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Self Report for Initiatives in 2018

The updates on initiatives shown below allow members or signatories to WHS initiatives to report on actions taken in support of the respective initiative. They are not intended to replace reporting processes undertaken by initiative secretariats.

• WHS Commitments
• Initiatives

• Centre for Humanitarian Data

  What concrete actions have you taken in support of the initiative.

  The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a member of the Centre for Humanitarian Data's Advisory Board. It was in the context of the Data Centre work that the Trust Framework for Data Sharing was developed. UNHCR contributed to the development of additional features for Kobo ToolBox, which is a recently established standard inter-agency system for mobile data collection; and  UNHCR provides data regularly to the HDX data sharing platform.

   

   

• Education Cannot Wait

  What concrete actions have you taken in support of the initiative.

  The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) works with Education Cannot Wait (ECW) in three capacities:

  1. The High Commissioner sits on the High-Level Steering Group with biannual meetings; the Divisional Deputy Director is a member of the Executive Committee; and the Senior Education Advisor supported the Strategy Task-Team in drafting a multi-year ECW strategy. This high-level involvement provides an opportunity for UNHCR to advocate for ECW first-response and multi-year programme support for refugee education, aligned with the inclusion approach of the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF). UNHCR seconded a staff member to the ECW Secretariat to strengthen refugee education expertise.
  2. UNHCR facilitated or participated in joint missions to Bangladesh, Chad, Ethiopia, Lebanon and Uganda and in establishing the orientation of grants.
  3. Through the ECW Acceleration mechanism, UNHCR, the Global Education Cluster and the Interagency Network for Education in Emergencies have received a grant to strengthen capacity to carry out effective and harmonised coordination, planning and response.

• Global Alliance for Urban Crises

  What concrete actions have you taken in support of the initiative.

  The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Global Shelter Cluster, and the Global Camp Coordination and Camp Management Cluster have engaged with the Global Alliance for Urban Crises in relation to improving coordination and response in urban areas. Case studies of urban response have been collected by the Global Shelter Cluster highlighting good practices and lessons learned. Improved coordination modalities for urban areas are being defined and a pilot will be undertaken to test them.

• Grand Bargain

  

  Report on The Grand Bargain Commitments

• New Way of Working

  What concrete actions have you taken in support of the initiative.

  The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is fully committed to translate the WHS Commitment to Action into practice and apply the new way of working. UNHCR is engaged both at global and country levels to contribute to the reflection. The High Commissioner is a member of the Joint Steering Committee to advance humanitarian and development collaboration and UNHCR actively engages in the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Task Team on Strengthening the humanitarian-development nexus. At country level, the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework is a concrete initiative, representing one of the new ways of working. It foresees a whole-of-society approach, which goes beyond the UN, placing local actors at the centre. The CRRF draws on the contributions from all stakeholders, focuses on national Government ownership, aims to ensure sustainable humanitarian responses, and ensures linkages to development programming. UNHCR, through this process, is aiming to be a conveyor of a whole-of-society approach to work together to holistically address the refugee issues.

• The Global Alliance for Humanitarian Innovation

  What concrete actions have you taken in support of the initiative.

  The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' (UNHCR) Innovation Service collaborates with a range of stakeholders, and works in partnership with around 25 partners globally. These range from UN partners, private sector – small and large organisations – academia, NGOs. UNHCR continued to collaborate with the Global Alliance on Humanitarian Innovation, in particular to seek to solve system-wide blocks to innovation, whether these be political, policy, or other systemic challenges.