Error message

Notice: Undefined offset: 1 in drupal_settings_initialize() (line 802 of /backup/agenda/public_html/includes/bootstrap.inc).

Self Report 2019

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.

Expand All

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

    Joint Commitments (1)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • 375 individuals across the sector commit to collaborate across boundaries to recognise, enable and sustain local and national humanitarian capabilities and leadership. The Humanitarian Leadership Academy has endorsed this commitment. Further details can be found at https://bit.ly./WHSCommit


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

    Partners: 375 individuals

    Individual Commitments (3)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility
    • The Humanitarian Leadership Academy commits to invest in the capacity and ability of frontline responders to play a leading role in crisis anticipation, response and recovery by creating incentives through the development of evidence for international actors to work in strategic partnerships with local and national civil society organisations that build the long-term organisational and responsive capacity; and, 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 centres.
    • Capacity
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need
    • The Humanitarian Leadership Academy commits to investing in local and national capacity building initiatives, in order to provide access to relevant contextualised learning opportunities and contribute to their sustainability.
    • Capacity
    • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need
    • The Humanitarian Leadership Academy commits to undertake capacity mapping in ten of the most vulnerable locations to disasters and crises around the world, to inform capacity development and gap-filling by international and regional partners.
    • Capacity
    • 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 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 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. A. Highlight concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2018 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures as well as any good practices and examples of innovation.

    Strengthening national/local leadership and systems

    The Humanitarian Leadership Academy ("the Academy") exists to enable people to prepare for and respond to crises in their own countries. This is achieved through the provision of relevant, accessible and contextualised learning – by 2018 there were over 80,000 learners accessing almost 400 courses on our digital learning platform kayaconnect.org, many of these learners reside in countries experiencing a humanitarian crisis.

    In addition to the online learning offer, the Academy developed a network of Academy Centres to be owned and managed by the Academy initially, with the longer-term ambition to establish them as independent national entities. The network was responsible for assessing needs from the ground up, ensuring that knowledge and learning was context specific and locally relevant.

    By 2018 there were registered Academy Centres in the Philippines, East Africa and the Middle East, with plans to launch in Bangladesh. After consultation with donors and key stakeholders, Academy Centres were transitioned from managed entities to joint initiatives with existing in-country affiliate partners. These partners will ensure the Academy remain's relevant and serve the needs of local audiences, building upon a model of sustainability and value for money. The Academy believes that this model is more impactful, cost-effective and true to the localisation agenda.

    People-centered approaches (feedback mechanisms, community engagement, etc)

    A focus on user-centred design in the creation of humanitarian learning is integral to the Academy’s offer. The Academy is committed to remaining agile, flexible and responsive to the needs of front-line responders and humanitarian organisations across the world, regularly carrying out local and global needs assessments to inform our work.

    In 2018 the Academy worked in collaboration with national stakeholders in Bangladesh to test gamification and co-creation learning methodologies, fostering strategic peer-to-peer alliances and networks. Building humanitarian learning based upon user-feedback and engagement has enabled the Academy to continue to deliver highly relevant, useful and contextualised humanitarian content to a growing global audience of humanitarian professionals, volunteers and students.

    B. Please select if your report relates to any initiatives launched at World Humanitarian summit
    • Grand Bargain
    2. 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
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    The Academy relies heavily upon multi-stakeholder engagement to aggregate, create, contextualise and deliver humanitarian learning. Ensuring there are adequate partners to support our work is challenging and can hamper our ability to deliver quickly and effectively.

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

    The Academy continues to work with a global network of local organisations to champion and drive forward the localisation of aid. Strengthening local actors’ capacities and capabilities continues to be central to the Academy’s mission, and a critical consideration for the wider sector if the Grand Bargain commitments are to be achieved.

    Keywords

    Local action, People-centred approach, Strengthening local systems

  • 4B
    Anticipate, do not wait, for crises

    Individual Commitments (1)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility
    • The Humanitarian Leadership Academy commits to collaborate with others to enhance countries preparedness, and accelerate this initially in forty of the most at-risk countries, so they reach a minimum level of readiness by 2020.
    • Partnership
    • 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. A. Highlight concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2018 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures as well as any good practices and examples of innovation.

    Preparedness

    Enhancing preparedness in geographies susceptible to humanitarian crises is of paramount importance. In 2018, the Academy supported the contextualisation of the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Essentials Pathway specifically for a Filipino audience, which was led and managed by local stakeholders in the Philippines. This has enabled thousands more humanitarians in the Philippines access to contextualised and relevant crisis-preparedness learning. In order to increase both individual's and organisation's ability to be prepared for humanitarian disasters and anticipating their impact on their local environment, the Academy launched a new learning course; Futures and Foresights. The course is designed to incentivise early action to minimise the impact and frequency of known risks using a contextualised and user-centred design. The course has now been accessed by a growing global audience of 1,000 individuals.

    Other

    The Academy has been instrumental in applying innovative learning methodologies to preparedness initiatives. The Academy developed a 360 degree virtual reality film showcasing the devastating effects of forced displacement caused by crises in the Philippines. The development of the film alongside local partners Ecoweb and Quicksand, aims to use the 360 degree feature to transport the viewer into the crises and build levels of empathy and perspective, enabling local communities to better understand the impact of humanitarian disasters and build tools to anticipate the effects of forced displacement and build preparedness.

    B. Please select if your report relates to any initiatives launched at World Humanitarian summit
    • Grand Bargain
    2. 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 modalities (earmarking, priorities, yearly agreements, risk aversion measures)
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    Building sustainable funding mechanisms to support preparedness remains a key challenge for the sector. There remains a critical need to diversify funding and other forms of support across public and private sectors to ensure increased investment in this crucial activity.

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

    Cooperation among key stakeholders – including civil society organisations, INGO's, government and the private sector – needs to be prioritised as we seek to mobilise transformative and sustainable change for crisis-affected communities. Utilising the expertise of the humanitarian sector, including that of individuals and volunteers, will lead to collective progress toward disaster preparedness – which needs to be collectively owned and supported first and foremost by local decision makers.

    Keywords

    Disaster Risk Reduction, Innovation, Preparedness, Strengthening local systems

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

    Individual Commitments (3)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • The Humanitarian Leadership Academy commits to develop a mechanism to document and share evidence on impactful learning interventions and best practice for humanitarian action.


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

    • The Humanitarian Leadership Academy commits to investing over 50% of its total budget to identify and incubate new and existing, innovative solutions in humanitarian learning, in order to provide local and national access to contextualised learning and knowledge, and connect civil society with global and regional resources as appropriate.


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

    • The Humanitarian Leadership Academy commits to launch a global digital learning platform and 10 contextualised regional platforms to increase and democratise access to learning opportunities and connect learners and service providers at the national and regional level exchange experience and evidence between such platforms and global service providers.


    • 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. A. Highlight concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2018 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures as well as any good practices and examples of innovation.

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

    The Academy recognises that in order to deliver collective outcomes that meet the needs of the most vulnerable, we must forge new partnerships and collaborations. The Academy’s partnership with HSBC to deliver a bespoke Humanitarian Essentials online learning package for staff based in the Middle East is an example of this. In recognition that HSBC staff in the region play an active volunteering role in many contexts, the Academy developed a bespoke online Humanitarian Essentials programme to ensure they are equipped to undertake this work safely, effectively and appropriately.

    The post-programme survey revealed that 100% of participants were ‘very motivated’ or ‘motivated’, and 98% of participants were ‘very likely’ or ‘likely’ to volunteer within the humanitarian sector or other causes within their communities. 98% of the participants indicated that they would recommend the course to their colleagues, friends or families.

    Our collaboration with the private sector in the Middle East region has fostered greater engagement with a diverse audience of humanitarians, bringing peers across different localities and sectors together and collectively building upon knowledge and implementation of humanitarian principles.

    B. Please select if your report relates to any initiatives launched at World Humanitarian summit
    • Grand Bargain
    2. 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.
    • Other: Multi-Stakeholder coordination
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    Through working in partnership; new solutions are possible, efficiencies are revealed, and new forms of financing born.  However, there is a need to ensure that all stakeholders are working towards a shared objective and speak a common language, otherwise conflicting priorities can impede upon outcomes and timeframes.

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

    A more concerted effort is required to understand how different sectors can better collaborate. The Academy launched a joint white paper in early 2019, co-authored with HSBC, which has captured the progress and prognosis of private-sector engagement in humanitarian action. A key finding found responsibility exists within both sectors to keep trying, and to make progress in this space together, whether driven by the platform of an active crisis, well-planned corporate values, or stakeholder pressure.

    Keywords

    Disaster Risk Reduction, Humanitarian-development nexus

  • 5A
    Invest in local capacities

    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. A. Highlight concrete actions taken between 1 January – 31 December 2018 to implement the commitments which contribute to achieving this transformation. Be as specific as possible and include any relevant data/figures as well as any good practices and examples of innovation.

    Capacity building of national/local actors

    The Academy believes that to build a truly robust, relevant and sustainable humanitarian sector, we must strengthen the capacity of national delivery systems, and invest in preparedness planning. Developed in 2018, the Organisational Learning Service is one of the Academy’s core offers and is designed to support organisations to design, develop and deliver an organisational approach to learning that builds capacity from the core of the organisation. This includes identifying learning needs; understanding how to make best use of currently available and new learning opportunities to meet those needs; and guidance on how to embed this learning across the organisation in order to support people in their day-to-day work as well as enabling them to achieve their potential in the longer-term. A strategic, holistic, organisational approach to learning will contribute to staff retention, improved performance and the increased overall efficiency and impact of organisations.

    B. Please select if your report relates to any initiatives launched at World Humanitarian summit
    • Grand Bargain
    2. 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
    • Strengthening national/local systems
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    Obtaining adequate funding and human resource to invest in strengthening local capacities remains a critical challenge. Ensuring local actors are equipped with the networks, support-tools and resources remains a key challenge and one that needs to be prioritised to enable the future of aid to be more relevant and localised.

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

    Collective progress takes collective action, which is why the Academy strongly advocates that donors realise the value of investing directly with local and national organisations to strengthen capacities. We must collectively work toward strengthening the capacity of local actors and move away from foreign aid dependency to truly create sustainable, cost-effective and impactful humanitarian relief.

    Keywords

    Local action, Preparedness, Strengthening local systems