Narrow the gap

It was very important to unite during the UNHCR-NGO Annual Consultations in June around a common resolve to ‘put people first’.  At the same time, it is a telling reminder of the gap that exists between our words and deeds.  After all, putting people first should be an obvious starting point of humanitarian action.  Let’s make sure we take forward the result of these consultations to ensure ‘Putting People First’ becomes the unquestionable cornerstone of our joint actions.

Expanding and leveraging new partnerships; equitable, sustainable and inclusive responses are some of the main issues reported in this edition of the ICVA Bulletin.  Comprehensive responses are to be grounded in multi-stakeholder,” whole-of-society” approaches that include local authorities, international organisations, civil society partners, the private sector, media and refugees themselves.

The NGO active participation in the Global Compact on Refugees discussions and in the Global Compact for Safe Regular and Orderly Migration negotiations are a reminder that comprehensive and coherent responses should be a means to an end, not an end in themselves.  These should aim at improving the lives of affected populations.  The importance of promoting the use of data for evidence-based responses and sharing of information and good practice have been some other cross-cutting themes in the recent meetings reported in this edition of the Bulletin.

Putting this in practice is a shared responsibility and will require an “all hands-on deck approach”.  Maximising the collective voice and collective action is integral to our response to the rise of polarising politics and of inequality dividing societies in a “them and us” mentality.

1.     The Global Compact on Refugees:

·      Formal Consultations on the GCR: For the fifth formal consultations (3-4 June), ICVA facilitated the drafting and delivery of four NGO statements on the following parts of the programme of action: introduction; mechanisms for burden­-and responsibility-­sharing; areas in need of support; and solutions. Thanks to the NGOs who contributed to the statements. You can read the NGO statements on the ICVA website.

.    The sixth and final formal consultations took place on 3-4 July, at which an NGO intervention on the final draft of the global Compact on Refugees  was presented. We now look forward to the final adoption of the Compact and the next steps.

·      Meeting with UNHCR and NGOs: On June 6, ICVA convened and facilitated a meeting between UNHCR and NGOs to discuss the main changes in Draft 3 of the GCR ahead of the fifth formal consultations. ICVA members can access the notes from the meeting.

·       GCR debrief meeting with NGOs: On June 22, ICVA organised a meeting with NGOs to discuss the main takeaways from the fifth formal consultations. NGOs also took the opportunity to strategise about the sixth and final formal consultation to be held on 3 and 4 July in Geneva. For more information contact Jerome.Elie@icvanetwork.org

3.     UNHCR Standing Committee (19-21 June): ICVA facilitated the drafting and delivery of four NGO statements for the 72nd Meeting of the Executive Committee of the High Commissioner's Programme Standing Committee. The Statements focused on international protection and solutions;  UNHCR’s engagement with internally displaced persons; statelessness; and the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework.

More information about the Standing Committee meeting can be found on UNHCR’s website.

4. Global Compact for Safe Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM): Implementation, review and follow-up in the GCM is the priority area in this period for ICVA’s contribution as part of a larger constituency of civil society organisations including the Civil Society Action Committee.  The 6th and final round of GCM negotiations (9­-13 July) will be followed by lobbying and consultations on which ICVA is engaged for proposed civil society engagement in defining and fine-tuning building blocks of the GCM ahead of the Intergovernmental Conference to Adopt the GCM (10-11 December).

5. Consultative Civil Society-IOM Working Group: The roles of civil society organisations have shifted and will continue to shift as the governance on migration is changing.  The models of engagement for NGOs with UN agencies, amongst others, will continue to evolve in the coming years.  ICVA is supporting and is engaged in the setting up and running of the consultative Civil Society – IOM Working Group to facilitate until end of the year joint discussions towards the definition of structured civil society engagement in the implementation, follow-up and review of the GCM. See the Concept note (in EN/FR/SP).

6. IOM Director General elections: After engaging with the two other IOM DG candidates in May, early June, ICVA was pleased to welcome Mr António Vitorino, Portuguese candidate for IOM DG, to the ICVA office to meet with NGOs.

A Civil Society Open Letter concerning the election of the next DG was sent to the heads of delegations in Geneva on behalf of a group of 49 NGOs representing more than 600 organisations.

On 29 June, the member states of IOM, elected Portugal’s António Vitorino as the IOM’s next Director General.

7.     The Grand Bargain: The Grand Bargain on Humanitarian Financing is already two years old!  Signatories, including a substantial number of NGOs, gathered in New York for their annual meeting on 18 June.  ICVA Executive Director, Ignacio Packer, encouraged more donors and agencies to join Year 2 of the 8+3 harmonized and simplified reporting pilot in Iraq, Myanmar and Somalia.  Kate Halff of SCHR delivered the joint NGO consortia statement (for ICVA, InterAction, SCHR and VOICE) encouraging more country-level dialogue to translate global commitments into action on the ground.  ODI's analysis of the implementation of the Grand Bargain thus far showed the need for contributors to be more nimble, more focused, more pragmatic, more responsive and more strategic.  World Bank CEO (and Grand Bargain eminent person) Kristalina Georgieva recommended, among other things, reducing the number of Grand Bargain workstreams from 10 to 5 by merging some workstreams and outsourcing some pieces (like needs assessments to the World Bank).  She would like to convene a small group of political leaders on the margins of the UN General Assembly meeting in September.  For more information, contact Melissa.Pitotti@icvanetwork.org.

8. Taking the Grand Bargain to the field: The second week of July, ICVA, VOICE, and the Somalia NGO Consortium will jointly host a workshop in Somalia for the benefit of national NGOs and NGO staff working in Somalia seeking to improve implementation of the Grand Bargain workstreams in the field. Somalia is already a pilot country for the harmonized reporting pilot, and donors and NGOs alike have expressed an interest in supporting broader implementation of Grand Bargain workstreams in a single field location. The workshop will have two main objectives: to update local partners on the current state of the Grand Bargain and associated workstreams; and to gather input from local partners on key priorities for Somalia with regard to workstreams. This information can then be fed back to workstream co-conveners and co-champions to ensure that initiatives to implement Grand Bargain commitments are better linked to the needs and interest of field staff and communities. This initial workshop for Somalia will serve as a test of the model, which ICVA and VOICE may then seek to apply in other countries. For more information, contact Jeremy.Rempel@icvanetwork.org.

9. Less Paper More Aid: Harmonized narrative reporting pilot: We have reached the mid-point in the two-year harmonized narrative reporting pilot underway in Iraq, Myanmar, and Somalia. As part of the pilot process, Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) is currently finalising a report summarising the results of field interviews, use of the 8+3 template, and feedback from the reporting process gathered over the past few months. The final report will be ready to share later in July; however, initial results indicate that participants see the 8+3 template as an improvement, simplifying the reporting process, and reducing burden by making the expectations across donors more standard. There is still work to be done, and some key recommendation on how to improve the guidance and application of the 8+3 template will be detailed in the report. In particular, we will seek to further simplify the existing elements in the template, add a provision for cash programming, and target more consistent use of the pilot template by participants during year two. For more information on the reporting pilot, please contact Jeremy.Rempel@icvanetwork.org.

11. The Good Humanitarian Donorship (GHD) Initiative (www.ghdinitiative.org) is an informal donor forum and network which facilitates collective advancement of GHD principles and good practices. ICVA Executive Director was invited to the GHD annual High Level Meeting held on 22 June, under the co-chairmanship of Germany and Australia. IDPs, SEA and humanitarian financing were the may key humanitarian issues discussed. ICVA was invited to input on “how can donors support prioritised and balanced funding” and gave inputs on integrity and PSEA.

12.     Inter-Agency Standing Commitee (IASC) Update:

a.     Emergency Directors Group (EDG): On 08 June, the EDG organised a follow-up discussion on the response to the Ebola outbreak in the DRC. Note that the joint Response Plan of 57 million USD for DRC alone has been 100% funded. On 13 June, an EDG teleconference was organised to discuss about the humanitarian operational readiness and supply pipelines in Yemen, following the ongoing military operations in and around Hudaydah port.

b.    IASC Principals: the official summary record and action points of the first part of the IASC Principals 31 May meeting is now available (members only). The second part of the meeting was for Principals only and there are no official notes. For more information contact Emmanuelle.Osmond@icvanetwork.org.

c.    For an updated list of Humanitarian Coordinators: click here 

d.     NGO meetings with Humanitarian Coordinators: During June, ICVA organised meetings for its members with Ms. Najat Rochdi, DSRSG/RC/HC for Central African Republic, Ms. Allegra Baiocchi, RC/HC for Cameroon, and Mr. Julien Harneis, DHC in the Democratic Republic of Congo. For more information regarding these meetings, contact: Emmanuelle.Osmond@icvanetwork.org.

e     The new IASC Gender with Age Marker (GAM) is live.  This easy-to-use, automated tool looks at the extent to which essential programming actions address gender- and age-related differences in humanitarian response. You can now access and use the new IASC Gender with Age Marker here: https://iascgenderwithagemarker.com/

13.     Manifesto #Solidarity #Dignity #Humanity with persons in #exile: ICVA Executive Director participated to the launch of the Euro Mediterranean Movement in solidarity with people in exile held in Rome, 12th June.  Led by Amel Association and Samusocial International, a manifesto #Solidarity #Dignity #Humanity with persons in #exile is now online (AR-FR-IT-SP) and open to signature. You can access / sign / share it with the following link: https://chn.ge/2JQyHIs  

14.     APRRN - Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network: The 7th Asia Pacific Consultation on Refugee Rights (APCRR7) will be held from 23-25 October 2018 in Bangkok, Thailand. APCRR7 is hosted and coordinated by APRRN. The APCRR serves as platform to bring together refugee rights practitioners from around the region to discuss and strategize ways to address challenges and share best practices from around the region and the globe. Click here for more information and an application form.

16.     Supporting Civil Society in Bhutan: ICVA's Regional Representative for Asia travelled to Bhutan to support the facilitation and strengthen engagement of the Bhutanese Civil Society Organizations Authority in an earthquake simulation exercise led by the Government of Bhutan, WFP and OCHA. This was the first time that Civil Society had been engaged in this type of exercise and marked a turning point for the whole of society planning for devastating natural disasters in country. For more information contact Jeremy.Wellard@icvanetwork.org.

18. Demystifying the Nexus Learning Stream: If you missed the first three webinars you can find the recordings of

Topic 1: The "nexus" explained

Topic 2: The World Bank and the humanitarian, development and peace nexus

Topic 3: UN Reform: The link to the "nexus" and what it means for non-UN actors

For more information see the ICVA website, or contact Nishanie.Jayamaha@icvanetwork.org

19.     Wellness and Resilience for Frontline Workers and Managers – Online Course: Developed in collaboration with global experts in the field of humanitarian wellbeing, the course aims to assist frontline workers and managers in understanding the impact that stress is having on their lives and how to build personal and organisational resilience. The course is free. Register here. For more information see the  E-flyer

20.     Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) “The Long Run to Protection Against Sexual Exploitation and Abuse”  shares the experiences of ICVA members on PSEA.  Conducted with national and international NGO members, as well as with NGO Fora, it gives a special attention to national and local actors work on PSEA linking also with the localisation commitments.

21. Save the Date:  ICVA Annual Conference 2019 will be held on March 26 in Geneva. 

22. Sphere is now open for membership: For over twenty years, Sphere has worked to improve quality and accountability in humanitarian response. They are now entering a new chapter, where users of Sphere can become members of Sphere and play an active role in the future of the standards. For more information and to download their membership package click here.

23.     Principles under Pressure,:A new report by the Norwegian Refugee Council, "Principles under Pressure", examines the impact of counterterrorism measures and preventing/countering violent extremism on principled humanitarian action. Based on findings from research in Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, and an online survey, the report shows that counterterrorism measures limit organisations’ ability to deliver humanitarian aid according to needs alone, and oblige them to avoid certain groups and areas.

24.    New guidance from the LWF and Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) on faith-sensitivity in humanitarian response: A Faith-Sensitive Approach in humanitarian Response: Guidance on Mental Health and Psychosocial Programming has been developed in cooperation with a broad partnership of faith-based and non-faith organisations, including UNHCR, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Church of Sweden, HIAS and World Vision. There is a growing recognition among the humanitarian community of the importance of addressing the issue of faith and religious identity among refugees and displaced people more seriously.

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