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

  • 2D
    Take concrete steps to improve compliance and accountability

    Individual Commitments (3)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility
    • As a founding partner of the Call to Action on Protection from Gender-based Violence in Emergencies, the WRC will support implementation of the Call to Action Road Map 2016-2020, help bring new partners into the initiative, and conduct sustained advocacy with all stakeholders for strong, comprehensive programs to address gender-based violence from the start of an emergency.
    • Policy
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
    • The WRC will gather the evidence for community-based care for survivors of sexual violence where insecurity and other factors prevent survivors' access to health facilities.  
    • Operational
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
    • The WRC will identify effective interventions to prevent and address forced early child marriage in three diverse humanitarian settings and disseminate learning to all stakeholders.
    • Operational
    • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

    Core Commitments (2)

    • Commitment
    • Core Responsibility
    • 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. 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.

    Gender-based violence prevention and response

    The Women's Refugee Commission (WRC) is a founding member of the Call to Action on Protection from Gender-based Violence in Emergencies. In support of the Call to Action collective, the WRC played a key role in the development of Road Map pilot projects in Northeast Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo to strengthen gender-based violence (GBV) prevention and response in these two settings. WRC also produced a report on progress made against the gender equality objective of the Call to Action Road Map. The report, Where Do We Go from Here?: Moving Forward with the Gender Equality Objective of the Road Map, provides recommendations on the individual and collective actions that Call to Action partners can take to strengthen results on the gender equality components of the Global Road Map.

    In 2018, WRC completed field implementation of a collaborative project to assess the prevalence of child marriage among Syrian refugees in Lebanon and internally displaced persons in Kachin State, Myanmar. WRC also held a workshop in Jordan with the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) to launch a collaborative partnership on child marriage research in the Arab States Region.

    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 amounts
    • Gender and/or vulnerable group inclusion
    • Human resources/capacity
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    Gender inequality perpetuates norms which promote GBV, but many humanitarian actors do not yet understand the link and the relevance to their work. Capacity to address GBV remains insufficient in international, national and local organizations. Funding has improved, but more resources are required to meet survivors' needs and support effective prevention.

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

    Collective buy-in and support for the global Call to Action on Protection from GBV in Emergencies.

    Keywords

    Gender

  • 3D
    Empower and protect women and girls

    Individual Commitments (9)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • As a member of the secretariat of the Inter-agency Working Group (IAWG) on Reproductive Health in Crises, WRC will facilitate implementation of the Every Woman Every Child Everywhere Initiative and its roadmap and work to end all preventable deaths of women and adolescent girls in crisis settings.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind
    • As a Steering Committee member and seat of the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights, the WRC will advocate - in partnership with national women's organizations - for reform of gender discriminatory nationality laws which exacerbate the risks to crisis-affected women and their families, limit their access to reproductive health care, create barriers to education and sustainable livelihoods and deny them opportunities to participate in community decision making and electoral processes. As a leader of the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights, the WRC will support increased engagement of youth in this work.
    • Advocacy
    • Leave No One Behind
    • In its role as a member of the inter-agency group developing guidelines on inclusion of persons with disabilities in humanitarian action, the WRC will provide technical expertise and leadership on gender equality, gender-based violence prevention and response, and women's protection and empowerment to the guidelines development processes, as well as in the implementation strategy that follows.
    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind
    • The WRC commits to conducting a gender analysis with age, sex and disability disaggregated data when developing and implementing projects, ensuring that the different needs, vulnerabilities and capacities of women, girls, boys and men, including those with disabilities and sexual and gender minorities are reflected in WRC's research, programs and advocacy to improve the accessibility and inclusiveness of its activities.
    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind
    • The WRC will build humanitarian partners' capacity to deliver programming that links adolescent girls, including those with disabilities, to essential services and builds their capacity to fully participate in the decision making processes that affect their lives.
    • Capacity
    • Leave No One Behind

    • The WRC will continue to assess, report and advocate on stakeholders' compliance with established inter-agency standards on gender-responsive humanitarian action, focusing in particular on women, girls and youth displaced by crises.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind
    • The WRC will improve community resilience, particularly among women and girls, through roll out of its community-based training curriculum on mitigating gender and sexual and reproductive health risks in emergencies supported by Disaster Risk Management for Health at the district and national levels.
    • Training
    • Leave No One Behind
    • The WRC will monitor and advocate for immediate implementation of the Minimum Initial Services Package (MISP) for reproductive health at the onset of all new emergencies and for the transition to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care as soon as the situation stabilizes. 
    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind
    • The WRC will partner with local and national groups of women with disabilities to provide capacity development and mentoring, thereby increasing their ability to participate in humanitarian program design, delivery and monitoring.

    • Partnership
    • Leave No One Behind

    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. 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.

    Sexual and reproductive health

    The Women's Refugee Commission  (WRC) continues to host the secretariat of the Inter-Agency Working Group (IAWG) on reproductive health in crises. WRC had a leadership role in the revision of the Inter-Agency Field Manual on Reproductive Health in Crises which works both as a standard and a tool. After a 2-year highly collaborative process, the revision of the Field Manual was completed in 2018. Relevant chapters are aligned with the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) GBV Guidelines. IAWG will prioritize effective implementation of the revised manual with donors and stakeholders. 

    Empowerment of women and girls

    WRC continues to house the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights which addresses gender discrimination in nationality laws—a contributor to gender-based violence (GBV) risks. The lack of gender-equal nationality rights increases women and girls’ vulnerability to GBV in a number of ways. Stateless women and girls face an increased risk of human trafficking and early and forced marriage. Women unable to retain their nationality or pass it on to their children face obstacles in extracting themselves from abusive relationships. WRC and Campaign partners are working to achieve reforms in countries that have gender discriminatory nationality laws. In 2018, with support from the Government of Sweden, the Campaign produced a guide for policy makers in African countries, Achieving Gender-Equal Nationality Laws in Africa: For Equality, For Families, for the Future. The publication is available in English and French. It fills an important gap in available resources and provides government and civil society allies in affected countries with a powerful tool to heighten awareness of the costs of these laws, the benefits of reform and the lessons learned from recent reforms in the region.

    B. Please select if your report relates to any initiatives launched at World Humanitarian summit
    • A Global Undertaking on Health in Crisis Settings
    • 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 amounts
    • Human resources/capacity
    • Multi-stakeholder coordination
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    *Insufficient funding limits the activities of the Campaign for equal nationality rights with countries and hampers its ability to provide ongoing support to governments and civil society organizations.

    *Insufficient funding and funding restrictions affect access to quality and sexual and reproductive health services.

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

    *To make collective progress on ending gender discrimination in nationality laws, it is critical to develop additional allies within Governments and provide greater support for advocacy efforts of national organizations.

    *In the area of sexual and reproductive health, it is vital to build the capacity of service providers in preparedness as well as response. And ensure that inter-agency standards and guidelines are implemented from the start of any humanitarian response.

    Keywords

    Gender

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

    Individual Commitments (3)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • The WRC will continue to assess, report and advocate on stakeholders' compliance with established inter-agency standards on gender-responsive humanitarian action, focusing in particular on women, girls and youth displaced by crises.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind
    • The WRC will integrate the goals of the Compact for Young People in Humanitarian Action into its own research, program, and advocacy work, giving particular attention to the inclusion of displaced adolescents and youth, including those with disabilities and sexual and gender minorities, as partners in decision-making processes and the design, implementation, and monitoring of programs.
    • Policy
    • Leave No One Behind

    • The WRC will provide technical support to operational partners in humanitarian settings to strengthen protection and increase the participation of adolescent girls, sexual and gender minorities, and young people with disabilities in program design, implementation, and evaluation.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind
    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.

    The Women's Refugee Commission (WRC) Adolescent Girls’ Initiative continues to work with humanitarian actors to build the protective assets of displaced adolescent girls in two ways: (1) identifying the most vulnerable girls in the days that follow a sudden onset emergency and connecting them to interventions that meet their needs; (2) building their capacities during the years of protracted displacement. A primary resource for this work is the WRC’s foundational I’m Here Approach which is a series of steps and a complementary set of field tools to help humanitarian actors reach the most vulnerable girls from the start of an emergency response. In 2018, WRC leveraged the learning from I’m Here implementation to produce a policy brief, “Shadows to Spotlight: Making Adolescents Visible in Already-Collected Data”. In addition, WRC developed a real-time monitoring dashboard to complete the set of I’m Here tools. The dashboard captures changes in girls’ social, human and financial assets, as well as their access to and utilization of programs and services related to health, including sexual and reproductive health, water and sanitation and education.

    WRC also completed its three-year partnership with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on promoting women and girls’ participation in camp life and camp governance. In the last year of the project, WRC worked closely with IOM to develop and launch an online platform at https://womenindisplacement.org/, providing tools and building common learning, and ensuring that the toolkit is available for camp coordination and camp management partners to access the platform.

    WRC also continued to support the inclusion of refugee youth in humanitarian action. In 2018, WRC supported UNHCR's Global Youth Advisory Council (GYAC), compromised of refugee youth to take part consultations in Geneva on the first-ever Global Refugee Compact. Twelve of the GYAC members participated in UNHCR's Dialogue on Protection where GYAC presented in plenaries and on panels, drafted their own recommendations for the Global Compact and presented their recommendations to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. See also the GYAC's annual report: https://www.unhcr.org/protection/children/5c90f4d84/global-youth-advisory-council-annual-report-2018.html

    B. Please select if your report relates to any initiatives launched at World Humanitarian summit
    • Grand Bargain
    • The Compact for Young People in Humanitarian Action
    • The Inclusion Charter
    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.
    • Buy-in
    • Funding amounts
    • Human resources/capacity
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    *It requires advocacy to secure buy-in from those field actors who believe there is neither the time nor the resources to be intentional about the inclusion of youth, in particular older adolescent girls.

    *Limited staff capacity and funding for the refugee youth work is hindering support for the implementation of national-level action plans.

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

    *See above, making space for the inclusion of youth, address buy-in, capacity and funding challenges.

     

     

    Keywords

    Displacement, Gender, Protection, Youth

  • 3G
    Address other groups or minorities in crisis settings

    Individual Commitments (3)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility

    • The WRC will provide technical support to operational partners in humanitarian settings to strengthen protection and increase the participation of adolescent girls, sexual and gender minorities, and young people with disabilities in program design, implementation, and evaluation.


    • Operational
    • Leave No One Behind
    • The WRC will serve as an active member of the inter-agency group developing globally endorsed guidelines on inclusion of persons with disabilities in humanitarian action, and will support their rollout and implementation through 2020.
    • Partnership
    • Leave No One Behind
    • WRC endorses the Charter on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action.
    • Policy
    • Leave No One Behind
    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.

    The Women's Refugee Commission (WRC) is a core member of the multi-stakeholder Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Task Team charged with developing IASC Guidelines on Disability Inclusion in Humanitarian Action. WRC led the drafting and review process for the GBV prevention and response section of the Guidelines and worked with stakeholders to ensure that gender is mainstreamed throughout the Guidelines. In conjunction with its leadership role on the Task Team, the WRC helped analyze the results of a global online consultation and organized regional workshops in 2018 with gender and GBV actors in Bangkok and Addis Ababa to inform development of the Guidelines. WRC consulted with over 50 humanitarian stakeholders, including representatives from grassroots organizations of women with disabilities during these workshops. Moving forward in 2019, WRC is now supporting three pilot projects with partners in Jordan, Sri Lanka and Uganda to pilot the GBV section of the Guidelines.

    The Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) also participated in the first-ever Global Disability Summit hosted by the United Kingdom, Kenya and the International Disability Alliance, where WRC highlighted the critical importance of including refugee women and girls with disabilities in humanitarian action. In December 2018, WRC spoke at the first ever UN Security Council Arria Formula meeting on persons with disabilities and highlighted the need for need for gender and disability mainstreaming.

    B. Please select if your report relates to any initiatives launched at World Humanitarian summit
    • Charter on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action
    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.
    • Gender and/or vulnerable group inclusion
    • Joined-up humanitarian-development analysis, planning, funding and/or response
    • Multi-stakeholder coordination
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    *It remains a challenge for many humanitarian actors to understand and address inclusion and inter-sectionality in their work.

    *Grassroots organizations of persons with disabilities cannot access development and humanitarian funding processes.

    *On coordination, organizations' work on inclusion is largely led by focal points which can hinder mainstreaming and inclusion.

    *Silos between gender and disability actors.

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

    *Develop practical tools and support humanitarian actors to be inclusive and inter-sectional in assessments, program design and implementation.

    *Ensure development and humanitarian funding is accessible to grassroots organizations, including women led organizations of persons with disabilities.

    * When IASC Guidelines on Disability Inclusion are finalized and endorsed, donors should allocate funding for the uptake and dissemination of the Guidelines to ensure they are implemented.

    *Collective buy-in and financial and political support for roll-out of new IASC Guidelines on Disability Inclusion.

    Keywords

    Disability, Gender

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

    Individual Commitments (1)

    • Commitment
    • Commitment Type
    • Core Responsibility
    • To ensure the growing area of cash-based programming is gender responsive, minimizes protection risks and maximizes protection benefits, the WRC will train practitioners on the use of the Guide for Protection in Cash-based Interventions developed by a consortium of UN agencies and NGOs.
    • Training
    • 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.

    Cash-based programming

    In 2018, the Women's Refugee Commission (WRC) completed a multi-year project on optimizing cash-based interventions for enhanced protection from gender-based violence (GBV). This project built humanitarian actors’ capacity to mainstream protection in cash-based interventions (CBIs) and to use CBIs for protection outcomes, including prevention of GBV. Early in the year, the WRC published the Toolkit for Optimizing Cash-based Interventions for Protection from Gender-based Violence: Mainstreaming GBV Considerations in CBIs and Utilizing Cash in GBV Response, together with three case studies and an advocacy video. Toolkit and other resources can be found here https://www.womensrefugeecommission.org/issues/livelihoods/research-and-resources/

    The WRC also partnered with UNHCR to develop 3 training modules for its Global Learning Center: GBV Mainstreaming in CBIs; Utilizing Cash within Protection Programming with a Focus on GBV; and GBV Mainstreaming in Livelihoods Programming. These materials were informed by WRC's work on the CBI Toolkit and WRC’s Cohort Livelihood and Risk Analysis (CLARA) guidance and tools produced in 2016, as well as field missions to South Africa and Malaysia, and remote engagement with UNHCR teams in Afghanistan and Pakistan. WRC also teamed up with UNICEF to deliver a webinar based on the WRC toolkit on cash and GBV for UNICEF staff around the world.

    Building community resilience

    In 2018, the Women's Refugee Commission teamed up with Refuge Point and launched the Refugee Self-Reliance Inititative (RSRI), a joint effort by a coalition of organizations, government agencies, foundations, research institutes and other partners to promote opportunities for refugees to become self-reliant and achieve a better quality of life. The Initiative aims to collectively reach five million refugees with self-reliance programming in five years and, in the process, to identify the most effective models and measurements to aid global expansion of self-reliance opportunities. The coalition is building three mutually reinforcing strategies to achieve its goals, including programming, measurement, and advocacy, with the aim of building an evidence base for effective programming, and promoting successful refugee self-reliance strategies among key decision-makers and responders.

    B. Please select if your report relates to any initiatives launched at World Humanitarian summit
    • Charter for Change
    • 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 amounts
    • Gender and/or vulnerable group inclusion
    • Human resources/capacity
    B. How are these challenges impacting achievement of this transformation?

    *Quality data regarding gender and protection is not systematically collected and analysis often "put on the shelf".

    *Failure to tailor cash assistance to ensure access, inclusion and safety means interventions fall short in quality and effectiveness.

    *Lack of staff trained on gender and protection.

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

    *See above, and need to integrate efforts and establish partnerships between cash and GBV service providers and experts; strengthen evidence base for cash-transfer programming on GBV outcomes; conduct further research where there are still gaps.

    *Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative: Raise broad awareness of refugees’ desire for self-reliance and engender a movement that attracts new resources to support them.

    Keywords

    Cash, Community resilience, Displacement, Local action, Strengthening local systems

Attachments

  • WRC Toolkit for Toolkit for Optimizing Cash-based Interventions for GBV protection
    Transformation - 2D, 4A | Cash, Gender, Local action
  • WRC-IOM Report on Women's Participation
    Transformation - 3D | Displacement, Gender, People-centred approach