Commitment
    • Core Responsibility
    • Commit to a new approach to addressing forced displacement that not only meets immediate humanitarian needs but reduces vulnerability and improves the resilience, self-reliance and protection of refugees and IDPs. Commit to implementing this new approach through coherent international, regional and national efforts that recognize both the humanitarian and development challenges of displacement. Commit to take the necessary political, policy, legal and financial steps required to address these challenges for the specific context.
    • Leave No One Behind
    • Commit to promote and support safe, dignified and durable solutions for internally displaced persons and refugees. Commit to do so in a coherent and measurable manner through international, regional and national programs and by taking the necessary policy, legal and financial steps required for the specific contexts and in order to work towards a target of 50 percent reduction in internal displacement by 2030.
    • Leave No One Behind
    • Acknowledge the global public good provided by countries and communities which are hosting large numbers of refugees. Commit to providing communities with large numbers of displaced population or receiving large numbers of returnees with the necessary political, policy and financial, support to address the humanitarian and socio-economic impact. To this end, commit to strengthen multilateral financing instruments. Commit to foster host communities' self-reliance and resilience, as part of the comprehensive and integrated approach outlined in core commitment 1.
    • Leave No One Behind
    • Commit to collectively work towards a Global Compact on responsibility-sharing for refugees to safeguard the rights of refugees, while also effectively and predictably supporting States affected by such movements.
    • Leave No One Behind
    • Commit to actively work to uphold the institution of asylum and the principle of non-refoulement. Commit to support further accession to and strengthened implementation of national, regional and international laws and policy frameworks that ensure and improve the protection of refugees and IDPs, such as the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol or the AU Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (Kampala convention) or the Guiding Principles on internal displacement.
    • Leave No One Behind
    1. Highlight the concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2017 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures.

    Refugees

    France actively takes part in the elaboration of the Global Compact on refugees to be adopted in 2018. In this framework, France recalls the importance of the Convention of 1951 relating to the Status of Refugees, which must remain the central reference of the formal consultations on the Global Compact. Moreover, France advocates for shared responsibility between countries of origin, of transit, and of destination.

    Cross-border, disaster and climate related displacement

    France has taken an active role in the activities of the Platform on Disaster Displacement, including by promoting the Agenda for the Protection of Cross-Border Displaced Persons in the Context of Disasters and Climate Change.

    2. A. How are you measuring progress toward achieving your commitments? Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • By reporting to, or using reports prepared for, UN principal organs, UN governing boards, or other international bodies
    • Through multi-stakeholder processes or initiatives (e.g. IASC, Grand Bargain, Charter for Change, etc).
    B. How are you assessing whether progress on commitments is leading toward change in the direction of the transformation?

    France considers that only a coordinated response will be efficient to strengthen the protection of refugees. In this regard, the Global Compact is an important tool to foster such coordination.

    3. A. Please select no more than 3 key challenges faced in implementing the commitments related to this transformation. Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Multi-stakeholder coordination
    • Preparedness
    • Strengthening national/local systems
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    Efforts must be pursued to achieve better international coordination to assist refugees.

    4. Highlight actions planned for 2018 to advance implementation of your commitments in order to achieve this transformation.

    • France will continue to take an active part in the elaboration of the Global Compact on refugees.
    • France will also remain active with regards to the Platform on Disaster Displacement, as it has taken on the vice-presidency in January 2018.

    5. What steps or actions are needed to make collective progress to achieve this transformation?

    The International community must address the root causes of forced displacement by providing political solutions to crises and creating the conditions for women and men to live with dignity in the country of origin or in the first country of asylum.

  • 3D
    Empower and protect women and girls

    Individual Commitments (15)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • France will promote gender and gender based violence risk analysis including the use of community and women informed local early warning mechanisms to identify and defuse conflicts early.


    • Advocacy
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity Leave No One Behind

    • France also commits to continuing, and tailoring to crisis settings, its support to the implementation of the targets for the 2030 Agenda on maternal, newborn and adolescent health to ensure safe delivery, emergency obstetric, ante-natal and post-natal services in crisis settings, improved access to information, voluntary family planning, and basic items for safe delivery and sanitary supplies, necessary medical and psychological services for SGBV survivors as well as improved capacity of health systems and workers with immediate effect.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind

    • France also commits to ensuring increased access for women to assistance programmes, sustainable and dignified livelihoods, vocational and skills training opportunities throughout the humanitarian programme cycle by 2020.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind

    • France also commits to ensuring that its national legislation on sexual and gender-based crimes is in line with international standards and to implement General Recommendation 30 of the CEDAW Committee on Women in Conflict and Post-Conflict Situations.


    • Policy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity Leave No One Behind

    • France commits to improve gender and equality mainstreaming in all humanitarian interventions, in compliance with its international and national commitments, including its second national action plan on Women, Peace and Security (2015-2018) and its Gender and Development Strategy (2013-2017).


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind

    • France commits to improve gender and equality mainstreaming in all humanitarian interventions, including disaster risk reduction and management programs, in compliance with its international and national commitments, including the French Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security (2015-2018) and the Gender and Development Strategy (2013-2017).


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

    • France commits to joining the Secretary General's Every Woman Every Child Everywhere (EWECE) initiative and corresponding roadmap, by 2017, to work to end all preventable deaths of women and adolescent girls in crisis settings.


    • Policy
    • Leave No One Behind

    • France commits to promoting the universal ratification of the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court as well as the ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Optional Protocol.


    • Advocacy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity Leave No One Behind

    • France commits to strengthening the active participation of women and youth in peacebuilding by linking the implementation of the New Deal to the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) and 1612 (2005).


    • Operational
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts Leave No One Behind

    • France commits to support partnership with local and national women-led groups and other gender-sensitive humanitarian actors to provide them with capacity building and mentoring to increase their ability to deliver in humanitarian settings, in a way that both meets the needs of women and girls as well as meaningfully involves them in program design, delivery and monitoring.


    • Policy
    • Leave No One Behind

    • France commits to the participation of civil society, including local women's groups, and the private sector in the design, implementation and monitoring of disaster risk management policies and programs.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

    • France reaffirms its commitments to end sexual violence in conflicts, including those made in its second national action plan (2015-2018) to implement UN Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) on women, peace and security.


    • Policy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity Leave No One Behind

    • France will ensure special attention is given to girls and women in hosting zones, so that their safety is guaranteed.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind

    • In line with its second national plan (2015-2018) to implement UN Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) on women, peace and security, France commits to ensuring meaningful participation of women and adolescent girls in all formal and informal decision-making processes from refugee camp committees to peace processes.


    • Operational
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts Leave No One Behind

    • To achieve these goals, France set up the French Muskoka Fund for maternal, newborn and adolescent health in 2011 for a five-year period. The Fund has recently been extended with a focus on young people access to sexual and reproductive health and rights, and an annual budget of EUR 10 million in 2016. It is implemented by four UN agencies.


    • Financial
    • Leave No One Behind Invest in Humanity

    Core Commitments (4)

    • Commitment
    • Core Responsibility
    • Empower Women and Girls as change agents and leaders, including by increasing support for local women's groups to participate meaningfully in humanitarian action.
    • Leave No One Behind
    • Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the Outcome documents of their review conferences for all women and adolescent girls in crisis settings.
    • Leave No One Behind
    • Ensure that humanitarian programming is gender responsive.
    • Leave No One Behind
    • Fully comply with humanitarian policies, frameworks and legally binding documents related to gender equality, women's empowerment, and women's rights.
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity Leave No One Behind
    1. Highlight the concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2017 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures.

    In June 2010, France and G-8 States committed to mobilizing 7 billion EUR of official development assistance in order to support the achievement of Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 related to maternal, newborn and child health. France had agreed to allocate 500 million EUR over 5 years to priority countries of French ODA.

    In 2015, France reaffirmed its commitment by creating the French Muskoka Fund, implemented by 4 UN Agencies (WHO, UNFPA, UN Women and UNICEF) aimed at reducing maternal and child mortality in eight West-African countries. France will continue its support in this domain through this Fund, the French Development Agency interventions, and funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

    Moreover, in order to contribute to the promotion of sexual and reproductive rights, France announced in 2017 its support to the SheDecides movement, and pledged 1.5 million EUR to UNFPA’s action in Chad, Niger and Lebanon towards ensuring Syrian refugees’ access to sexual and reproductive health services.

    France's second national action plan on Women, Peace and Security (2015-2018) was elaborated through an inter-ministerial process and led to close consultation with civil society. As part of its commitment, France organized an open debate on “Women, peace and security” during its presidency of the UN Security Council in October 2017.

    2. A. How are you measuring progress toward achieving your commitments? Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Through existing, internal systems or frameworks for monitoring, reporting and/or evaluation.
    • By reporting to, or using reports prepared for, UN principal organs, UN governing boards, or other international bodies
    • Through multi-stakeholder processes or initiatives (e.g. IASC, Grand Bargain, Charter for Change, etc).
    B. How are you assessing whether progress on commitments is leading toward change in the direction of the transformation?

    •  Meetings of an inter-ministerial steering committee are organized regularly, with the ad hoc participation of the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH) and the High Council on Equality between Women and Men (HCE).
    • CNCDH conducted a mid-term assessment of the plan at the end of 2016.

    3. A. Please select no more than 3 key challenges faced in implementing the commitments related to this transformation. Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Data and analysis
    • Institutional/Internal constraints
    • Multi-stakeholder coordination
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    • Plans and strategies to improve gender and equality mainstreaming in France’s international interventions involve several stakeholders, which can prove challenging.
    • Since most humanitarian interventions target vulnerable populations without actually discriminating according to gender, it is sometimes difficult to measure accurately how gender and equality mainstreaming have been improved.

    4. Highlight actions planned for 2018 to advance implementation of your commitments in order to achieve this transformation.

    • France will pursue its support to the SheDecides movement. In this regard, an additional 10 million EUR has already been pledged for 2018.
    • France's second national action plan on Women, Peace and Security will be assessed by Parliament by the end of 2018.
    • As outlined in its new humanitarian strategy (2018-2022), France will apply the OECD’s gender marker to all of its bilateral humanitarian projects and will continue to advocate for multilateral agencies to include it.

    5. What steps or actions are needed to make collective progress to achieve this transformation?

    All countries must strive to fight against the regression of women’s rights around the world. As outlined in its new humanitarian strategy (2018-2022), France will pursue its efforts in this regard, especially through the framework of its new International Strategy for Gender Equality, presented on 8 March 2018.

     

    6. List any good practice or examples of innovation undertaken individually or in cooperation with others to advance this transformation.

    France’s new International Strategy for Gender Equality focuses on an inclusive approach, which aims to develop exchanges and feedback between NGOs, the private sector in the framework of corporate social responsibility, academics, and the administration.

    Keywords

    Gender

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

    Individual Commitments (18)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • France commits to develop and establish a "local" marker for its humanitarian programs, as a guideline, in order to assess if a project is well enough designed to ensure that it reinforces and does not replace national and local capacity and to foster partnerships between international and national and local actors.


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

    • France commits to develop and make greater use of financing tools that support front line response.


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

    • France commits to develop coverage of shock responsive social protection systems, introduce safety nets in fragile contexts, and move chronically affected populations onto these programs.


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

    • France commits to increase direct humanitarian financing to national and local institutions, and to increase its financing for development in support to national and local institutions, including in fragile and conflict affected countries.


    • Financial
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity

    • France commits to increase investment in building community resilience as a core foundation of national risk management efforts, the key elements of which could include: raising awareness of critical risks and how all community members may be affected; collaboration between local government, businesses and neighborhoods in tackling their most important risks; ensuring women'€s participation; reinforcing local infrastructure; and improving communities'€™ capacity to provide a coordinated first response.


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

    • France commits to invest in the capacity of frontline responders, particularly to commit to investing in the ability of front-line responding actors to play a leading role in crisis anticipation, response and recovery by: 1) creating incentives for international actors to work in strategic partnerships with local and national civil society organizations that build the long-term organizational and responsive capacity; 2) providing front-line responders with fair and realistic levels of overhead costs in funding awards; 3) supporting the development of national and regional networks of front-line responders and other related capacity-strengthening initiatives including national and regional research and training centers.


    • Capacity
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity

    • France commits to promote a systematic transition from a leading delivery role to an advisory/enabling role to national and local actors.


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

    • France commits to promote principled partnerships between local, national and international actors and humanitarian donors, especially to leverage the value of local and national organizations in humanitarian response, and to provide local and national organizations with robust organizational support and capacity-building.


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

    • France commits to reinforce national and local leadership in natural disaster preparedness and response by tailoring their response to the specific context, using national mechanisms as the default coordination arrangements and ensuring assistance is targeted at filling gaps.


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

    • France commits to stimulate locally devised strategies and services, including livelihood generation and employment opportunities, to reduce dependency and vulnerability before, during and after shocks.


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

    • France commits to strengthening national and local institutional capacity in countries suffering from humanitarian crisis, through the identification of a capacity strengthening mechanism to be launched by 2017.


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

    • France commits to support collective community engagement and accountability as a means to connect community feedback to strategic decision-making processes.


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

    • France commits to support national and local resilience efforts, and provide vulnerable people with a mix of short term assistance to address immediate needs and longer-term assistance to improve self-reliance.


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

    • France commits to support national capacity for risk analysis in risk-prone countries, by way of a whole-of-government approach.


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

    • France commits to work with governments of at-risk and crisis-affected states to play a leading role initiating, organizing, coordinating and implementing crisis-response on their territory, as stated by Art. 4 of UN General Assembly Resolution 14/182.


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

    • France commits to work with national counterparts, wherever possible, to expand access to sustainable social protection systems.


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

    • France confirms its endorsement of the 10 common principles for multi-purpose cash-based assistance, as adopted by the European Council on 22 June 2015, and commits to translate them into operational terms, in appropriate contexts.


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

    • France confirms its endorsement of the 10 common principles for multi-purpose cash-based assistance, as adopted by the European Council on 22 June 2015, and commits to translate them into operational terms, in appropriate contexts.


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

    Core Commitments (6)

    • Commitment
    • Core Responsibility
    • Commit to a new way of working that meets people's immediate humanitarian needs, while at the same time reducing risk and vulnerability over multiple years through the achievement of collective outcomes. To achieve this, commit to the following: a) Anticipate, Do Not Wait: to invest in risk analysis and to incentivize early action in order to minimize the impact and frequency of known risks and hazards on people. b) Reinforce, Do Not Replace: to support and invest in local, national and regional leadership, capacity strengthening and response systems, avoiding duplicative international mechanisms wherever possible. c) Preserve and retain emergency capacity: to deliver predictable and flexible urgent and life-saving assistance and protection in accordance with humanitarian principles. d) Transcend Humanitarian-Development Divides: work together, toward collective outcomes that ensure humanitarian needs are met, while at the same time reducing risk and vulnerability over multiple years and based on the comparative advantage of a diverse range of actors. The primacy of humanitarian principles will continue to underpin humanitarian action.
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need
    • Commit to reinforce national and local leadership and capacities in managing disaster and climate-related risks through strengthened preparedness and predictable response and recovery arrangements.
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need
    • Commit to increase investment in building community resilience as a critical first line of response, with the full and effective participation of women.
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need
    • Commit to ensure regional and global humanitarian assistance for natural disasters complements national and local efforts.
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need
    • Commit to increase substantially and diversify global support and share of resources for humanitarian assistance aimed to address the differentiated needs of populations affected by humanitarian crises in fragile situations and complex emergencies, including increasing cash-based programming in situations where relevant.
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity
    • Commit to empower national and local humanitarian action by increasing the share of financing accessible to local and national humanitarian actors and supporting the enhancement of their national delivery systems, capacities and preparedness planning.
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity
    1. Highlight the concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2017 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures.

    Strengthening national/local leadership and systems

    On the humanitarian side, in 2017, 3.3 million EUR of French humanitarian funding went directly to local and national responders (~10% of its ear-marked funding), much more indirectly. 5.5 million EUR went to OCHA’s pooled funds. France also worked with national governments to reinforce their civil protection, in the framework of the EU (EUCPM, ENPI) and of INSARAG (training, national accreditation, light USAR).

    On the development side, the French Development Agency (AFD) has:

    1. Operationalized France’s advocacy efforts in favor of social protection and universal health coverage. AFD is committed to reinforcing national health and social protection systems.
    2. Created incentives for French NGOs to work in strategic partnerships with local actors and civil society organizations to build long-term solutions.
    3. Endorsed its 2017-2021 Vulnerability and Resilience Strategy promoting actions on the causes of crises and to strengthen resilience.

    2. A. How are you measuring progress toward achieving your commitments? Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Through existing, internal systems or frameworks for monitoring, reporting and/or evaluation.
    • Through multi-stakeholder processes or initiatives (e.g. IASC, Grand Bargain, Charter for Change, etc).
    B. How are you assessing whether progress on commitments is leading toward change in the direction of the transformation?

    • On the humanitarian side, the targets and frameworks set up by the Grand Bargain provide useful tools to monitor the localization of aid.
    • On the development side, AFD has built a set of monitoring indicators to ensure progress is measured and impacts are assessed.

    3. A. Please select no more than 3 key challenges faced in implementing the commitments related to this transformation. Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Adherence to standards and/or humanitarian principles
    • Gender and/or vulnerable group inclusion
    • IHL and IHRL compliance and accountability
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    Growing requirements for accountability, lack of dedicated resources to finance capacity building, especially within a humanitarian context focused on emergency response, and lack of local capacities and instrumentation of local actors can prevent localization in some contexts.

    4. Highlight actions planned for 2018 to advance implementation of your commitments in order to achieve this transformation.

    Within the framework of its new Humanitarian strategy (adopted in March 2018), France has reaffirmed its commitment to design: (i) a capacity building mechanism aiming at strengthening NGOs’ local partners (ii) a localization marker, aiming at assessing our commitments towards local actors. They should be in place in 2019.

    AFD is developing new tools to help strengthen local systems and actors.

    5. What steps or actions are needed to make collective progress to achieve this transformation?

    Reinforcing national and local systems rather than replacing them is part of a wider strategy to bridge humanitarian-development divides. Further coordination between humanitarian and development actors needs to be implemented to fill the existing gap between short term response and long term activities strengthening national and local systems. AFD and MFA are committed to developing a stronger coordination mechanism.

    6. List any good practice or examples of innovation undertaken individually or in cooperation with others to advance this transformation.

    AFD is adapting its operating procedures according to the context of intervention. Therefore the agency searches for complementarity between public actors and civil society to enhance rapid projection on the ground and a long-term strengthening of local actors’ capacities.

    Keywords

    Country-based pooled funds, Humanitarian-development nexus, Local action

  • 4B
    Anticipate, do not wait, for crises

    Individual Commitments (16)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • France commits to address the protection needs of people displaced across borders in the context of disasters and climate change, in particular through the promotion and implementation of the Protection Agenda of the Nansen Initiative at relevant levels, and through its active engagement within the new Platform on Disaster Displacement.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

    • France commits to develop and make greater use of financing tools that support front line response.


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

    • France commits to develop partnerships to strengthen national and local emergency management systems for natural disasters : a) in the framework of the European Civil Protection Mechanism (EUCPM) and the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI), France is committed to help neighbouring countries to enhance their emergency management system for natural disasters, especially through the Programme on Prevention, Preparedness and Response to man-made and natural Disasters (PPRD) East and South, which both invest in national resilience, preparedness and response to man-made and natural disasters; and b) in the framework of the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG), France is committed to develop and reinforce domestic rules, procedures and institutional arrangements for facilitating and regulating international disaster assistance. In particular, France is dedicated to contributing to establish minimum international standards for search and rescue interventions.


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

    • France commits to encourage the private sector to be part of natural disaster response and recovery planning, and to promote business continuity.


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

    • France commits to improve gender and equality mainstreaming in all humanitarian interventions, including disaster risk reduction and management programs, in compliance with its international and national commitments, including the French Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security (2015-2018) and the Gender and Development Strategy (2013-2017).


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

    • France commits to increase investment in building community resilience as a core foundation of national risk management efforts, the key elements of which could include: raising awareness of critical risks and how all community members may be affected; collaboration between local government, businesses and neighborhoods in tackling their most important risks; ensuring women'€s participation; reinforcing local infrastructure; and improving communities'€™ capacity to provide a coordinated first response.


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

    • France commits to reinforce national and local leadership in natural disaster preparedness and response by tailoring their response to the specific context, using national mechanisms as the default coordination arrangements and ensuring assistance is targeted at filling gaps.


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

    • France commits to strengthen disaster preparedness and response through partnership and cooperation amongst practitioners, and to use the Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Week (HNPW) as a platform to develop collaboratively solutions to the recurring challenges faced in local, national, regional and global preparedness and response, including those raised at the World Humanitarian Summit.


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

    • France commits to strengthen measures to prevent and avoid disaster-induced displacement by integrating this risk into climate change adaptation and disaster risk management strategies.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

    • France commits to support national capacity for risk analysis in risk-prone countries, by way of a whole-of-government approach.


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

    • France commits to take a more systematic and integrated approach to risk management through measures that better integrate planning in climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, response and recovery, and through closer collaboration between different sectors and partners, so that investments in each are complementary, and based on a common analysis of risk and costs.


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

    • France commits to the participation of civil society, including local women's groups, and the private sector in the design, implementation and monitoring of disaster risk management policies and programs.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

    • France commits to trigger international response to natural disasters when national capacities are overwhelmed.


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

    • France commits, within the European framework, to assess the vulnerability of critical infrastructure to dominant risks and strengthen it to allow rapid and effective response and recovery, and the opportunity to "build back better".


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

    • France re-commits to, in line with the principles and concepts of the Oslo Guidelines, endorse common humanitarian civil-military standards for deploying, receiving, integrating and coordinating foreign military assets in natural disasters.


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

    • France will commit to achieve the Sendai Framework target to increase people's access to multi-hazard Early Warning Systems, and disaster risk information and assessments by 2030. To do so, France will continue to support the Climate Risk Early Warning Systems (CREWS) initiative, which aims to cover all Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States with efficient Early Warning Systems by 2020, and will actively promote this initiative in order to reach the objective of US$ 100 million in funding.


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

    Core Commitments (3)

    • Commitment
    • Core Responsibility
    • Commit to a new way of working that meets people's immediate humanitarian needs, while at the same time reducing risk and vulnerability over multiple years through the achievement of collective outcomes. To achieve this, commit to the following: a) Anticipate, Do Not Wait: to invest in risk analysis and to incentivize early action in order to minimize the impact and frequency of known risks and hazards on people. b) Reinforce, Do Not Replace: to support and invest in local, national and regional leadership, capacity strengthening and response systems, avoiding duplicative international mechanisms wherever possible. c) Preserve and retain emergency capacity: to deliver predictable and flexible urgent and life-saving assistance and protection in accordance with humanitarian principles. d) Transcend Humanitarian-Development Divides: work together, toward collective outcomes that ensure humanitarian needs are met, while at the same time reducing risk and vulnerability over multiple years and based on the comparative advantage of a diverse range of actors. The primacy of humanitarian principles will continue to underpin humanitarian action.
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need
    • Commit to accelerate the reduction of disaster and climate-related risks through the coherent implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, as well as other relevant strategies and programs of action, including the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway.
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity
    • Commit to improve the understanding, anticipation and preparedness for disaster and climate-related risks by investing in data, analysis and early warning, and developing evidence-based decision-making processes that result in early action.
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need
    1. Highlight the concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2017 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures.

    In 2017, the French Development Agency (AFD) has:

    1. Endorsed its 2017-2021 Vulnerability and Resilience Strategy to improve AFD’s response in crisis contexts in coalition with other actors.
    2. Launched the construction of a global risk management strategy adapted to its mandates and practices, which integrates evaluation of context driven risks, institutional risks and risks concerning directly the project.
    3. Improved its work on early warning systems within AFD’s Crisis and Post-conflict Unit.
    4. Endorsed its 2017-2022 Climate-Development Strategy tacking into account the Paris Agreement commitments.

    2. A. How are you measuring progress toward achieving your commitments? Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Through existing, internal systems or frameworks for monitoring, reporting and/or evaluation.
    B. How are you assessing whether progress on commitments is leading toward change in the direction of the transformation?

    AFD has built a set of monitoring indicators within both its Vulnerability and Resilience Strategy and its Climate-Development Strategy, to ensure progress is measured and impacts are assessed.

    3. A. Please select no more than 3 key challenges faced in implementing the commitments related to this transformation. Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Field conditions, including insecurity and access
    • Gender and/or vulnerable group inclusion
    • Joined-up humanitarian-development analysis, planning, funding and/or response
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    Insecurity in some regions affected by armed conflict or severe crisis constrains field analysis and dialogue due to difficult access to the location and staff’s possible exposure to violence. Supporting dialogue with other actors present on the ground and working in the region can further participate in anticipating future crises.

    4. Highlight actions planned for 2018 to advance implementation of your commitments in order to achieve this transformation.

    • More funding will be dedicated to crisis contexts and the Peace and Resilience Facility, especially in the Sahel region.
    • AFD plans to include disaster risk reduction activities within it's Crisis and Post-conflict Unit.
    • The Crisis and Post-Conflict Unit will develop a global risk management strategy to guide project implementation.
    • AFD’s early warning system will continue to be consolidated by integrating data from Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and Ministry Of Defence (MOD).

    5. What steps or actions are needed to make collective progress to achieve this transformation?

    Prioritize projects with transversal benefits to prevent multiple dimensions of crisis. Integrate AFD’s EW system in every country intervention strategy update.

    6. List any good practice or examples of innovation undertaken individually or in cooperation with others to advance this transformation.

    AFD, MOD and MFA are working on integrating their EW systems for a more particular approach to country situations.

    Keywords

    Disaster Risk Reduction

  • 4C
    Deliver collective outcomes: transcend humanitarian-development divides

    Individual Commitments (9)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • France commits to actively explore ways to increase financing options (e.g. short-term and long-term; grants, loans, innovative financing and other financing tools) by mobilizing all sources of financing, to ensure humanitarian needs are met, and reduce people's risk and vulnerability, aimed at supporting the achievement of collective outcomes over multiple years.


    • Financial
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity

    • France commits to financing collective outcomes, based on multi-year plans and to the actor/s that have demonstrated comparative advantage.


    • Financial
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity

    • France commits to investing in capacity building and deployment mechanisms, particularly in the Global South, so that requesting countries can more effectively receive pre-verified and quality assured capacities.


    • Capacity
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity

    • France commits to support and further develop new ways of working, based on a coordinated analysis of vulnerability as well as other tools and processes such as multi-year strategic planning that enable humanitarian-development collaboration to meet humanitarian needs, and reduce people's risk and vulnerability and increase resilience at national levels.


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

    • France commits to support and further develop synergies between humanitarian and development actors based on demonstrated comparative advantage relevant to each context.


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

    • France commits to support the follow-up and review processes of the sustainable development goals' implementation that could demonstrate collective contributions to the 2030 Agenda. France will present its first National Voluntary Review at the high level political forum in July 2016.


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

    • France commits to support the UN Resident Coordinator/Humanitarian Coordinator's leadership on the coordination of international engagement and to mobilize resources to support the delivery of collective outcomes.


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

    • France commits to undertake or support local capacity mapping in countries facing recurrent and protracted crises to inform capacity development and gap-filling by international and regional partners.


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

    • France commits, within the European framework, to assess the vulnerability of critical infrastructure to dominant risks and strengthen it to allow rapid and effective response and recovery, and the opportunity to "build back better".


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

    Core Commitments (1)

    • Commitment
    • Core Responsibility
    • Commit to a new way of working that meets people's immediate humanitarian needs, while at the same time reducing risk and vulnerability over multiple years through the achievement of collective outcomes. To achieve this, commit to the following: a) Anticipate, Do Not Wait: to invest in risk analysis and to incentivize early action in order to minimize the impact and frequency of known risks and hazards on people. b) Reinforce, Do Not Replace: to support and invest in local, national and regional leadership, capacity strengthening and response systems, avoiding duplicative international mechanisms wherever possible. c) Preserve and retain emergency capacity: to deliver predictable and flexible urgent and life-saving assistance and protection in accordance with humanitarian principles. d) Transcend Humanitarian-Development Divides: work together, toward collective outcomes that ensure humanitarian needs are met, while at the same time reducing risk and vulnerability over multiple years and based on the comparative advantage of a diverse range of actors. The primacy of humanitarian principles will continue to underpin humanitarian action.
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need
    1. Highlight the concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2017 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures.

    Joined-up humanitarian-development analysis and planning towards collective outcomes

    France has filled the gap between humanitarian and development at an institutional level by creating a Post-conflict and Stabilization Unit within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and a Crisis and Post-conflict Unit within the French Development Agency (AFD). Coordination between MFA and AFD on response to crisis has been formalized through regular meetings.

    Delivering on 2016’s announcement regarding the “vulnerability fund”, in 2017 France has furthered its commitment to increase financial options through the operationalization of its Peace & Resilience Fund (PRF) for fragile and conflict-affected areas (at the local and transnational level), with an initial annual endowment of 100 million EUR. The PRF is operated by the French Development Agency and is structured in four initiatives, each focused on a crisis or regional basin of vulnerability.

    Furthermore, the French Development Agency has adopted its 2017 – 2021 Vulnerability and Resilience Strategy making the fight against vulnerabilities and crisis response one of the main axes of AFD’s action.

    2. A. How are you measuring progress toward achieving your commitments? Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Through existing, internal systems or frameworks for monitoring, reporting and/or evaluation.
    • Through multi-stakeholder processes or initiatives (e.g. IASC, Grand Bargain, Charter for Change, etc).
    B. How are you assessing whether progress on commitments is leading toward change in the direction of the transformation?

    AFD has built a set of monitoring indicators within its Vulnerability and Resilience Strategy to ensure progress is measured and impacts are assessed. Each initiative has its own monitoring and evaluation component based on detailed results frameworks. An evaluation report will be submitted to the Board for the first year of operation.

    3. A. Please select no more than 3 key challenges faced in implementing the commitments related to this transformation. Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Field conditions, including insecurity and access
    • Funding amounts
    • Joined-up humanitarian-development analysis, planning, funding and/or response
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    Field conditions impact the achievement of our commitment since standard AFD projects are more difficult to implement. Insecurity in some regions affected by armed conflict or severe crisis constrains field analysis and dialogue due to difficult access to the location and staff’s possible exposure to violence.

    4. Highlight actions planned for 2018 to advance implementation of your commitments in order to achieve this transformation.

    2018 is a pivotal year to transcend humanitarian-development divides at the French level. The Interministerial Committee on International Cooperation and Development held in February 2018 adopted a French strategy to tackle fragility, and pledged to double the amount of financing dedicated to the PRF by 2020 (200 million EUR/y)

    As decided in France’s new Humanitarian strategy, a coordination mechanism between MFA’s humanitarian actions and AFD’s development projects has to be implemented to ensure joint needs analysis and more continuity between the projects.

    5. What steps or actions are needed to make collective progress to achieve this transformation?

    An effort has to be made to enhance joint analysis and planning work between humanitarian and development actors, especially at country levels where it is lacking. New Way Of Working (NWOW) has to be implemented.

    6. List any good practice or examples of innovation undertaken individually or in cooperation with others to advance this transformation.

    As detailed above, the innovative funding model enabling significant and predictable amounts of financing is a distinct characteristic of the Peace and Resilience Fund. Moreover, its transnational approach focusing on “crisis basins” instead of countries allows for a more structural impact of the root causes of vulnerability.

    Keywords

    Community resilience, Humanitarian-development nexus

  • 5A
    Invest in local capacities

    Individual Commitments (8)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • France commits to contribute to a reconfiguration of the international humanitarian financing system to allow critical front-line responder to access adequate, timely and quality funding on a fair basis by: 1) empowering national NGOs to play a central role in programming and delivering principled and coordinated humanitarian assistance; 2) reducing barriers to accessing funding by simplifying and harmonizing partner capacity assessments and application and reporting requirements; 3) ensuring front-line responders are included in collective coordination platforms and response processes and have a seat at the table in collective response processes, thereby promoting stronger partnerships and increased direct access of local and national front-line responding NGOs to humanitarian funding.


    • Financial
    • Invest in Humanity

    • France commits to increase direct humanitarian financing to national and local institutions, and to increase its financing for development in support to national and local institutions, including in fragile and conflict affected countries.


    • Financial
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity

    • France commits to invest in the capacity of frontline responders, particularly to commit to investing in the ability of front-line responding actors to play a leading role in crisis anticipation, response and recovery by: 1) creating incentives for international actors to work in strategic partnerships with local and national civil society organizations that build the long-term organizational and responsive capacity; 2) providing front-line responders with fair and realistic levels of overhead costs in funding awards; 3) supporting the development of national and regional networks of front-line responders and other related capacity-strengthening initiatives including national and regional research and training centers.


    • Capacity
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity

    • France commits to investing in capacity building and deployment mechanisms, particularly in the Global South, so that requesting countries can more effectively receive pre-verified and quality assured capacities.


    • Capacity
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity

    • France commits to lobby for the increase of the overall portion of humanitarian appeal funding channeled through country or region-based pooled funds to national and local actors and, more generally, to support financial instruments dedicated to national and local actors.


    • Financial
    • Invest in Humanity

    • France commits to promote principled partnerships between local, national and international actors and humanitarian donors, especially to leverage the value of local and national organizations in humanitarian response, and to provide local and national organizations with robust organizational support and capacity-building.


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

    • France commits to support the development of a pre-qualification mechanism to identify national and local actors that meet the criteria to enter into a partnership, including direct financing, with aid donors.


    • Financial
    • Invest in Humanity

    • France commits to lobby for the increase of the overall portion of humanitarian appeal funding channeled through country or region-based pooled funds to national and local actors and, more generally, to support financial instruments dedicated to national and local actors.


    • Policy
    • Invest in Humanity

    Core Commitments (1)

    • Commitment
    • Core Responsibility
    • Commit to empower national and local humanitarian action by increasing the share of financing accessible to local and national humanitarian actors and supporting the enhancement of their national delivery systems, capacities and preparedness planning.
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity
    1. Highlight the concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2017 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures.

    Direct funding to national/local actors

    On the humanitarian side, in 2017, 3.3 million EUR of French humanitarian funding went directly to local and national responders (~10% of its ear-marked funding), much more indirectly. 5.5 million EUR went to OCHA’s pooled funds. France also worked with national governments to reinforce their civil protection, in the framework of the EU (EUCPM, ENPI) and of INSARAG (training, national accreditation, light USAR).

    On the development side, the French Development Agency (AFD) has:

    1. Set up a solid partnership with NGOs, both in terms of dialog and operational and financial collaboration.
    2. Followed the increase resources allocated to its Civil Society Organization Initiative which has financed over 320 projects those past 4 years.
    3. Encouraged French NGOs to work in strategic partnerships with local actors and civil society organizations to build long-term solutions.

    2. A. How are you measuring progress toward achieving your commitments? Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Through existing, internal systems or frameworks for monitoring, reporting and/or evaluation.
    • Through multi-stakeholder processes or initiatives (e.g. IASC, Grand Bargain, Charter for Change, etc).
    B. How are you assessing whether progress on commitments is leading toward change in the direction of the transformation?

    • On the humanitarian side, the targets and frameworks set up by the Grand Bargain provide useful tools to monitor the localization of aid.
    • On the development side, AFD has built a set of monitoring indicators within both its Vulnerability and Resilience Strategy and its partnership strategy, to ensure progress is measured and impacts are assessed.

    3. A. Please select no more than 3 key challenges faced in implementing the commitments related to this transformation. Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Field conditions, including insecurity and access
    • Institutional/Internal constraints
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    Growing requirements for accountability, lack of dedicated resources to finance capacity building, especially within a humanitarian context focused on emergency response, lack of local capacities and instrumentation of local actors prevent localization in some contexts.

    4. Highlight actions planned for 2018 to advance implementation of your commitments in order to achieve this transformation.

    Within the framework of its new Humanitarian strategy (adopted in March 2018), France has reaffirmed its commitment to design : (i) a capacity building mechanism aiming at strengthening NGOs’ local partners (ii) a localization marker, aiming at assessing our commitments towards local actors. They should be in place in 2019.

    AFD is developing new tools to help strengthen local systems and actors.

    5. What steps or actions are needed to make collective progress to achieve this transformation?

    Prequalification should be conducted ahead of crises to ensure speedier responses, including capacity building of those local Civil Society Organisations.

    6. List any good practice or examples of innovation undertaken individually or in cooperation with others to advance this transformation.

    The monitoring and evaluation process can be realized through a participatory system integrating the beneficiaries and thus become a tool for an inclusive and participative approach, further integrating local actors and enhancing accountability. This has been done in Cameroon for example while supporting decentralization processes and harmonization of national development policies.

    Keywords

    Country-based pooled funds, Local action

  • 5B
    Invest according to risk

    Individual Commitments (5)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • France commits to increasing funding for climate adaptation and reaching EUR 1 billion per year in 2020.


    • Financial
    • Invest in Humanity

    • France commits to increasing funding for disaster risk reduction and preparedness activities and to do this in a coherent way from multiple sources, including enhanced domestic resource mobilization and private sector investment, and higher proportions of development and climate adaptation finance, such as the Green Climate Fund.


    • Financial
    • Invest in Humanity

    • In line with the core responsibility to ensure that No One is Left Behind, France commits to focus scarce ODA resources in the most fragile states by: 1) ensuring that development investments are risk informed and contribute to building resilience where relevant, enabling low and lower middle income countries to better manage and finance their own disaster risk; 2) increasing the opportunities for risk sharing among donors.


    • Financial
    • Invest in Humanity

    • In line with the Secretary-General's Climate Resilience Initiative: Anticipate, Absorb and Reshape, France commits to: 1) scaling up insurance coverage for countries against natural disasters; 2) scaling up appropriate and cost effective risk pooling and risk transfer tools.


    • Financial
    • Invest in Humanity

    • Recognizing that there is a range of tools that can be used to finance reduction of risks and anticipatory approaches to responding to crises France commits to: 1) expanding the use of tools and approaches that strengthen systemic shifts toward better risk management and financial planning and preparation, such as shock-responsive social protection mechanisms; 2) putting in place adequate emergency reserve funds and funds for risk-reduction activities and investments to reduce the drivers of fragility and conflict, in particular to continue financing projects to tackle the root causes of crises; 3) creating incentives for more coherent approaches built on a common understanding of the need to manage risk, both as a moral imperative and as an expedient investment to protect development investments and assure sustainable development outcomes.


    • Financial
    • Invest in Humanity

    Core Commitments (2)

    • Commitment
    • Core Responsibility
    • Commit to accelerate the reduction of disaster and climate-related risks through the coherent implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, as well as other relevant strategies and programs of action, including the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway.
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity
    • Commit to invest in risk management, preparedness and crisis prevention capacity to build the resilience of vulnerable and affected people.
    • Invest in Humanity
    1. Highlight the concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2017 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures.

    In 2017 France:

    1. Endorsed a Vulnerability and Resilience Strategy  (2017–2022) to improve the French Development Agency (AFD) response in crisis contexts in coalition with other actors.
    2. Endorsed a Climate-Development Strategy (2017-2022) tacking into account the Paris Agreement commitments.
    3. Launched the construction of a global risk management strategy adapted to its mandates and practices, which integrate evaluation of context driven risks, institutional risks and risks concerning directly the project.

    France also had a proactive policy to engage with the private sector (firms, foundations, family foundations). In December 2017, 8 mutual agreements (“conventions”) were signed with private entities and 4 mutual agreements were renewed in order to organize the partnership with the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs. In 2017, a significant amount of donation was made by those private partners in the aftermath of hurricane Irma (September).

    2. A. How are you measuring progress toward achieving your commitments? Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Through existing, internal systems or frameworks for monitoring, reporting and/or evaluation.
    B. How are you assessing whether progress on commitments is leading toward change in the direction of the transformation?

    AFD created a set of monitoring indicators within both its Vulnerability and Resilience Strategy and Climate-Development Strategy.

    3. A. Please select no more than 3 key challenges faced in implementing the commitments related to this transformation. Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Field conditions, including insecurity and access
    • Joined-up humanitarian-development analysis, planning, funding and/or response
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    Insecurity in some regions affected by armed conflict or severe crisis may also constrain field analysis and dialogue.

    4. Highlight actions planned for 2018 to advance implementation of your commitments in order to achieve this transformation.

    AFD has adopted a disaster risk reduction plan and will include a disaster risk approach in its activities and enhance climate adaptation financing, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and Island States.

    5. What steps or actions are needed to make collective progress to achieve this transformation?

    • Further coordination between actors on the ground and joint analysis needs to be implemented in order to evaluate the situation and share possible future scenarios. 
    • Better targeting of region within a country through more robust Early Warning systems could help increase targeting of development assistance.

    6. List any good practice or examples of innovation undertaken individually or in cooperation with others to advance this transformation.

    • AFD has integrated in its Vulnerability and Resilience Strategy a context analysis method based on future scenario construction.
    • More robust EW systems help increase targeting of development assistance according to both needs and risk of crisis.

    Keywords

    Disaster Risk Reduction, Private sector

  • 5C
    Invest in stability

    Individual Commitments (2)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • Recognizing the importance of financing long-term refugee and internally displaced persons caseloads in protracted crises and of countries hosting these refugees as a global public good, France commits to using its position on the Boards of the International Financial Institutions, and as a contributor to their concessional funds, to ensure that they deliver a relevant, coherent and cost effective response to the challenge of the consequences of fragility, disasters, and crises.


    • Advocacy
    • Leave No One Behind Invest in Humanity

    • France commits to support the UN's conflict prevention capacities, in particular conflict analysis and the good offices function and will advocate for the use of regular budget funds for conflict prevention.


    • Operational
    • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts Invest in Humanity
    1. Highlight the concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2017 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures.

    Thanks to its participation in the main international financial institutions (IFIs) boards, France kept advocating for increased funding of long-term refugee and internally displaced persons caseloads in protracted crises.

    2. A. How are you measuring progress toward achieving your commitments? Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Through existing, internal systems or frameworks for monitoring, reporting and/or evaluation.
    • Through multi-stakeholder processes or initiatives (e.g. IASC, Grand Bargain, Charter for Change, etc).
    3. A. Please select no more than 3 key challenges faced in implementing the commitments related to this transformation. Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Field conditions, including insecurity and access
    • Funding amounts
    Keywords

    Displacement

  • 5D
    Finance outcomes, not fragmentation: shift from funding to financing

    Individual Commitments (4)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • France commits to actively explore ways to increase financing options (e.g. short-term and long-term; grants, loans, innovative financing and other financing tools) by mobilizing all sources of financing, to ensure humanitarian needs are met, and reduce people's risk and vulnerability, aimed at supporting the achievement of collective outcomes over multiple years.


    • Financial
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity

    • France commits to financing collective outcomes, based on multi-year plans and to the actor/s that have demonstrated comparative advantage.


    • Financial
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity

    • France commits to support national and local resilience efforts, and provide vulnerable people with a mix of short term assistance to address immediate needs and longer-term assistance to improve self-reliance.


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

    • Recognizing that, within a country context, humanitarian, development, peacebuilding, stabilization and climate finance should be more coherent France commits to: 1) increasing support to multi-year multi-stakeholder financing, including effective funding instruments for protracted crisis countries, which combine national actors, UN, IFIs, and MDBs, with a clear division of responsibilities based on comparative advantage to deliver on collective outcomes; 2) ensuring that organizational structures and internal processes foster coherence between humanitarian, development, peacebuilding, stabilization and climate finance; 3) strengthening the mechanisms for coordination at country level and globally to maximize policy coherence; 4) committing to financing collective outcomes, based on multi-year plans and to the actor/s that have demonstrated comparative advantage; 5) using positions on the boards of international organizations, agencies and financial institutions to ensure a comprehensive approach to the management of man-made and natural hazards.


    • Financial
    • Invest in Humanity

    Core Commitments (3)

    • Commitment
    • Core Responsibility
    • Commit to enable coherent financing that avoids fragmentation by supporting collective outcomes over multiple years, supporting those with demonstrated comparative advantage to deliver in context.
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity
    • Commit to promote and increase predictable, multi-year, unearmarked, collaborative and flexible humanitarian funding toward greater efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability of humanitarian action for affected people.
    • Invest in Humanity
    • Commit to broaden and adapt the global instruments and approaches to meet urgent needs, reduce risk and vulnerability and increase resilience, without adverse impact on humanitarian principles and overall action (as also proposed in Round Table on "Changing Lives").
    • Invest in Humanity
    1. Highlight the concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2017 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures.

    France endorsed a 2017 – 2022 Vulnerability and Resilience Strategy to improve its crisis response. The stabilization mission within the Crisis and Support Center, tasked with supporting the initial steps in crisis recovery (socioeconomic development, reconciliation, governance support, re-establishment of public services, demining, etc.) disbursed 28 million EUR.

    Inter-ministerial consultation meetings on countries dealing with crisis and post-crisis situations where held. At the operational level, bi-monthly consultation meetings were held between the CDCS (humanitarian, stabilization) and the French Development Agency (AFD) (development) to carry out joint analyses and planning.

    AFD Implemented multi-year programs funded by the Peace and Resilience Facility in the Sahel region, Lake Chad region, the Middle East and in Central African Republic.

    2. A. How are you measuring progress toward achieving your commitments? Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Through existing, internal systems or frameworks for monitoring, reporting and/or evaluation.
    B. How are you assessing whether progress on commitments is leading toward change in the direction of the transformation?

    The Vulnerability and Resilience Strategy defines a set of monitoring indicators to ensure progress is measured and impacts are assessed.

    3. A. Please select no more than 3 key challenges faced in implementing the commitments related to this transformation. Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Field conditions, including insecurity and access
    • Funding modalities (earmarking, priorities, yearly agreements, risk aversion measures)
    • Joined-up humanitarian-development analysis, planning, funding and/or response
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    National legislation and multiple sources of funding (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Treasury, AFD, others) prevent multi-year financing from the State budget.

    4. Highlight actions planned for 2018 to advance implementation of your commitments in order to achieve this transformation.

    A coordination mechanism between MFA’s humanitarian actions and AFD’s development projects will be implemented to ensure joint needs analysis and more continuity between the projects. AFD will also participate at the National Humanitarian Conference 2018 which will reunite institutional, humanitarian and development actors.

    At an internal level, procedures will be reviewed and amended in order to facilitate working with NGOs.

    5. What steps or actions are needed to make collective progress to achieve this transformation?

     Collective analysis between development and humanitarian actors.

    6. List any good practice or examples of innovation undertaken individually or in cooperation with others to advance this transformation.

    Multi-year programs funded by the Peace and Resilience Facility in the Sahel Region, Lake  Chad, Middle East and Central African Republic.

    Keywords

    Humanitarian-development nexus

  • 5E
    Diversify the resource base and increase cost-efficiency

    Individual Commitments (2)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • France commits to agreeing to reporting requirements that are simplified, proportionate, and coherent (harmonized to best practice).


    • Operational
    • Invest in Humanity

    • To achieve these goals, France set up the French Muskoka Fund for maternal, newborn and adolescent health in 2011 for a five-year period. The Fund has recently been extended with a focus on young people access to sexual and reproductive health and rights, and an annual budget of EUR 10 million in 2016. It is implemented by four UN agencies.


    • Financial
    • Leave No One Behind Invest in Humanity

    Core Commitments (2)

    • Commitment
    • Core Responsibility
    • Commit to increase substantially and diversify global support and share of resources for humanitarian assistance aimed to address the differentiated needs of populations affected by humanitarian crises in fragile situations and complex emergencies, including increasing cash-based programming in situations where relevant.
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity
    • Commit to promote and increase predictable, multi-year, unearmarked, collaborative and flexible humanitarian funding toward greater efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability of humanitarian action for affected people.
    • Invest in Humanity
    1. Highlight the concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2017 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures.

    France is known for having simple and flexible reporting requirements, reducing the administrative burden for NGOs. France endorsed the Grand Bargain in 2017, participated in work stream 9 reporting requirements, kept advocating at the EU and international level for simplified requirements and decided to join the pilot project launched by Germany and ICVA “8+3” to facilitate harmonized reporting.

    2. A. How are you measuring progress toward achieving your commitments? Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Through existing, internal systems or frameworks for monitoring, reporting and/or evaluation.
    • Through multi-stakeholder processes or initiatives (e.g. IASC, Grand Bargain, Charter for Change, etc).
    B. How are you assessing whether progress on commitments is leading toward change in the direction of the transformation?

    Through the number of institutions / countries which decided to adopt simplified and harmonized reporting similar to French requirements.

    3. A. Please select no more than 3 key challenges faced in implementing the commitments related to this transformation. Only the categories selected by the organisation will be seen below.
    • Funding amounts
    • Human resources/capacity
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    Redundant and cumbersome reporting requirements have a negative impact on NGO activity and reduce their capacities to deliver in the field.

    5. What steps or actions are needed to make collective progress to achieve this transformation?

    Member States of the European Union should coordinate and reinforce their advocacy for simplified and harmonized reporting.

    6. List any good practice or examples of innovation undertaken individually or in cooperation with others to advance this transformation.

    • “8+3” template launched by Germany and ICVA to facilitate harmonized reporting.

Attachments

  • WHS Commitments Attachments
    Transformation - 2A, 2D, 4A, 4C, 5A, 5D, 5E | Displacement, Humanitarian-development nexus, IHL compliance and accountability, Local action