Useful Networks and Publications

At least 2 of the attendees at the Geneva ISDR "Global Network of NGOs for Community Resilience to Disasters" workshop last week, offer up the ECB/ IWG members some very interesting experiences. Given that Paul had not come across Duryog Nivaran, I thought it might be interesting to share some details and thoughts, and as none of our IWG agencies are officially members:

Amjad Bhatti, with the Islamabad-based Journalists Resource Centre, has long co-led Duryog Nivaran (a really nice website), who works closely with Practical Action (formerly ITDG). Duryog Nivaran (Sanskrit for "disaster mitigation"), based in Colombo, Sri Lanka, is a network of individuals and organizations working in South Asia who are committed to promoting an alternative perspective on disasters and vulnerability as a basis for disaster mitigation in the region. Amjad, a journalist by training, has spent many years advocating for an increased community-managed DRR focus. He gave me a couple of interesting printed reports I'd be more than happy to share with Matt, Malaika, Paul, or anyone else interested:

1) Disaster Communication. A Resource Kit for Media. Amjad Bhatti & Madhavi Malalgoda Ariyabandu (2002). A Duryog Nivaran Publication (details here, but doesn't seem to be available as an online pdf). This is a really useful 260 pp manual for practical action, and Matt, I'm sure you would find this useful.

2) Tackling the Tides and Tremors. South Asia Disaster Report 2005. Duryog Nivaran. (Again I can't find an online pdf, but details here). A great annual report.

Manu Gupta, a founding member of Seeds India was here representing the Asian Disaster Reduction and Response Network (ADRRN), whose "main aim is to promote coordination and collaboration among NGOs and other stakeholders for effective and efficient disaster reduction and response in the Asia-Pacific region". I worked with Manu's co-founder of Seeds India, Anshu Sharma, at the February Geneva UNDP workshop.

Pauline, I'd love to see Manu and/or Amjad invited to the Rome workshop, as so much of what he was representing overlapped so closely with ECB2 focus, and accountability on the ground. Another great invitee would be Suranjana Gupta from the Huairou Commission. "The Huairou Commission is a global coalition of networks, institutions and individual professionals that links grassroots women’s community development organizations to partners. The networks seek access to resources, information sharing and political space. At the same time, it links development professionals to on-the-ground practice. Currently, the network focuses its joint efforts on five campaigns: Governance, AIDS, Disaster, Land and Housing and Peace Building."

Regards, Warner

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ReliefWeb

I spoke this afternoon to Sarah Telford, who has moved from DFID to take up the post of Managing Editor at ReliefWeb, the ‘world’s leading on-line gateway to information on humanitarian emergencies and disasters’. Despite an occasionally clunky interface, ReliefWeb is an important source for much of the humanitarian community and beyond, with up to 3 million hits a day during high-profile emergencies. It also provides the ‘real-time’ humanitarian headlines on our own dear Sharepoint (just above the blog.

One of Sarah’s priorities is to increase the presence of NGOs in the ReliefWeb mix, and she is keen to work with the ECB Project to disseminate more widely in the sector the work of the IWG agencies in developing their emergency capacity.

As a result of our conversation, ECB will be featured shortly in the ‘From Our Partners’ section on the ReliefWeb homepage, and we will be increasing the number of documents and updates we submit to their ‘Policies and Issues’ database. Some niggles with their search system make it tricky to pin down exactly what of ours they have already, but it is clear that many important ECB documents are not yet available through this channel, and we will be putting that right over the coming weeks. We will also include ReliefWeb in the launch strategy for all future ECB publications.

If there are ECB documents and reports you consider should take priority as we increase our presence on ReliefWeb, please let me know.
Cheers, Matt

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Back in Geneva

Groundhog Day in Geneva (Written on the run during 2 day meeting - sent after returned home)

Seems like it was only last week that I was travelling the same streets. Yes, I am here in Switzerland for the third time in 6 weeks - maybe we should have pushed for Microsoft loaning us one of its jets?

This time, I'm here for an interesting meeting that I sort of helped into existence. UNISDR is convening a small consultative meeting on "Building a Network of NGOS for Community Resilience to Disasters" in the very same conference rooms as the IWG principals, focal points and staff met only the week before last. The agenda and focus has shifted a lot in the previous 2 weeks. We finalized this only in meetings the night before with Michele and Feng Min (ISDR). Though asked to chair some sessions, I asked instead to fully participate and suggested 2 others, who eventually took on the task.

A total of 21 experts met in the meeting rooms of the ISDR & CARE International building on the Wednesday and Thursday. It was opened by Helena Molin Valdés, the Deputy Director of the ISDR Secretariat in Geneva (Sálvano Briceño, the Director, sent his apologies for not being able to attend as he was in UN meetings in NYC).

The flow was open and fast, up and down, challenging and refreshing. A small number of individuals moved in and out, and a few folks joined later. The NGOs and NGO networks included ActionAid, TearFund, ADRRN, Duryog Nivaran, Focus/ Aga Khan, the Huairou Commission, IRHA, DiMP, ProVention Consortium, IFRC, UNDP, UNISDR, the BOND UK DRR working group, and me. There was no proper representation from LAC. (See posted workshop materials for further details).

The attendees were extremely open when asking why they were there, and what was the value of another meeting/ talkshop. Several with previous mixed experiences with UNISDR & UNDP, questioned the need for a network of networks, or the value added for engaging directly with the UN agencies. Several expressed misgivings about progress towards the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA). After a series of short individual presentations, we collectively adapted the agenda to reflect the open dialogue, and did not immediately move into smaller group work. Helena spoke more about the background to the important "Global Platform for Risk Reduction" planned in Geneva for 5-7 June 2007, which would provide the first major milestone for the UNISDR program.

It was clear that the assembled folks in the room were the nominated steering committee for the NGO and CBO community, and soon agreed to take on this task. Many felt too much responsibility, and reservations for the top-down approach to the representation of vulnerable peoples/ beneficiaries/ partners, etc., but how best to include as many voices as possible? Lots of talk about "accountability" and responsibilities to vulnerable populations. It would be nice to have our Indian and Pakistani colleagues attend the Rome workshop (Paul, did you encounter Duryog Nivaren during your Pakistan mission?). Lots of talk about focussing on the primary responsibility of national governments to protect their populations and to be able to measure and track progress towards the HFA.

A few of us helped redraft the next version of the ToR for the Global Network of NGOs to more fully encompass the bredth of discussion and interest. The presentations and drafts would be available directly from the http://www.unisdr.org website.

So what was/is the relevence for the ECB project? I must confess, given the direction that ECB Phase II seems to be taking, this UNISDR-led initiative is now of more relevence to any individual agencies that might want to take the baton, than to the ECB as a whole. I will carry on being a part of this effort, if only in my spare time. However, the ECB mandate for such collective engagement would seem to be limited if not completely absent for Phase II, and therefore, I am not sure what roel the individual or collective agencies could play in the Global Platform. I would challenge Mercy Corps, CARE, World Vision, or Oxfam to engage directly with this new and promising initiative, and I am more than happy to make the appropriate introductions. The steering committee, of which I am a part, will be re-drafting materials over the coming months, and these I will share with all interested parties.

I invite anyone interested to contact me directly about this initiative, and how to get involved. I will ensure that all materials and ideas produced are shared amongst the ECB group.

For me, I am very excited to be involved in this renewed enthusiasm that a few of us felt during the 90's - the UN Decade of Disaster Reduction. I believe that this sector is rife with opportunity and of ultimate relevence to the reduction of risk or more appropriately, the increasing resilience of communities to the affects of disaster. I was very happy to be there, but also feel that, given the lack of a role like mine in Phase II, it would be more appropriate for Melisa or Susan or Paul to have been in that room. (Bill, from CARE, was invited to attend, and is only one floor above the ISDR team, but did not attend). Everyone in the meeting left Geneva with a new collaborative commitment to holding all parties responsible for advancing the HFA.

Funniest moment: 1) rescuing one lost participant from the red light district, a few blocks away from the central hotel; and 2) the return of the New Testament kids.

Out from Geneva.... Warner Passanisi

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Shiny Shoes and ECB T-Shirts

My best intentions to have a blog entry hot on the heels of each day’s activities fell flat. So like others have did for Geneva, I’m doing some retroactive blogging from Guatemala, where I went from October 24-28 to collect some information from people who had been involved in the multi-agency evaluation of the Hurricane Stan response.

Let’s start with day 1. After a very convenient 3-hour direct flight from Atlanta, while scanning the waiting crowd outside the airport for somebody from my hotel, I pondered the unknown – who exactly would I be speaking to, what field visits would we make (a bit of a last minute trip that’s hard to discuss when you don’t speak Spanish).

Lost in my musings, I made an easy target for the shoe shine boy who zoomed in on me and, sensing my momentary hesitation, began to buff my shoes. Okay, so he got a customer and I got to enter Guatemala with shoes so shiny I could almost see my face in them.

After a quick lunch with Ivonne, my interpreter, it was great to see Juan Manuel’s familiar face as he whisked us off for a meeting with Carla Aguilar of Save the Children, who had coordinated the evaluation during its early days.

Carla was friendly and animated (though in retrospect, I did not come across unfriendly or deadpan people in Guatemala). She talked of the sheer ordeal of trying to get the agencies involved in the evaluation, the frustration of unanswered calls, the high staff turnover at meetings. I scribbled and nodded knowingly – this was not news to me.

But here was the part that she and Juan Manuel seemed adamant I understand -- they had learned a lot from the evaluation and the process had gotten them to work together more closely. Carla seemed as excited as anyone who, flush with a recent victory, looks back charitably on the arduous training it took to make it to the finish line.

Juan Manuel, having been at an IWG director’s meeting that morning, also asserted that the directors spoke of the evaluation with a recognition that it had been very useful for them. For e.g. CRS had developed emergency response protocols and integrated DRR into their regular programming. <

I was forced to temporarily lay aside my line of questioning as Carla and Juan Manuel went on about how IWG agency relationships have now reached a stage such that the agency barriers have come down. They’ve moved on to an ECB “we.” Agency t-shirts have been cast aside, Carla said. I quipped about an ECB t-shirt but Carla seized upon the idea… “or even a pen,” she said fingering her red Save pen. I reminded them that the IWG had been quite deliberate about not creating a brand identity for the ECB. “The T-shirt could be one with all the agency logos on it,” offered Juan Manuel.

Back in the truck Juan Manuel pressed in with this request--that I carry the message back – that the agencies after an arduous process were close knit and ready to collaborate on disaster reduction. Having come this far it was illogical to them that their joint activities would cease after the end of Phase I. In fact, the meeting they had that morning was to ensure that they would continue to collaborate and learn together after Phase I.

What I heard reminded me of ECB experiences elsewhere. No one seems to like making the collaboration soup. There seem to be too many elbows in the kitchen, and the cooks chafe at poorly conceived or communicated HQ-missives. But everyone seems to like the broth!

Malaika

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Geneva daze, Geneva nights

We had the IWG and ECB meetings in Geneva last week, and overall I think
most of us were very happy with the week. Certainly some key decisions
were taken, and there was a general sense of progress as we move into
the final stretch of ECB Phase 1. Now that the end is in sight for many
project and agency staff, we had renewed vigour and an opportunity to
reflect on how much we've achieved. I was anxious to remind everybody
that, while we on the inside only tend to see the difficulties, a lot of
other actors in the sector are looking at ECB as a significant
initiative demonstrating that collaboration is possible in this
fragmented sector. So far, so positive!

On the downside, there were a few grumbles along the way. In
particular, nobody seems convinced that the ECB project is engaging with
the IWG Principals - in fact, there isn't even consensus on the
relationship between the Principals and the project. Are they supposed
to be giving strategic guidance? Actively managing the project?
Working with their teams to ensure that project activities are
successfully implemented? It's probably a little of each of those, but
each of the Principals seems to take a different approach, which makes
things confusing. Hopefully in Phase 2 this will be more clearly
outlined, which should help everybody.

And finally, there was a group of 10 of us left on Friday night. We had
a good ECB evening out in Geneva, where I managed (after some effort) to
get everybody to a decent restaurant (thanks to Bogdan from InterPeace
for the recommendation!). For various reasons, all of us needed a
chance to wind down, and hopefully coffee and ice cream at Movenpick did
the trick!

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A How-To Guide for Bloggers

I note from our own Paul Currion’s essential blog that Reporters Without Borders have published a useful guide to blogging – worth a look.


Matt

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Flip-flop funding follies - streaming on Geneva week

In the spirit of free flow blogging.... here are some streamed unedited thoughts....

So I went to Geneva/ Archamps wondering how much of Mark's $800K unallocated pie I could carve for ECB3, and ended up trying to justify keeping all of the ECB3 funds within ECB3 when are spending levels are so low!


Personal Pluses:
- Welcomed the open discussion amongst several stakeholder groups


- An honest and open discussion about budget and expenditures issues


- Maybe the beginnings of a support group for relationships broken during the course of this project!


- Really nice to have most of the staff together again


- The invitation to the Project Director and Managers to join the CARE Int ECB team was one of the highlights. With the CARE team meeting together for the first time, Joy new to her Focal Point position, and Paul and Kiki brought into the fold, it was remarkable how open the discussions were within the two hours of our time together.


- Great that the staff had some time off to make some external contacts.


- Michel, our intrepid taxi driver



Personal Negatives:
- As at least a couple of folks mentioned independently, being "ejected" from the Phase II presentation felt a bit like being a beneficiary (and I speak as a former "beneficiary" of American Red Cross aid following a hurricane!). Focal Points were ejected a little later also. It could have been done a lot more openly.


- Not sure if I actually contributed anything much during the joint Focal Point-staff meeting, and thus not sure if it was worth me being there


- I appreciated Adriaan presenting to the staff the suggested model for Phase II, but felt that the discussion was superficial, and that our opinions were not being seriously considered - I know as staff, we often have a different position


- I feel strongly that the lack of a high level component in the Phase II design being focussed on "risk reduction", "development relief", "linking relief to development", or at the very least putting emergency/ humanitarian work in a context of an underlying development or vulnerability framework, is a major missed opportunity. It is not enough to leave this large area to develop independently within Phase II pilot countries. Had this been a brand new project, I could understand much easier the reticence to address such issues at an HQ level. However, the IWG made a pretty unique and innovative delve into the DRR arena for the 2 years of Phase I, and despite the inherent problems of managing this initiative. With the donor environment shifting to address these issues (look at USAID/FFP, DFID, and ECHO), for the ECB project to not address this at a collective policy and/or strategic level is really a missed opportunity. I personally believe, as Rigo also stated, that it is probably not appropriate for ECB3 to continue in to Phase II with the continued structure built upon 7 emergency directors. But I would have liked to have seen the start of a specific resource plan to take forward risk reduction at another level, i.e. a couple of agencies willing to lead this challenge, and agree to come up with a plan for a funded collaborative project within say 6 months. With no resources attached, at a time when all efforts of the 7 agencies will be directed towards ECB Phase II for the next 5 years, to leave it hanging could be to miss the boat completely. And this with at least 3 of the IWG agencies independently developing their own internal strategies to address this DRR/ development relief sector. But this is just my opinion. The only other views I have heard that challenge the absence of ECB3 in the Phase II design are from one staff member and 2 ECB3 advisors.


- The crappy internet access at the hotel (but it was fun insisting to the droll manager that in the absence of the 24 internet card, he should give me at the same price 100 of the 15 minutes cards still available!)



Funnies:
- "What is SharePoint?" from a senior member who shall remain nameless!


- The artful dodger kids who stormed into the vestibule area outside the groud level IEH2 meeting rooms, nominally trying to sell New Testaments, but eyeing up the luggage and the freebies, tucking with bravado into the orange juice, croissant and other refreshments lying there just waiting to get consumed. Despite getting chased away, they returned within the hour. So much for security in a UN building in Geneva; and this with a Geneva terror alert in action.


Regards, Warner

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Over the border: ECB goes to IWG

Last week’s meetings in Geneva/Archamps were given a little extra frisson (as the French say) by the fact that we spanned an international border – going back and forth from Geneva, as we did on Wednesday in order to join the IWG Principals as they discussed ECB, meant passing through checkpoints on both sides. The Swiss seemed to adopt a pretty laissez-faire approach, but the gendarmes on the French side bristled with intent. Add to this the fact that not every member of the team was equipped with every necessary stamp in their passports, and the minutes before a meeting acquired a charge of adrenalin as we satisfied ourselves that our delegates were getting coffee and chatting in the lobby, and not languishing in a French jail.


On Wednesday, fortunately, we made it through, and joined the IWG in a misty Geneva with ten minutes to spare, despite the indefatigable Michel (our chauffeur for the week) getting lost in the maze of the UN quartier. We joined a discussion held over from the previous evening about surge capacity, and I was immediately struck by the ‘open books’ nature of the debate, and the frankness with which these senior leaders felt able to share the shortcomings of their own organizations with their peers. Obviously a deal of trust and mutual respect has been established within this group over the last three years - a stock of ‘social capital’ of considerable value.



Greg kicked off ECB discussions with a quickfire update on Project activities and progress. I won’t reprise it here as most of you will be familiar with the contents – but I will ensure that the slides are posted on Sharepoint for anyone who would find this kind of overview useful. Response from the floor was positive, with Randy Martin from Mercy Corps voicing an appreciation of the achievements of the Project and the hard work of all the agency and Project staff involved in making ECB happen. Your correspondent then took the floor, laying out the alternative visions for the Project-wide Learning Event scheduled for Spring 2007, and attempting to clarify the risks and benefits associated with these competing visions. Once everyone was bored of listening to me, Mark Janz from World Vision facilitated a discussion, and again I was impressed by the way the group moved to a consensus – not always easy in such a diverse gathering. Within 20 minutes there was agreement – the Spring 2007 event will have an internal focus, providing a space for all ECB stakeholders from within the IWG agencies to reflect on their experience and learning from the Project. External perspective will come from an invited ‘panel’ of outside experts, who will challenge us and introduce key ideas from the wider sector. I was tasked to work with the Focal Points to find a date and a place by the end of this month – watch this space!



And then we were out. As the Phase II design team swept in to present their ideas to the Principals, a swathe of staff members and focal points swept out. There are some strong feelings about the merits or otherwise of this kind of exclusion – my only contribution is that I don’t know a board of directors anywhere that allows everyone to sit in on all its deliberations. Anyway, don’t feel too bad for us – we went for a Swiss lunch and then those of us with kids at home headed to the toyshop and a happy quarter hour browsing. Phase II would have to wait. On Thursday the focus would be firmly on Phase I, as the Focal Points met with Project Staff to plot a course for the next six months. Check out the discussions here tomorrow.

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