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

    Individual Commitments (3)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility
    • Save the Children commits to continue working with schools and communities in conflict or post-conflict situations to advocate against the targeting of schools for attack or using schools for military purposes.
    • Advocacy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
    • Save the Children commits to playing a lead role in identifying and responding to capacity-building needs among humanitarian practitioners, and in developing sustainable approaches to embedding child protection competencies among national disaster management and social welfare workforces in priority countries.
    • Capacity
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • Save the Children reaffirms and strengthens its commitment to ensuring that its humanitarian policy and practice recognise child protection as a life-saving intervention, and to prioritising this across all its humanitarian action, including in the first phase of an emergency response.


    • Policy
    • 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.

    Save the Children helped secure governmental political commitment through the Safe Schools Declaration, and increased the growing global consensus around protecting education. Advocacy efforts in Geneva and New York, as well as at the country and regional level, helped contribute to 15 new States endorsing the Declaration in 2017. This brings the total number of state parties to 71.

    As part of the Schools as Zones of Peace Project, Save the Children developed project guidance (https://bit.ly/2Hrraxm) around activities that can be implemented at the community and national level to mitigate the impact of attacks on education. The project guidance provides useful information on how to help protect children and schools from attacks, including a Guide to Contextualisation (https://bit.ly/2H8aW8Y) which outlines activities to adapt the Safe Schools Declaration and the Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use during Armed Conflict to different contexts.

    An internal, annual evaluation of the Schools as Zones of Peace Project in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Occupied Palestinian Territories showed that it led to a reduction in the number of school days lost and strengthened reporting mechanisms.

    Save the Children provided advice to NATO on the development of their new concept on the protection of civilians. This will result in the Safe Schools Declaration and the Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use during Armed Conflict becoming integrated into NATO policy. 

    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.
    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?

    In order for attacks on schools to cease and for schools to not be used for military purposes, states and actors who breach international legal norms and principles must be held accountable.

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

    Save the Children will continue working with the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, which will be publishing a flagship report on this issue in 2018. The report profiles countries that have experienced significant patterns of attacks, outlining trends witnessed since the Education under Attack 2014 report (https://bit.ly/1pgFNiK). 

    Keywords

    Education, Protection

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

    Individual Commitments (5)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility
    • Save the Children commits to strengthen and systematically use the best interest of the child both as a principle and as a tool in its programmatic interventions to ensure that every individual child is supported and cared for according to his or her identified needs, ensuring that unaccompanied and separated children receive priority attention and response in its programmes.
    • Operational
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • Save the Children commits to strengthened engagement with existing child rights systems in humanitarian contexts, including children'€s ombudspersons and inter-ministerial coordination mechanisms, to ensure a holistic and accountable response to address boys' and girls' needs in humanitarian crises.


    • Partnership
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • Save the Children commits to taking the first turn at being the NGO co-lead of the new Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, and to use this position to forge close links between this group and the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children, including sharing of lessons learned.


    • Partnership
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • Save the Children commits to working with others to build and disseminate evidence on social protection mechanisms that are able to adapt quickly to address the needs of at-risk children and households in humanitarian crises - for example, by being linked to early warning systems.


    • Operational
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
    • Save the Children reaffirms its commitment through the Social Protection Inter-agency Coordination Board to support national governments to develop and scale-up sustainable social protection systems, including in humanitarian contexts, to protect those suffering chronic poverty and deprivation, as well as those affected by humanitarian crises, particularly children, and those facing discrimination on the basis of, for example, gender, sexuality, disability, ethnicity.
    • Partnership
    • 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.

    Save the Children has co-lead the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action since its launch in November 2016 and funds the role of a full-time senior Alliance coordinator. In this role, Save the Children is actively working to forge close links between the Alliance and the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children as well as with the Child Protection Area of Responsibility (within the Global Protection Cluster). This includes the publication of the document 'Linkages between Inter-Agency Violence against Children/Child Protection Initiatives in Humanitarian Setting' which clarifies the collaborative ways of working between these three groups.

    The Alliance organised its first annual meeting in September 2017, together with the Child Protection Area of Responsibility. Representatives from the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children also attended the meeting which was attended by a total of 158 participants from international and national NGOs, academia and the United Nations (UN). The meeting theme was “working cross sectors to better protect children”, and the week-long meeting resulted in agreement on three strategic directions for future efforts: localisation, sector integration, and evidence based programming.

    Save the Children remains a member of the Social Protection Inter-agency Coordination Board and support seven countries in designing and delivering social protection systems.

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

    Save the Children will continue co-leading the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action and as an active member of the Child Protection Area of Responsibility Strategic Advisory Board. Evidence from the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children will feed into the Alliance’s upcoming revision of the Child Protection Minimum Standards strategy standards.

    Keywords

    Protection

  • 2C
    Speak out on violations

    Individual Commitments (1)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility
    • Save the Children reaffirms its commitment to speak out and advocate on behalf of the children in need of humanitarian assistance when existing mechanisms fail to address their needs adequately.
    • Advocacy
    • 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.

    Save the Children continues speaking out on behalf of children living in humanitarian contexts around the world. A number of reports published in 2017 highlight the devastating psychological and social impact that conflict and war has on children:

    • Invisible Wounds details the impact of six years of war on the mental health of Syria’s children (https://bit.ly/2FRMviL)
    • An Unbearable Reality documents the effect of war and displacement on children's mental health in Iraq (https://bit.ly/2HG4eIM)
    • Every Day things are Getting Worse, published together with Watchlist, outlines the impact that attacks on hospital and other health facilities in Yemen have had on children’s health and well-being (https://bit.ly/2H7yM8U)
    • Horrors I will not Forget is based on testimonies collected from Rohingya children living in Cox's Bazaar around their experiences and hopes for the future (https://bit.ly/2qBIW7L)

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

    Save the Children’s report The War on Children: Time to End Violations Against Children in Armed Conflict, launched at the beginning of 2018, will be used to facilitate conversation at both the global and national level and advocate for governments to consistently uphold international laws and standards to protect children in conflict (https://bit.ly/2HDtyyV)

    Keywords

    Protection

  • 2D
    Take concrete steps to improve compliance and accountability

    Individual Commitments (2)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility
    • Save the Children commits to advocate for Member States and other actors to uphold existing rules and standards and to integrate such standards into national-level legislation and policy.
    • Advocacy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    • Save the Children commits to promote commitments on the Call to Action on Protection from Gender-Based Violence in Emergencies and its Roadmap within its own humanitarian work, as well as national and international policy platforms where Save the Children is involved.


    • Advocacy
    • 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.

    Gender-based violence prevention and response

    One of the aims of Save the Children’s Every Last Child campaign is to end child marriage, which is recognised as a form of gender-based violence. In coalition with eight other organisations, Save the Children hosted the first ever High-Level Meeting on Ending Child Marriage, in Senegal in October. At the meeting, representatives from 19 countries in West and Central Africa committed to ending child marriage.

    Save the Children’s advocacy efforts helped bring about changes to child marriage legislation in other countries as well. The age of marriage was raised from 16 to 18 years in Malawi, a prohibition on child marriage was introduced in El Salvador, and in Guatemala a decree was handed down to eliminate exception to marry before the age of 18.

    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.
    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
    • IHL and IHRL compliance and accountability
    • Strengthening national/local systems
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    In order to eliminate the practice of child marriage, legal change alone is not sufficient. The law needs to be enforced and culprits held accountable. This requires buy-in from state actors and local authorities, including strengthening of national systems. Efforts are also required at community level to spread awareness. 

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

    Save the Children’s Every Last Child campaign will continue focusing on the issues of child marriage with the aim of eliminating this practice by 2030. To this end, Save the Children will be supporting the African Union Summit to End Child Marriage and similar events.

    Keywords

    Gender

  • 3A
    Reduce and address displacement

    Individual Commitments (9)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility
    • Save the Children commits to develop new partnerships to encourage innovative approaches to support the self-reliance of refugees and IDPs, through seeking funding for programmatic responses on child protection, education, health and livelihoods; through participation and civic engagement; and through encouraging investment that facilitates access to livelihoods for refugees and host communities.
    • Partnership
    • Leave No One Behind

    • Save the Children commits to scale up programmatic responses to forcibly displaced children and youth, and to all children on the move, in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, working across institutional divides and mandates, and in multi-year frameworks to achieve clear outcomes.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind
    • Save the Children commits to support increased capacities and resilience of host communities and of formal and informal existing systems to quickly adapt to influxes of refugee and internally displaced families and children, guarantee that they access dignified reception, good-quality health services, livelihood opportunities and long-term solutions.
    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind

    • Save the Children commits to support access to child and gender-sensitive social protection for conflict-affected, internally displaced and refugee children and youth, including economic security to meet basic needs; and legal, social and economic opportunities to access education, healthcare, livelihoods, labour markets, and protection from violence and exploitation, without discrimination and in a manner that also supports host communities.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind
    • Save the Children commits to support additional and expedited pathways for admission of refugees, including resettlement and humanitarian admission, family reunification, private sponsorship, labour mobility and educational opportunities.
    • Policy
    • Leave No One Behind
    • Save the Children commits to support legal rights to a secure stay in host countries including through adequate, safe and dignified reception conditions and robust registration, including birth registration.
    • Policy
    • Leave No One Behind

    • Save the Children commits to support the development of national legislation, policy, strategies and capacities for the protection of conflict-affected IDP and refugee children and youth. This will include supporting and advocating for coordinated policies and practices between countries of origin, transit and destination in at least three key migration corridors and addressing discrimination on the basis of gender, age, ethnicity, sexuality and nationality.


    • Policy
    • Leave No One Behind
    • Save the Children commits to support the provision of access to good-quality education for all internally displaced and refugee boys and girls equally, and to advocate for this to take place within one month of displacement.
    • Policy
    • Leave No One Behind
    • Save the Children will advocate for a reduction of the key drivers of displacement, including through enhanced programming that reduces these drivers. Advocacy will be carried out through a range of initiatives, including promotion of the Safe Schools Declaration and broader work within the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack; advocacy work on the grave violations against children and gender-based violence and support for the Children and Armed Conflict agenda and Call to Action on Protection from Gender-based Violence in Emergencies initiative and roadmap; documentation within the International Network on Explosive Weapons of the harm caused by the use of explosive weapons in populated areas and the work towards a political declaration to reduce such harm; promotion of international humanitarian law; promotion of concrete action on Security Council Resolution 2242 [2015].
    • Advocacy
    • 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

    21 of Save the Children’s emergency responses in 2017 targeted the needs of children and youth affected by refugee crises.  The vast majority of these interventions were multi-sectoral covering healthcare, food and nutrition assistance, child protection services, and education.

    Save the Children launched the Promising Practices in Refugee Education initiative, with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Pearson, which outlines 18 best practices collated from education programmes with refugee communities. Additionally, Save the Children co-authored the Joint INGO Recommendation on Durable Solutions for the Global Compacts on Refugees.

    IDPs (due to conflict, violence, and disaster)

    37 of Save the Children’s emergency responses in 2017 targeted the needs of internally displaced children and youth. This represents a slight increase compared with 2016 when 32 responses focused on IDP populations. The majority of these interventions are multi-sectoral covering healthcare, food and nutrition assistance, child protection services, and education.

    Cross-border, disaster and climate related displacement

    Acknowledging the high number of children who are victims of cross-border displacement, and the disproportionate affect that migration and displacement has on children, Save the Children has established the Migration and Displacement Initiative. This group aims to drive forward knowledge, programming and policy work on child focused migration and displacement.

    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.
    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.
    • Buy-in
    • Field conditions, including insecurity and access
    • Funding amounts
    4. Highlight actions planned for 2018 to advance implementation of your commitments in order to achieve this transformation.

    The Every Last Child campaign will continue highlighting the issues of need for education for refugee children.

    Throughout 2018 Save the Children will undertake a research project entitled ‘Born into Displacement’ to examine the impact of being born whilst your family is displaced has on children’s lives, the scale of the phenomenon, and the effectiveness of current durable solutions for these children.

    Keywords

    Displacement, Protection

  • 3D
    Empower and protect women and girls

    Individual Commitments (6)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility
    • Save the Children commit to building the knowledge of its staff on standards, guidelines and principles applicable to protection, gender, age, disability-sensitive programming, and where appropriate, building specialist skills to address gender inequality, as well as the needs of other vulnerable groups.
    • Training
    • Leave No One Behind
    • Save the Children commit to using humanitarian assessments, project monitoring and evaluations to collect data that is, at a minimum, disaggregated by sex and age, and incorporates gender, age and disability considerations utilising IASC gender guidelines, IASC GBV guidelines, Child Protection Minimum Standards, and Age and Disability Minimum Standards.
    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind

    • Save the Children commit to working with others to develop cross-agency mechanisms to empower women, adolescent girls and other vulnerable groups to participate meaningfully in programme design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation and to adapting programmes based on feedback received through these processes. It will participate in formal and informal decision-making structures and processes, including assessments, community committees, monitoring and feedback within Save the Children's humanitarian responses.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind
    • Save the Children commits to designing humanitarian programmes that are gender-sensitive as a minimum and based on data disaggregated by age and sex, and to ensuring that programmes target the needs of vulnerable groups, even at the expense of a more costly or complex response.
    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind
    • Save the Children commits to develop, document and share learning from innovative gender transformative pilot projects to promote the empowerment of women and girls and engage men and boys as part of the solution, in order to address the root causes of gender inequality and prevent and respond to gender-based violence in crisis settings by 2020.
    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind
    • Save the Children reaffirms its commitment to delivery of the Minimum Initial Services Package for reproductive health, family planning and post-abortion care within 48 hours of an emergency, and ensure safe, gender-sensitive, adolescent-friendly and ethical referral linkages to legal, psychosocial, protection and livelihood services for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence.
    • Operational
    • 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 2017, Save the Children launched a new and updated organisational Gender Equality Policy (https://bit.ly/2H1YK9R) which incorporates various global standards and forms the road map for ensuring gender equality is at the heart of all of Save the Children’s work. Alongside the policy, relevant program guidance and toolkits were rolled-out for use by country offices and partners. This includes information on how to conduct a gender analysis to ensure a high level of analytical data.

    Save the Children launched a Gender Equality Marker to measure programme gender equality. Related to this is a new organisational key performance indicator against which all proposals and concept notes to donors are measured, defined as: % of new program proposals submitted that are gender sensitive or gender transformative.

    Both the above measures are incorporated into Save the Children’s new Child Poverty Humanitarian Strategic Framework (https://bit.ly/2vigAUF) which was launched in November 2017, setting the direction of organisational humanitarian child poverty programming through 2018 and beyond.

    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.
    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
    • Strengthening national/local systems
    Keywords

    Gender

  • 3E
    Eliminate gaps in education for children, adolescents and young people

    Individual Commitments (5)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • Save the Children commits to being the first agency to formally endorse the Key Principles of Community-Based Safe School Construction€; it commits that for every classroom it substantially remodels or rebuilds, Save the Children will adhere to these principles, including by meeting "€life safety"€ standards


    • Policy
    • Leave No One Behind

    • Save the Children commits to continue to lead civil society engagement relating to the establishment of the Education Cannot Wait Initiative, and work to ensure ongoing civil society engagement and buy-in.


    • Partnership
    • Leave No One Behind
    • Save the Children commits to playing a lead role in building the programming and coordination capacity of education in emergencies practitioners and education authorities to respond to humanitarian crises effectively and in line with the Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies.
    • Capacity
    • Leave No One Behind
    • Save the Children reaffirms and strengthens its commitment to ensuring that its humanitarian policy and practice recognise education as a life-saving and life-sustaining intervention, and to prioritising the provision of safe, good-quality and inclusive education before, during and after emergencies.
    • Policy
    • Leave No One Behind
    • Save the Children reaffirms its commitment to co-leading the Global Education Cluster and working with coordination staff and partners at the global, national and sub-national levels to strengthen response capacity and the transition to recovery.
    • Partnership
    • 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.

    Save the Children is a civil society representative on the Education Cannot Wait (ECW) High-Level Steering Group and the Executive Committee. Save the Children also convenes an active international non-governmental organizations (INGO) constituency that meets monthly and where civil society is consulted on ECW matters to ensure ongoing engagement and inform the organisational position on the Steering Group and Executive Committee.

    In 2017 Save the Children produced innovative solutions to inclusive Education in Emergencies coordination, such as the Education Dialogue Forum in Syria where all education stakeholders working inside Syria gather to discuss coordinated action. This model is being publicised by ECW and considered for other multi-year programmes.

    Save the Children continued co-leading the Global Education Cluster together with UNICEF. The Cluster supported 25 countries in 2017, a mix of formally activated Clusters and Education in Emergencies Working Groups and similar coordination platforms. Save the Children funded three Rapid Response Team roles - staff who can deploy at very short notice to national Clusters and provide support in terms of coordination, carrying out assessments, strategy development and capacity strengthening. Eight countries were supported in this manner in 2017, providing nearly 80 weeks of expert support.

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

    Save the Children is involved with ongoing work with Education Cannot Wait to produce the formal Refugee Education Action Plan in Uganda. Additionally, Save the Children is collaborating with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and Ministry of Education in Afghanistan to support the multi-year design process and are also involved in the multi-year design process in Bangladesh.

    Keywords

    Education

  • 3F
    Enable adolescents and young people to be agents of positive transformation

    Individual Commitments (2)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility
    • Save the Children commits to address the specific needs of adolescents and youth in humanitarian crises, building on their strengths and assets, and supporting them as essential contributors to development and peace.
    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind
    • Save the Children commits to promoting meaningful engagement with children and youth as a mandatory component of humanitarian preparedness and response, accounting for and addressing discrimination on the basis of gender, age and other grounds. In major emergency responses, wherever possible it will conduct formal consultations with children and young people, ideally in partnership with other child-focused organisations and government counterparts. It will ensure that these consultations inform our programming and advocacy, involve children where appropriate in implementing their recommendations, and where possible provide children and youth with feedback on the way in which their recommendations have been taken forward.
    • Partnership
    • 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.

    Save the Children conducted consultations with 140 Rohingya children living in Cox’s Bazaar. They were asked about their needs in the camps, which in turn informed organisational humanitarian response activities. The outcome of this consultation are in the report Childhood Interrupted (https://bit.ly/2H2TFCu), published together with Plan International and World Vision.

    Consultations are carried out in a number of ways, using focus group interviews, yes-no-maybe games, and activities where children can draw or act out their responses. All consultation projects include a feedback phase which utilises specifically developed child appropriate material to explain the outcomes of the project.

    Save the Children also worked with counterparts in the Steering Committee on Humanitarian Response (SCHR) and co-lead of the Participation Workstream to develop a field-based analysis of barriers and opportunities for participation. SCHR Humanitarian Directors travelled to Uganda and Northern Iraq for a week in September to meet with staff, partner organisations and stakeholders to understand what further investments need to be made by the individual organisations and as a collective to put participation at the heart of all humanitarian response work.

    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)
    Keywords

    People-centred approach, Protection

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

    Individual Commitments (4)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility
    • Save the Children commits to develop mechanisms for expanded coverage of health services within national social safety nets and other social protection mechanisms, including health insurance schemes, so as to meet the essential health needs of all populations, including refugees and IDPs, as soon as possible in a crisis, and in line with the global health cluster guidance on advocating for suspension of user-fees in the acute phase of a crisis.
    • Operational
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need
    • Save the Children commits to working with governments and humanitarian and development actors to scale-up and better coordinate cash transfers in humanitarian interventions, in a way that responds to needs across sectors and enables cash transfers eventually to be integrated with or developed into social protection systems. Through this work it will build the capacity of local and national actors, particularly governments.
    • Operational
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

    • Save the Children commits to strengthen local and national health systems, in particular to manage risks, contain outbreaks, provide training for health responders, and build up national rapid response capabilities. It will continue to intervene directly in exceptional circumstances as needed, including through its standby Emergency Health Unit, deployable within 72 hours to rapid-onset, large-scale emergencies. Save the Children will endeavour to respond through support for existing public services and community capacity/resilience networks rather than undertaking parallel action


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

    • Save the Children commits to working toward CHS certification and to continuously strengthen quality and accountability standards across our humanitarian responses.


    • Policy
    • 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.

    Cash-based programming

    Save the Children invested in internal support systems (finance, awards, operations) to improve capability to scale-up the delivery of Cash Transfer Programming (CTP). A new coding structure was introduced offering a more detailed breakdown of CTP across all responses (including different mechanisms and modalities) as part of system-wide efforts to track overall disbursement of resources via cash transfers.

    Save the Children co-developed training modules on CTP for key response staff with Cash Learning Partnership (CaLP), World Vision International, British Red Cross and Oxfam.

    To help build the evidence base for child-sensitive outcomes of CTP, Save the Children produced a resource paper on “cash plus” interventions for children (https://bit.ly/2ER2OYw). The review is feeding into organisational strategy planning and partnerships with other organisations.

    Save the Children continues co-leading the Collaborative Cash Delivery Initiative, a multi-NGO initiative seeking to improve the scale, efficiency and effectiveness of CTP to communities in humanitarian crises.

    Other-4A

    The Emergency Health Unit (EHU) deployed to eight emergency responses in 2017, including Horn of Africa, South Sudan, Uganda, Bangladesh and Democratic Republic of Congo. Services provided include a range of primary health and inpatient health care, disease response and mass vaccination programmes. After Action Reviews carried out throughout the year point to improving country relations, timeliness, breadth and integration.

    This was complemented by work across Africa, the Middle-East and Asia improving capacity in countries where Save the Children work. This is both done through the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine accredited training curricula for health workers and direct-capacity building work with Ministries of Health.

    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.
    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.
    • Preparedness
    • Strengthening national/local systems
    4. Highlight actions planned for 2018 to advance implementation of your commitments in order to achieve this transformation.

    In 2018, Save the Children will launch a Cash Operational Manual which includes minimum steps for cash preparedness, to guide decision-making at field level for non-technical leads. Save the Children will also undertake research in the areas of Cash Transfer Programming from a child’s perspective, the value of money of cash preparedness, and the use of cash programming to obtain water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and educational outcomes.

    Keywords

    Cash, Local action

  • 5A
    Invest in local capacities

    Individual Commitments (3)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility
    • Save the Children commits to a global target for the proportion of funds to be directed to national and local actors.
    • Financial
    • Invest in Humanity

    • Save the Children commits to providing financial, technical and human resources to initiatives aimed at building the capacity of local actors, including the Humanitarian Leadership Academy and other partners. Save the Children recognises the considerable strategic value in supporting start-ups with their ability to innovate and positiviely disrupt in a way large organisations are not well placed to do.


    • Capacity
    • Invest in Humanity

    • Save the Children commits to undertake humanitarian capacity building work in order to train and strengthen the capacity to respond of our local staff and partners across the globe, especially those located in vulnerable crises affected countries and communities. Save the Children will embrace the potential for innovation in technology-enhanced pedagogy and utilise this in our capacity building work whenever possible.


    • Capacity
    • 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.

    Other-5A

    In 2017, Save the Children focused on strengthening operational capability to work with local and national responders including the development of new policies, procedures and tools to support partnership and capacity building. Outcomes include the revision of Save the Children’s Emergency Preparedness Planning tools to reflect involvement and cooperation with national and local responders; the rollout of a new Humanitarian Partnership Toolkit and recruitment of Roving Partnership Advisers to deploy to response teams and ensure partnership with national organisations is integrated into the response planning and implementation cycle.

    In accordance with Save the Children’s commitment to promote sector-wide access to capacity building and training, Save the Children signed a Memorandum of Strategic Intent with the Humanitarian Leadership Academy (HLA) and is working with the HLA to co-develop a number of appropriate and accessible capacity building materials for roll-out at global level and HLA centres in the Philippines, East Africa and Jordan.

    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.
    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
    • Funding modalities (earmarking, priorities, yearly agreements, risk aversion measures)
    • Human resources/capacity
    4. Highlight actions planned for 2018 to advance implementation of your commitments in order to achieve this transformation.

    In 2018, Save the Children will roll out an organisational Humanitarian Capacity Building strategy. This strategy recognises the changing operating environment and the need for a greater focus on the role of local and national organisations whilst aiming to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the organisation’s approach.  Save the Children will work with the HLA.

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

    Save the Children has mobilised a cross-sector Learning & Development group with over 20 organisations. This group provides a forum for fostering innovative capacity building initiatives, including mentoring programmes and the development of a ‘training of trainers’ framework.

    Keywords

    Local action

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

    Individual Commitments (6)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility
    • As part of the Grand Bargain, Save the Children commits to streamline and harmonise its requirements for partners, namely capacity assessments, funding proposals and reporting requirements. This will include a commitment not to ask more of its partners than what donors ask of it. Consideration should be taken not to let partners take on risks without proper support and/or capacity to manage these.
    • Operational
    • Invest in Humanity
    • As part of the Grand Bargain, Save the Children commits to be transparent about the full costs of humanitarian action, including the resources its transfer to partners, supporting the IATI framework as a suitable methodology.
    • Financial
    • Invest in Humanity
    • As part of the Grand Bargain, Save the Children commits to invest in high-quality assurance to objectively demonstrate its adherence to humanitarian standards and good practices, including how it demonstrates accountability to people affected by crisis.
    • Financial
    • Invest in Humanity
    • As part of the Grand Bargain, Save the Children commits to support more resources to first and frontline responders and more resources to capacity development of first and frontline responders.
    • Financial
    • Invest in Humanity
    • As part of the Grand Bargain, Save the Children commits to use cash as its preferred option where/when appropriate.
    • Operational
    • Invest in Humanity

    • Save the Children commits to ongoing membership and hosting of the Start Network as well as management of the Start Fund on the Network's behalf, which will help to ensure responses to crises are managed as effectively and efficiently as possible.  The Start Fund provides small-scale grants for small to medium scale emergencies.  Commitment to this Fund is paramount to reduce the gap in funding in crises for local agencies to respond.


    • Partnership
    • 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, Save the Children moved forward with full integration of the IATI standard in the design of its internal information management system to ensure the organisation can meet the scope of the commitment implied by signature of the Grand Bargain.

    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.
    Keywords

    Quality and accountability standards, Transparency / IATI

Attachments

  • WHS Commitments Attachments
    Quality and accountability standards