Cross Cutting Issues IASC ClusterSector Lead Training

1
Cross Cutting IssuesIASC Cluster/Sector Lead
Training

• Montreux
• 27 March 2007
• Presented by Mark Prasopa Plazier
• Conflict and Humanitarian Policy Advisor
• Oxfam International

2
Cross Cutting IssuesIASC Cluster/Sector Lead
Training

• Mark Prasopa-Plaizier
• Conflict Humanitarian Policy Advisor
• Oxfam International - Geneva

3
From operational guidelines -
Sector/cluster leads are responsible for ensuring
that within their sectors focal points are
nominated for Early Recovery and for agreed
priority cross-cutting issues, as appropriate, to
ensure that these issues are included in sector
work plans and appeals.
4
Why is this a challenge? (according to AW)

• not just about one organization, the challenge is
  a more coherent response, to gender and HIV
  systems thinker.
• Set up advocate groups - 1. diversity group (age,
  gender, disability) 2. HIV/Aids multi-sectoral
  approach needs or updates IASC guidelines and
  need to be operationalized 3. environment
  integrated everywhere what legitimacy does that
  tool have with this group). Guidelines exist for
  these issues but people dont want to work on
  these together - no one wants it. Dont see it
  in their interest. 1. How to mainstream these in
  the cluster approach? How to join all of these
  efforts all together (this implies better
  coordination, which implies HC gaining upper
  hand) The real issue is no one wants to work
  together, and there is no incentive to work
  together. Same problem is with SPEHRE not
  enough for individual agencies to do this only
  2 agencies do this, REFORM make the whole add up
  to more than sum of parts

5
Summary

• Defining Cross Cutting Issues
• Human Rights
• Gender, Age, Diversity
• HIV/AIDS
• Environment
• OPEN DISCUSSION
• Critical first responses assessments
• Group Work CCIs SPHERE

6
Defining Cross Cutting Issues

• Cross Sectoral identification of common issues
  requiring consideration in all stages of a
  humanitarian response
• Mainstreaming Issues of Common Concern
• Human Rights, Gender, Age, Diversity, HIV/AIDS,
  Environment
• Others
• Protection
• Early Recovery Transition to Development
• Local Participation

7
Vulnerabilities and capacities of
disaster-affected populations

• The groups most frequently at risk in disasters
• Specific vulnerabilities influence peoples
  ability to cope and survive in a disaster, and
  those most at risk should be identified in each
  context.
• When any one group is at risk, it is likely that
  others will also be threatened.
• Protect and provide for all affected groups in a
  non-discriminatory manner and according to their
  specific needs.
• Disaster-affected populations possess, and
  acquire, skills and capacities of their own to
  cope, and that these should be recognised and
  supported

8
IASC Clusters Cross Cutting Issues
9
IASC Guidance Note on using the Cluster Approach
to Strengthen Humanitarian Response, 24 November
20067. Responsibilities of sector/cluster leads
at the country level

• Attention to priority cross-cutting issues (e.g.
  age, diversity, environment, gender, HIV/AIDS and
  human rights)
• Sector leads have a particular responsibility for
  ensuring that humanitarian actors working in
  their sectors remain actively engaged in
  addressing cross cutting concerns such as age,
  diversity, environment, gender, HIV/AIDS and
  human rights. Experience of recent crises
  suggests that these important dimensions to
  ensuring appropriate responses have too
  frequently been ignored.

10
Humanitarian Coordinator Roles

• Sector leads, together with other members of the
  Humanitarian Country Team, are consulted closely
  in developing the overall strategic direction of
  the humanitarian operation
• Effective coordination and information-sharing
  amongst the different sectoral groups takes
  place, and the work of the different sectoral
  groups is integrated into a coherent overall
  response
• Unnecessary duplication and overlap among sectors
  is avoided
• Cross-cutting issues such as age, diversity,
  environment, gender, HIV/AIDS and human rights
  are effectively addressed in all sectors

11
Generic Terms of Reference for Sector/Cluster
Leads at the Country Level

• Attention to priority cross-cutting issues
• Ensure integration of agreed priority
  cross-cutting issues in sectoral needs
  assessment, analysis, planning, monitoring and
  response (e.g. age, diversity, environment,
  gender, HIV/AIDS and human rights) contribute to
  the development of appropriate strategies to
  address these issues ensure gender sensitive
  programming and promote gender equality ensure
  that the needs, contributions and capacities of
  women and girls as well as men and boys are
  addressed

12
Human Rights overarching framework

• The right to life with dignity
• The distinction between combatants and
  non-combatants
• For Refugees - Non-Refoulement For IDPs
  - the prohibition on forcible or coerced
  displacement.

13
Protection

• Assistance and protection are the two indivisible
  pillars of humanitarian action.
• Threats constitute violations of the populations
  rights.
• direct threats to peoples well-being
• threats to their means of survival
• threats to their safety.
• The form of relief assistance and the way in
  which it is provided can have a significant
  impact (positive or negative) on the affected
  populations security.

14
Gender

• GENDER refers to the socially constructed
  differences among male and female adults,
  adolescents, and children
• The equal rights of women and men are explicit in
  the human rights
• Women and men, and girls and boys, have the same
  entitlement to humanitarian assistance
• to respect for their human dignity
• to acknowledgement of their equal human
  capacities, including the capacity to make
  choices
• to the same opportunities to act on those
  choices
• and to the same level of power to shape the
  outcome of their actions.

15
Gender

• Humanitarian responses are more effective when
  they are based on an understanding of the
  different needs, vulnerabilities, interests,
  capacities and coping strategies of men and women
  and the differing impacts of disaster upon them.
• The understanding of these differences, as well
  as of inequalities in womens and mens roles and
  workloads, access to and control of resources,
  decision-making power and opportunities for
  skills development, is achieved through gender
  analysis.
• Gender cuts across all the other cross-cutting
  issues.

16
Why Worry About Gender?

• Population Composition -gt targeting need.
  Refugees and IDPs not representative of normal
  community distribution 80 of refugees and
  internally displaced people are women and
  children
• Layered vulnerability and different needs
• Survival, protection improvement of health -
  success of intervention
• International Law specific about women children
  related rights
• CBO

17
Age - Children

• Special measures must be taken to ensure the
  protection from harm of all children and their
  equitable access to basic services.
• Children often form the larger part of an
  affected population,
• Vulnerability in certain specificities
• malnutrition
• exploitation,
• abduction
• recruitment into fighting forces
• sexual violence
• lack of opportunity to participate in
  decision-making
• Convention on the Rights of the Child, a child is
  below the age of 18.
• A child may be defined differently amongst some
  population groups.
• Ensure that no child or young person is excluded
  from humanitarian services.

18
Age Older People

• Older women and men are those aged over 60
• Cultural and social factors mean that this
  definition varies from one context to another.
• Older people make up a large proportion of the
  most vulnerable in disaster-affected populations,
  but they also have key contributions to make in
  survival and rehabilitation.
• Isolation is the most significant factor creating
  vulnerability for older people in disaster
  situations.
• They can play important roles as carers, resource
  managers and income generators, while using their
  knowledge and experience of community coping
  strategies to help preserve the communitys
  cultural and social identities and encourage
  conflict resolution

19
Diversity - Disabled People

• Disabled people those who have physical,
  sensory or emotional impairments or learning
  difficulties
• Makes it more difficult for them to use standard
  disaster support services - are particularly
  vulnerable.
• To survive a period of dislocation and
  displacement, they need standard facilities to be
  as accessible for their needs as possible.
• They also need an enabling social support
  network, which is usually provided by the family

20
Diversity Culture/ Ethnicity

• Beliefs/ attitudes can hinder or help
• Insufficient/incorrect knowledge can lead to
  inappropriate assistance
• Solid understanding can help ensure effective
  programming
• Do No Harm

21
HIV/AIDS

• The coping mechanisms and resilience of
  communities are reduced by HIV/AIDS reduced
  capacity -gt increased vulnerability to external
  shocks.
• People living with HIV/AIDS often suffer from
  discrimination -gt confidentiality and protection.
  
• Not only affects individuals but also their
  families and communities, as young people in
  their most productive years, especially
• Women, are disproportionately affected
  physically, psychologically and financially.
• As more people die, the demographic
  characteristics of communities change to leave a
  disproportionate number of children, including
  orphans, and older people.
• These vulnerable groups require special attention
  and relief programs may need to be modified
  accordingly.

22
Environment

• Environmental degradation and change may increase
  the severity and impact of disasters
• Deforestation and desertification
• Water and air pollution
• Global warming
• The environment is understood as the physical,
  chemical and biological surroundings in which
  disaster-affected and local communities live and
  develop their livelihoods.
• It provides the natural resources that sustain
  individuals, and determines the quality of the
  surroundings in which they live - it needs
  protection if these essential functions are to be
  maintained.
• SPHERE proposes minimal preventive actions aim
  to secure the life-supporting functions of the
  environment, and seek to introduce mechanisms
  that foster the adaptability of natural systems
  for self-recovery
• Short long term issues of sustainability

23
Critical first responses assessments
Identify information, needs, resources
Collect data
Design/modify response
Report conclusions
Analyze, interpret
24
Common standard 1 Participation

• The disaster-affected population actively
  participates in the assessment, design,
  implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the
  assistance programme.
• Representation of all groups
• Communication and transparency
• Local capacity cf vulnerability
• Long-term sustainability

25
Common standard 2 initial assessment

• Assessments provide an understanding of the
  disaster situation and a clear analysis of
  threats to life, dignity, health and livelihoods
  to determine, in consultation with the relevant
  authorities, whether an external response is
  required and, if so, the nature of the response.
• Initial assessments
• Checklists
• Timeliness
• Assessment team
• Collecting information
• Sources of information
• Sectoral assessments multi-sectoral
• Relationship with host population
• Disaggregation of data
• Underlying context
• Early recovery

26
Common standard 4 Targeting

• Humanitarian assistance or services are provided
  equitably and impartially, based on the
  vulnerability and needs of individuals or groups
  affected by disaster.
• The purpose of targeting
• Targeting mechanisms
• Targeting criteria
• Access to and use of facilities and services
• Monitoring errors of exclusion and inclusion

27
Group Work CCIs SPHERE

• 6 Groups of four people is looking at either
• Protection
• Gender
• Age
• Diversity (Disability Ethnicity)
• HIV/AIDs and
• the Environment
• Each group member scans a SPHERE sector
• Water, Sanitation Hygiene Promotion (pp 51-99)
• Food Security, Nutrition Food Aid (pp 103-199)
• Shelter, Settlement Non-Food Items (pp 203-246)
• Health Services (pp 249-308)
• Read your individual task card
• Form groups -gt you have 15 minutes
• No verbal report -gt report on butchers paper