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Ensuring full access to, and protection of, the humanitarian mission requires an understanding of the guiding principles of humanitarian action by all staff. To that end, guiding principles of humanitarian action is included in the on-boarding process of all key programme staff undertaken after being hired for the first time by Concern. In addition to this being part of the on-boarding process, Concern utilizes three e-learning courses to further disseminate and reinforce knowledge regarding this information:  “National NGO Program on Humanitarian Leadership Program”, where we trained 55 humanitarians from 20 countries in 2018, one entitled ‘Being Humanitarian’ on the internal Concern Learn 365 platform and one entitled ‘Building a Better Response - BBR’ designed by International Medical Corps, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and Concern Worldwide. In 2018, Concern had 9,130 registered BBR users. Finally, as one of the non-governmental organization (NGO) representatives on the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Emergency Directorate, Concern takes part in assessments, missions, and meetings always with an eye to access constraints and advocates accordingly.

IDPs (due to conflict, violence, and disaster)

In 2018, Concern produced a research series on hunger, conflict and human suffering.  Breaking the Cycle featured a series of studies on displacement, inequality and peace building, drawing on Concern’s experience and country programmes in Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, CAR and Chad.

The report was publicised widely and the recommendations presented to donors, peers and policy makers. The research will be utilised through Concern’s work in 2019 to inform good practice in supporting displaced people and promoting and supporting peace-building.

The Global Hunger Index for 2018 featured migration and displacement as the focus. In collaboration with Alliance 2015 partner Welthunger Hilfe, the report was launched in 10 capitals. In addition to raising awareness and highlighting the protracted nature of displacement, Concern’s programmes continue to collaborate with both displaced people and host communities, governments and policy makers to identify realistic durable solutions to displacement. Concern is a member of the Regional Durable Solutions Secretariat, a network of NGOs promoting forward thinking and policy development on durable solutions. As a member of No Lost Generation, Concern, in collaboration with other networks, advocates for continued quality education for displaced children

Strengthening national/local leadership and systems

Strengthening in-country leadership and systems was an integral part of much of Concern’s humanitarian response in 2018. Concern scaled up its implementation of Community Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) Surge, an approach to strengthen health systems and health staff capacity to respond to and manage surges in caseloads of malnourished children, adding Burundi, Chad and Ethiopia to the existing four countries of implementation . The year has also seen the rapid adoption and scale up of the approach by other NGOs in West Africa and the creation of a CMAM Surge Task Force for the region, on which Concern is one of the lead members. Concern held a regional workshop in Niger for partners who have started implementation to share best practices and lessons learned and inform future updates to existing guidance. The Afghanistan Resilience Consortium, of which Concern is a member, developed community self-help capacities for emergency planning and responding. The introduction of community and school-based disaster risk reduction (DRR) committees has changed patterns of early warning and emergency response in in the target communities and DRR plans at the community and school-levels have been successfully implemented (ARC Final Evaluation 2019).

Cash-based programming

Concern systematically considers the use of cash transfers and vouchers based on response analysis and market analysis. In 2018, cash-based assistance was provided in 17 out of 24 Concern country programmes. Total transfer in 2018 was 19% of total spend on overseas programmes.

Concern works with telecommunications companies and financial services to extend the use of electronic transfers and to mitigate risks. In 2018, Concern was able to scale up within 48 hours cash transfers in Somalia using mobile money to respond to the urgent needs following flood and cyclones. In 2018, 44% of cash-based assistance was transferred electronically through SMART cards, mobile money, bank or post transfers.

Concern is member of different cash working groups, such as the Collaborative Cash Delivery (CCD) Network and the Alliance 2015, and contributes to develop standards and guidelines. Concern is part of the Cash Learning Partnership (CaLP) and actively engages with other initiatives to scaling up Graduation approaches.

Concern works closely with other agencies and local partners to coordinate and harmonise approaches and led the Cash Consortium in Somalia (20.8 million EUR), reaching 43,841 households.

Adherence to quality and accountability standards (e.g. CHS, SPHERE)

As a member of the Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability (CHS), Concern continuously strengthens and expands systems and processes to ensure accountability across its programmes.  In late 2017, Concern was the first Irish agency to be accredited with CHS certification based on a rigorous external process including country visits to Liberia and Burundi. Humanitarian Quality Assurance Initiative (HQAI) is seeking its accreditation against ISO/IEC 17065 standard for certification bodies and following on from this process it is envisaged that annual audits will be conducted.

In October 2018, HQAI conducted a Maintenance Audit, the process was finalised in December. The audit confirmed Concern’s ongoing compliance with the standard with three minor corrective action requests. The corrective action requests relate to the complaints response mechanism, the environment and unintended impacts of the programmes. Three Concern staff members have completed the CHS Alliance Trainer Of Trainers course on the Standard. These staff members organised a training for staff across different departments over a four month period covering each of the nine commitments. In 2018, one member of the Concern’s Emergency Directorate was elected to the SPHERE Board.

Multi-year funding is a key advocacy ask in all of Concern’s engagement with donors and with UN agencies.  In Concern’s major report of 2018, Breaking the Cycle of Conflict, Hunger and Human Suffering, there are a set of recommendations specifically focusing on funding, specifying that donors end single-year, annual pledging conferences and deliver on existing commitments to increase flexible, multi-year humanitarian funding to address and prevent protracted displacement.

Concern made specific recommendations to the Irish Government on three occasions in 2017/18 relating to multi-year funding. In a joint submission with Irish humanitarian NGOs to the Foreign Affairs Committee review of Irish Aid (Oct 2017), Concern recommended an increase in multi-year, collaborative and flexible planning and multi-year funding instruments and document the impacts on programme efficiency and effectiveness, ensuring that recipients apply the same funding arrangements to their implementing partners. Concern’s submission to the development of the White Paper on International Development: A better World commended Irish Aid’s progress on providing multi-year flexible funding to NGOs working in fragile contexts and encouraged continued multi-annual humanitarian funding to allow NGOs to prevent, prepare for, support recovery from and build resilience to crises and disasters, and to mitigate conflict and foster community peace-building.