Humanitarian Coordination and DecisionMaking

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Humanitarian Coordination and Decision-Making
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Objectives

• Describe the links between coordination,
  decision-making and the HIC

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The Context

• Rapid, recent, chronic crisis
• Complex emergency or natural disaster
• Existence of violent conflict
• Governance problems
• Aid framework
• Vulnerability
• Complexity
• Others?

HICs can be expected to operate in many possible
contexts. It is important to understand what the
issues are, and the needs of those responding to
the disaster
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The Response

• Save lives
• Alleviate suffering
• Health, shelter, food, water
• Protection
• Ensuring respect for the law
• Safety from fear
• Transition
• Reducing risk, building peace
• Development

To be of service, HICs need to understand what
their clients do. Every context is unique, and
every response will be unique
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Coordination Mechanisms

• Headquarters
• IASC
• ECHA
• Field
• Humanitarian Coordinator (RC, DSRSG)
• IASC Country Team
• Cluster Coordination Framework
• NGO Consortia

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Information and Decisions

• Information underlies humanitarian
  decision-making.
• Not enough or too much information?

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Decisions Decision-makers

• Strategic
• HC, ERC, IASC Country team, NGO Country Rep
• Operational
• Logistics planner, project manager

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Decisions Decision-makers

• What are some of the decisions to be made by
  humanitarian actors?
• Strategic
• Operational

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Decisions and information products

• Small Group Discussion
• Using examples from the last discussion, identify
  an operational and strategic decision
• What steps would an HIC take to support those
  decisions?
• Which HIC products might support those decisions?

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Caveats

• Decision-makers sometimes dont know what
  information they need
• HIC has a role in educating
  decision-makers
• Information doesnt always lead to decisions, or
  action (e.g. early warning)

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Summary

• HICs can be expected to operate in many possible
  contexts. It is important to understand what the
  issues are, and the information needs of those
  responding to the disaster
• The HIC provides decision-support tools (products
  and services) to support strategic and
  operational decision-making.
• HIC Staff should be prepared to educate
  decision-makers on the information tools
  available to them.
• Questions?