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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.

1B
Act early

Core Commitment

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

Core Commitment

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

Core Commitment

  • 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

Core Commitment

  • 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

Core Commitment

  • 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

  • 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

Core Commitment

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

Core Commitment

  • 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