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Self Report 2017

The self-report on WHS Commitments below is organized according to the 24 transformations of the Agenda for Humanity. It is based on commitments pledged at the time of report submission. Click on the 'Expand' symbol to expand each section and read the reporting inputs by transformation.

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1B
Act early

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to act early upon potential conflict situations based on early warning findings and shared conflict analysis, in accordance with international law.
  • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts
  • Commit to make successful conflict prevention visible by capturing, consolidating and sharing good practices and lessons learnt.
  • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts

  • What led your organization to make the commitment?

    CARE supports efforts by political actors to prevent and end conflicts, and believes this is key to ending or reducing the humanitarian impact of wars.

  • Achievements at a glance

    CARE continues to invest substantial advocacy resources into holding states and non-state actors accountable for their conduct of conflicts. In the reporting period we have increased our policy/advocacy capacity, and introduced a CARE-wide Humanitarian Advocacy Strategy (HASt).

  • How is your organization assessing progress

    CARE is reviewing how we measure the impact of our policy/advocacy work, but has limited capacity to measure progress at the time of this report. As a result reporting will remain qualitative.

  • Next step to advance implementation in 2017

    CARE is developing improved and context-specific policy/advocacy strategies for each of our Type 4 Emergencies (the largest category - roughly equivalent to UN L3 emergencies) These will be completed within the next six months and for new emergencies will be developed within four weeks of a Type 4 being declared.

  • Cross cutting issues

    ☑Humanitarian principles

  • Specific initiatives

    ☑The Peace Promise

1C
Remain engaged and invest in stability

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to improve prevention and peaceful resolution capacities at the national, regional and international level improving the ability to work on multiple crises simultaneously.
  • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts
  • Commit to sustain political leadership and engagement through all stages of a crisis to prevent the emergence or relapse into conflict.
  • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts
  • Commit to address root causes of conflict and work to reduce fragility by investing in the development of inclusive, peaceful societies.
  • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts

  • Achievements at a glance

    CARE commits to support the realization of The Peace Promise, which is a set of five commitments to develop more effective synergies among peace, humanitarian and development actions in complex humanitarian situations in order to end human suffering by addressing the drivers of conflict.

  • Specific initiatives

    ☑The Peace Promise

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

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to promote and enhance the protection of civilians and civilian objects, especially in the conduct of hostilities, for instance by working to prevent civilian harm resulting from the use of wide-area explosive weapons in populated areas, and by sparing civilian infrastructure from military use in the conduct of military operations.
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

  • What led your organization to make the commitment?

    CARE's commitment to observing international humanitarian law and humanitarian principles make this a longstanding commitment.

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

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility
  • To contribute to wider efforts to promote understanding of and respect for International Humanitarian Law, the Red Cross Code of Conduct and a principled approach to humanitarian action, CARE will train at least 100 international and national programme staff on principled humanitarian action in practice between 2016 and 2020; ensure its Emergency Preparedness Plan (EPP) process and reviews, which are undertaken on a regular basis by its 80 of our Country Offices, include plans to ensure planned responses reflect humanitarian principles; undertake a review of its global approaches to training of staff and civil society partners and strengthen attention to International Humanitarian Law, the Red Cross Code of Conduct and a principled approach to humanitarian action; invest in an organizational culture that more thoroughly integrates International Humanitarian Law, the Red Cross Code of Conduct and a principled approach to better support our country teams to manage risk and reach the most vulnerable people wherever they are.
  • Operational
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to ensure all populations in need receive rapid and unimpeded humanitarian assistance.
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
  • Commit to promote and enhance efforts to respect and protect medical personnel, transports and facilities, as well as humanitarian relief personnel and assets against attacks, threats or other violent acts.
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

  • What led your organization to make the commitment?

    CARE has recognised that living up to humanitarian principles will require us to be able to reach more people in challenging and high risk environments. We therefore need to continuously build our capacity to work in such environments.

  • Achievements at a glance

    CARE has begun to establish systems to centrally monitor staff training across our Confederation's 14 members, and linking this into work to improve our Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning systems, but are not yet able to report quantitative numbers. Regional Humanitarian Coordinators ensure that Emergency Preparedness Plans are developed in accordance with humanitarian principles. We have reviewed key internal tools, and conducted webinars on humanitarian principles. As a member of the Working Group on Protection of Humanitarian Action CARE supports the creation of a Special Rapporteur for the protection of aid workers, dedicated to advancing efforts to respect and protect the humanitarian mission against attacks, threats or other violent acts that prevent it from fulfilling its exclusively humanitarian function, and to fight impunity.

  • How is your organization assessing progress

    Currently through manually reviewing progress against our four commitments.

  • Challenges faced in implementation

    A particular challenge has been the lack of centralised systems to monitor progress, and an inability to allocate resources (funds and staff time) towards creating such systems

  • Cross cutting issues

    ☑Humanitarian principles

2C
Speak out on violations

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to speak out and systematically condemn serious violations of international humanitarian law and serious violations and abuses of international human rights law and to take concrete steps to ensure accountability of perpetrators when these acts amount to crimes under international law.
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

  • What led your organization to make the commitment?

    An increasing recognition that a failure to speak out on violations feeds a sense of impunity among perpetrators, increasing the risk to our staff and beneficiaries over time.

  • Achievements at a glance

    CARE researched and wrote a concept paper 'The Dangers of Silence' and used this to foster discussion among peers and partners of the relative costs of speaking out and remaining silent in the face of attacks on humanitarian and civilian targets. CARE has been an active participant in the Working Group on Protection of Humanitarian Action since September 2016.

  • Challenges faced in implementation

    A key concern is direct threats to programs, staff and partners as a result of us speaking out.

  • Cross cutting issues

    ☑Humanitarian principles

  • Other related Agenda for Humanity transformations

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

2D
Take concrete steps to improve compliance and accountability

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to promote and enhance respect for international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and refugee law, where applicable.
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
  • Commit to speak out and systematically condemn serious violations of international humanitarian law and serious violations and abuses of international human rights law and to take concrete steps to ensure accountability of perpetrators when these acts amount to crimes under international law.
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
  • Implement a coordinated global approach to prevent and respond to gender-based violence in crisis contexts, including through the Call to Action on Protection from Gender-based Violence in Emergencies.
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
  • Fully comply with humanitarian policies, frameworks and legally binding documents related to gender equality, women's empowerment, and women's rights.
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity Leave No One Behind

  • What led your organization to make the commitment?

    CARE is keen to improve our own transparency, as well as realise the gains from simpler, standardised formats and systems.

  • Achievements at a glance

    CARE is, alongside other agencies, exploring the use of IATI standards for our financial and other reporting.

  • Specific initiatives

    ☑Grand Bargain

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

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to promote and enhance respect for international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and refugee law, where applicable.
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

  • What led your organization to make the commitment?

    CARE is committed to working to humanitarian norms and principles. We support this commitment to demonstrate our continuing alignment with those values.

3A
Reduce and address displacement

Core Commitment

  • 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

  • What led your organization to make the commitment?

    Deep concern about the scale of current movements, the lack of regard for rights and the abandonment of key principles. We also have a long term concern that current movements will prove small compared to future movements driven by, in particular, climate change, and so seek to use the current political momentum to develop realistic strategic solutions at scale before those really large scale movements occur.

  • Achievements at a glance

    CARE is a member of the Civil Society Action Committee and through this, engaged in the September 2016 high level summit to address large movements of refugees and migrants through both formal and informal official entry points, in particular through direct meetings with Member States, intergovernmental entities in New York regional centers and capitals, including the European Union, UN agencies and IOM, through participation in informal briefings organized by the two states’ facilitators of the negotiations and the informal interactive multi-stakeholder hearings at the UN General Assembly in July 2016, through self-organizing and participating in two global civil society preparatory events in July and September 2016, through our participation in the World Humanitarian Summit in May 2016 and through our contributions to the Summit’s outcome document (the New York Declaration).

  • Next step to advance implementation in 2017

    CARE will continue to engage with the Civil Society Action committee moving forwards.

  • Cross cutting issues

    ☑IDPs ☑ Refugees

  • Other related Agenda for Humanity transformations

    ☑1B - Act early

3D
Empower and protect women and girls

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility
  • By 2020 CARE will empower women and girls as change agents and leaders.
  • Operational
  • Leave No One Behind

  • To support the WHS agenda on 'leave no one behind', CARE is actively engaged on numerous inter-agency efforts to ensure inclusive and needs-based humanitarian action. In so doing, it recognises the inter-sections between gender, age, disability and other factors that prevent people accessing the assistance and protection they need. In particular, it commits to: scale-up partnerships with women-led organisations on humanitarian assistance and protection, disaster risk reduction, climate change resilience and adaptation and recovery programmes in Syria, Pakistan, Nepal and Niger and draw learning from these partnerships to inform its global approach; partner with women's organisations in its core sectors (shelter, WASH, sexual reproductive and maternal health and food security) to bring their expertise into efforts to define and implement minimum standards on gender in these sectors; monitor funding to women-led groups and triple it by 2020 from its 2015 level; scale-up our 'whole of programme cycle' approach to monitoring gender responsive programming across all 80 CARE country offices emergency preparedness plans and bring learning from this into efforts to strengthen the IASC Gender Marker and the forthcoming new accountability framework for the IASC 2008 Gender Policy Statement. To do this, CARE will build on its active role in piloting 'whole of programme' approaches to Gender Marking and the piloting of 'minimum standards' for gender, age and disability in the WASH sector.


  • Operational
  • Leave No One Behind

Core Commitment

  • 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

  • What led your organization to make the commitment?

    CARE has long prioritised gender-transformative programming, and developed this commitment to highlight and build upon this work, which in particular is based on acceptance of comments from partners that we cannot speak for them, but must use our voice to secure their place at the table and our capacity to support them to improve both their response and their capacity. This is also designed to internally support our commitment to transformative gender programming across all parts of the CARE confederation.

  • Achievements at a glance

    CARE has taken opportunities at major international meetings and conferences (including the WHS itself and at the London Conference on Syria) to surrender platforms to our women-led partners and local women's organisations. CARE has continued to champion the use of the gender marker, and has conducted a detailed gender assessment in Yemen and elsewhere. We have built major partnerships with women-led organisations in Pakistan, Jordan and other key contexts. CARE has become a full member of the Missed Opportunities Consortium, joining the original 5 UK-based INGOs in researching and showing evidence of the potential of partnerships in humanitarian action. CARE has begun to establish an agency-wide baseline against the commitments and has begun documenting current practice and gaps (e.g. inventory of types of organizations we partner with, partnership approaches used (extent of use of sub-granting) and identifying challenges to more transformative partnerships with women-led organisations.

  • How is your organization assessing progress

    CARE is measuring our progress against two main sets of targets, the Charter4Change (C4C) and the Grand Bargain. As a signatory to both documents, CARE reports publicly on its commitments and measures our performance against peers. We are also working to log specific examples where we have used our own power to elevate the voices of both women-led organisations and individual women. Our report 'She is a Humanitarian', based on a research process that predates the WHS, has incorporated our WHS commitments and monitors progress and learning in specific contexts.

  • Challenges faced in implementation

    - Data is challenging to extract as no CARE-wide system currently tracks this type of data, forcing us to rely on proxy indicators for now;
    - Definitions remain unclear;
    - Linking C4C commitments (and measurement) with related WHS, CHS and localization commitments in an effort not to duplicate measurement and reporting efforts has been difficult;
    - It has proved challenging to collect qualitative data vs. quantitative, especially agency-wide (e.g. quality of partnerships) and across our 92 country presences.

  • Next step to advance implementation in 2017

    We will continue establishing light-touch recording approaches to allow more quantitative data on our progress. CARE will adapt its measurement systems to capture spending through local women-led partners, applying collectively agreed definitions. We will provide consistent input into the Charter4Change, as a member of its Steering Committee, thereby sharing lessons learnt and good practice with other signatories and endorsers of the Charter. We will deliver on a number of initiatives to make CARE more ‘fit-for-partnering’ - more details available in our reports to Charter4Change and the Grand Bargain.

  • If you had one message for the annual report on what is most needed to advance the transformation 'Empower and protect women and girls', what would it be

    Women are not just victims: the humanitarian system still primarily sees women and girls as victims, and treats women and girls as passive beneficiaries of humanitarian assistance. This has to change.

  • Cross cutting issues

    ☑Accountability to affected people ☑ Gender

  • Specific initiatives

    ☑Charter for Change ☑ Grand Bargain

  • Other related Agenda for Humanity transformations

    ☑4A - Reinforce, do not replace, national and local systems

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

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility
  • By 2020 CARE will secure more resources for first and front line responders to spend on humanitarian action, DRR and climate adaptation and loss and damage.
  • Financial
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need
  • To recognise and strengthen support for the role of local institutions in humanitarian action and meet the anticipated increase in need likely to be associated with accelerated climate change CARE commits to ensure that by end 2018 at least 50% (and by 2020, 100%) of all its partnerships fully comply with the Principles of Partnership, and thus reflect strategic partnership rather than subcontracting relationships; by May 2018 publish the percentages of its humanitarian budget which goes directly to partners for humanitarian capacity building and undertake to ensure it budgets for adequate administrative support for partners beyond the immediate costs of delivering specific projects; ensure that by May 2018 at least 20% of its humanitarian action (measured by spending) will be delivered through southern-based NGO partners; by 2020 streamline and harmonise with other similar NGOs the compliance requirements requested of partners and commit to not ask more of partners than donors ask of CARE; promote the role of local actors and acknowledge the work that they carry out, and include them as spokespersons when security considerations permit in any communications to the international and national media and to the public; by 2020 document the types of organisation CARE cooperates with in humanitarian response and publish these figures (or percentages) in public accounts using a recognised categorisation such as the GHA3 in real-time and to the IATI standard; only deploy to undertake humanitarian responses where needed, ensuring that its support is based on a clear assessment of need and complementarity with national NGOs, local CSOs and other stakeholders when making go/no go decisions on a response.
  • Policy
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

Core Commitment

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

  • What led your organization to make the commitment?

    This commitment builds on our wider program strategy and the numbers we plan to reach though humanitarian action. Our contention is that local capacity building is not at the expense of growing international capacity - both national and international actors (including CARE and our partners) will need to grow considerably to meet the needs we observe and expect, and that CARE has a role in securing resources both for ourselves and for local/national actors. It also supports an inclusive humanitarian ecosystem that engages affected people, concerned outsiders and duty bearers, providing principled voices from the global North and South.

  • Achievements at a glance

    CARE has developed new targets for fundraising, and has made progress in measuring the proportion of that funding that we direct to local and national actors. We have fully engaged with the Grand Bargain and are advocating strongly that the Grand Bargain not only focus on efficiency improvements, but also utilizes efficiency gains to create political space for additional resources. CARE has been an active member of the Charter4Change and has become a full member of the Missed Opportunities Consortium, joining the original 5 UK-based INGOs in researching and showing evidence of the potential of partnerships in humanitarian action. The ‘Nepal Earthquake Response’ report was produced in 2016, outlining a number of lessons learnt on localizing aid. CARE also developed several learning papers on localizing aid, including a meta-analysis of lessons learned on partnership from CARE’s disaster response evaluations over the past 7 years...

  • How is your organization assessing progress

    CARE is changing our financial system to enable us to use financial indicators to measure the change and our Grand Bargain and Charter4Change C4C) reporting to assess progress.

  • Challenges faced in implementation

    - Data is challenging to extract as no CARE-wide system currently tracks this type of data, forcing us to rely on proxy indicators for now.
    - The localization marker is still under development, with some terms remaining unclear; there is need to agree on definitions for data to be comparable across signatory agencies. We are linking our C4C commitment with related WHS, CHS and localization commitments (in an effort not to duplicate measurement and reporting efforts) – the development of a localization marker that encompasses these various dimensions would help.
    - Systematically collecting qualitative data remains difficult over 93 countries.

  • Next step to advance implementation in 2017

    o The clarification of CARE’s intent for partnering in humanitarian action, and the development of a coordinated and coherent approach across the CARE Confederation to make the organization more fit-for-partnering.
    o Increased research to contribute evidence of the potential of partnership, in particular researching the interface between gender and localization.
    o Increased investment in CARE’s capacity to partner in humanitarian action (e.g. a new CI-wide Humanitarian Partnership position and deployable positions focused on partnership), increased efforts to advocate on localization, increased support to CARE country offices in partnering in emergencies (suite of tools, remote support, relaying good practice.

  • If you had one message for the annual report on what is most needed to advance the transformation 'Reinforce, do not replace, national and local systems', what would it be

    CARE's key area of work is to ensure we are 'fit for partnering'. In practice, this means we have strong commitment to the principles of partnership, policies and tools in place, and most importantly a culture and approach that supports genuine, two-way partnerships.

  • Specific initiatives

    ☑Charter for Change ☑ Grand Bargain

  • Other related Agenda for Humanity transformations

    ☑5A - Invest in local capacities

4B
Anticipate, do not wait, for crises

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility
  • By 2020 CARE will more effectively assist and protect affected populations in challenging and high risk environments.
  • Operational
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

Core Commitment

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

  • What led your organization to make the commitment?

    There is a perception within the sector and internally that CARE is risk averse - in fact, this is rarely the case in an operational sense (we currently working in some of the most difficult environments including Somalia, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen) and is only sometimes the case in terms of speaking out. Part of our intent in making this commitment is to challenge perceptions, and more strongly embed a culture that can work effectively and rapidly with risk.

  • Achievements at a glance

    CARE was one of the first agencies to return expat staff to South Sudan following the insecurity in July 2016, and we have championed the decisions of the managers concerned. We are actively exploring our risk framework, and have established new internal security management structures. We have also launched a new humanitarian advocacy strategy since the WHS which recognises the impact risk of failing to speak out as well as the risks associated with being vocal.

  • Challenges faced in implementation

    Overcoming perceptions and changing culture are long term objectives - we recognise that this change will be a long term one.

  • If you had one message for the annual report on what is most needed to advance the transformation 'Anticipate, do not wait, for crises', what would it be

    A critical element is focusing more on the political pathways to change - Our early warning is fairly good, but we are as yet unable to transform that to early action.

  • Cross cutting issues

    ☑Humanitarian principles

  • Other related Agenda for Humanity transformations

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

4C
Deliver collective outcomes: transcend humanitarian-development divides

Core Commitment

  • 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

  • What led your organization to make the commitment?

    As a dual mandate humanitarian/development organisation, CARE has a longstanding commitment to ensuring that our humanitarian and development programs complement and enhance the impact of each other.

  • Achievements at a glance

    CARE has continued its resilience and DRR programming to reduce the impact of disasters and conflict.

5A
Invest in local capacities

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility
  • By 2018 CARE will develop concrete organizational targets to increase direct and predictable financing for response, in particular national and local actors, and advocate for long-term support to ensure all humanitarians are able to maximise their impact.
  • Financial
  • Invest in Humanity

Core Commitment

  • 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

  • What led your organization to make the commitment?

    The majority of CARE’s humanitarian work is delivered with local/national partners. In addition, partnership is one of the key tenets of CARE’s Humanitarian and Programme Strategies. However, there is still progress to be made internally to translate this commitment into action. In particular, more concerted effort is needed within the CARE Confederation to ensure that partnerships are more equal and strategic, with local partners taking a greater lead role and share of the resources.

  • Achievements at a glance

    Signatory and engaged member of both the Charter4Change and the Missed Opportunities Consortium. CARE has begun to establish an agency-wide baseline against the commitments and has begun documenting current practice and gaps (e.g. inventory of types of organizations we partner with, partnership approaches used (extent of use of sub-granting) and identifying challenges to more transformative partnerships. CARE has held key meetings with CARE stakeholders in Geneva, and with partner agencies in the Philippines. CARE also developed several learning papers on localizing aid, including a meta-analysis of lessons learned on partnership from CARE’s disaster response evaluations over the past 7 years, a case study on the Cyclone Winston partner-led response in Fiji, and a study on the potential of partnership for gender-transformative humanitarian response. CARE has initiated an internal review process of what barriers currently exist within the organization (and the larger humanitarian system) and how to remove them.

  • How is your organization assessing progress

    Through reporting both to the Grand Bargain Secretariat and to Charter4Change peer agencies.

  • Challenges faced in implementation

    Data is challenging to extract as no agency-wide system currently tracks this type of data, forcing us to rely on proxy indicators for now. The localization marker is still under development, with some terms remaining unclear; there is need to agree on definitions for data to be comparable across signatory agencies. Linking Charter4Change commitments (and measurement) with related WHS, CHS and localization commitments (in an effort not to duplicate measurement and reporting efforts) is difficult. The development of a localization marker by the IASC that encompasses these various dimensions would help.

  • Next step to advance implementation in 2017

    CARE will over the coming months adapt its measurement systems to capture spending through local partners, applying collectively agreed definitions. We will provide consistent input into the Charter4Change, as a member of its Steering Committee, thereby sharing lessons learnt and good practice with other signatories and endorsers of the Charter. We will clarify our intent for partnering in humanitarian action, and will develop and share our coordinated and coherent approach across the CARE Confederation to make the organization more fit-for-partnering, as well as increase research to contribute evidence of the potential of partners.

  • Specific initiatives

    ☑Charter for Change

  • Other related Agenda for Humanity transformations

    ☑4A - Reinforce, do not replace, national and local systems

5B
Invest according to risk

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to accelerate the reduction of disaster and climate-related risks through the coherent implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, as well as other relevant strategies and programs of action, including the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway.
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity
  • Commit to invest in risk management, preparedness and crisis prevention capacity to build the resilience of vulnerable and affected people.
  • Invest in Humanity

  • What led your organization to make the commitment?

    These commitments capture and support CARE's Pre-WHS commitment to working intelligently with partners and communities to improve their resilience to crisis.

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

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to enable coherent financing that avoids fragmentation by supporting collective outcomes over multiple years, supporting those with demonstrated comparative advantage to deliver in context.
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity
  • Commit to promote and increase predictable, multi-year, unearmarked, collaborative and flexible humanitarian funding toward greater efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability of humanitarian action for affected people.
  • Invest in Humanity
  • Commit to broaden and adapt the global instruments and approaches to meet urgent needs, reduce risk and vulnerability and increase resilience, without adverse impact on humanitarian principles and overall action (as also proposed in Round Table on "Changing Lives").
  • Invest in Humanity

  • What led your organization to make the commitment?

    As a dual mandate NGO CARE has a longstanding commitment to addressing root causes as well as humanitarian symptoms, particularly through our work empowering women economically and socially.

5E
Diversify the resource base and increase cost-efficiency

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility

  • In support of the 'Grand Bargain', CARE commits to transparently monitor the full costs of delivering its programs and to reducing management costs as far as possible while still ensuring high impact, well managed programs; both ensure that CARE increases the proportion of funding to front-line response and increases overall resources commensurate with needs; increase the reach of advocacy to UN Member States to meet their obligations in addressing global humanitarian issues through funding appropriate levels of response; work together with other stakeholders to develop and implement a more transparent program planning and reporting process, in alignment with IATI principles, to drive efficiency gains and reduce duplicative costs.


  • Financial
  • Invest in Humanity

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to increase substantially and diversify global support and share of resources for humanitarian assistance aimed to address the differentiated needs of populations affected by humanitarian crises in fragile situations and complex emergencies, including increasing cash-based programming in situations where relevant.
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity
  • Commit to promote and increase predictable, multi-year, unearmarked, collaborative and flexible humanitarian funding toward greater efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability of humanitarian action for affected people.
  • Invest in Humanity

  • What led your organization to make the commitment?

    Broad agreement with the objectives of the Grand Bargain to improve aid and make it more efficient.

  • Achievements at a glance

    CARE will continue to publicly account for all program expenditure, and is investigating how to apply IATI standards to our accounts (These are already used by one CARE member). CARE has introduced a new Humanitarian Advocacy Strategy which has specific workstreams on ensuring UN Member States better meet their obligations in addressing the biggest humanitarian crises through funding appropriate levels of response.

  • Cross cutting issues

    ☑Accountability to affected people

  • Specific initiatives

    ☑Grand Bargain

Attachments

  • WHS Commitments Attachments
    Transformation - 3D, 4A, 5E | Accountability to affected people, Gender
  • WHS Commitments Attachments
    Transformation - 5E | Gender | Grand Bargain