Pauline spreads good news from St. Albans

Agency representatives endorsed the ‘Good Enough Guide’ and proposed continued work together on accountability and impact measurement of emergency programs.

As many of you know, for the last year and through the ECB project, representatives from CARE, CRS, IRC, Mercy Corps, Oxfam, Save the Children and World Vision have worked together to create and test the ‘Good Enough Guide’ - with much helpful input from ALNAP, HAP and Sphere. The ‘Good Enough Guide’ sets out what accountability and impact measurement is in practice - based on a 'Good Enough' Approach that favours simple rather than elaborate solutions. ‘Good Enough’ does not mean second best: it means acknowledging that in an emergency response, adopting a quick and simple approach to impact measurement may be the only practical possibility.

Last week, 22 of these field and headquarters agency people, plus representatives from ALNAP, HAP and Sphere met in St Albans to review and sign off on the Guide. They also gave resounding support for continuation of the interagency standing team. This standing team was formed in February 2006 to champion the testing of the ‘Good Enough Guide’ and the practice of accountability and impact measurement. Recognizing that much concerted effort is needed to spread the use of the good practices in the Guide by field practitioners working in emergency situations; participants endorsed further work by the Standing Team.

What are the immediate next steps? Well, we agreed on the development of a training module on the ‘Good Enough Guide’ and on further strengthening of the standing team, who have agreed to work with their agency and across agencies to promote accountability and impact measurement practice. This process of team and skills development was taken forward in St Albans as the standing team met for a two-day facilitation and communication training.

Looking further ahead, the group also proposed recommendations for collective work during Phase II of ECB. Activities proposed include:
• Strengthening of standing team capacity so they can help ensure widespread use of the ‘Good Enough Guide’ in their agency.
• Completion of a peer review on accountability to people affected by disasters.
• Development of a complaints system.
• Continued collaboration with ALNAP, HAP and Sphere in the strengthening of accountability and impact measurement in the field.
• Work with agency HR staff responsible for emergency staff capacity development to ensure they incorporate accountability and impact measurement into all HR systems.

Most striking was the goodwill between all agency representatives in St Albans who actively listened and shared ways of taking this challenging agenda forward. That's to say, integrating accountability and impact measurement practices into the way that field staff operate and developing systems so that front line staff have the support needed to do such work.

Pauline Wilson

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The latest from the Indonesia Metrics Project Workshop

Once again, we had a great turnout with 6 of the 7 IWG agencies participating! We had a good discussion about some of the current HR challenges in Aceh, including:

• Lack of HR Planning: almost all HR Managers reported that their agencies were still stuck in a "reaction cycle" even though its almost 2 years after the tsunami. As one HR Advisor remarked: "I've spent more time being a fireman, than doing HR." And, similarly, on the importance of HR Planning, particularly in the initial stages of an emergency: "We don't go into an emergency without finance staff, so why do we go in without HR staff?"
  
• High turnover and short-term staff, both national and international, resulting in a "permanent learning stage." National staff are leaving for higher salaries with the UN and with other NGOs. Plus, after the emergency is over, its difficult for many staff to feel that their job has any "real value" if they aren't directly saving lives. In response, many agencies are trying to communicate more effectively about, and involve staff more directly in, their growing recovery programs.
  
• Other agencies are already starting to downsize and are providing redeployment and professional development opportunities whenever possible.
  
• And always... training and building staff capacity continues to be a major need!
  

All agreed that the Staff Capacity Metrics Project database will help "institutionalize" many of the "lessons learned"... (again and again.) And, it will also add a great deal to our ability to plan for future emergency staffing! Now, on with the data collection and input!

Julia Devin

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A Wall of Post-Its at St. Albans

Here we are in sunny St Albans – (well ok – not so sunny) for the ECB2 meeting and a chance to catch up on achievements and look forward to what might come next. By the number of “post its” on the wall it’s clear that much has been achieved since the last meeting 9 months ago – which is encouraging – and yet it is also an opportunity to share issues and concerns and see what has not worked too well.



Sharing challenges is as important as sharing achievements – and there are certainly plenty of both – and yet the overall sense is one of progress and that ECB2 is working towards achieving its objectives. Next steps are to look at what follows – both for the coming few months until the end of phase 1 and then just maybe a phase 2. Watch this space for more.

Emma Roberts

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Furthering the Vision for the Staff Capacity Metrics project!

I just held workshops with Human Resource managers, emergency response coordinators and others in Ethiopia and Sudan as part of the Staff Capacity Metrics Pilot Project and I couldn't have asked for more! Besides being fun and extremely gracious hosts, we "got down to business" improving the metrics database!

In Ethiopia, we had participation from 6 of the 7 IWG agencies and an active discussion on the draft database and how the indicators might help us be better prepared for emergencies. The agencies shared some of what they are currently doing in HR and emergency preparedness, made excellent suggestions for improvements to the database and, best of all, decided to meet a couple more times in the coming weeks to support one another in data collection and input, as well as continue to discuss their "vision" for the project!

In Sudan, representatives from all 7 of the ECB agencies participated in the workshop and we honed in on how the indicators might apply in an on-going emergency like Darfur. Excellent suggestions and ideas were put forth to improve the database and they also plan to meet again! It's a great collaboration with dedicated and experienced people all around!

I can't wait to see what the teams in Indonesia come up with...

Julia Devin

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What DRR looks like - more commentary from Guatemala

I must confess it’s been a struggle to keep up with terms like disaster risk reduction (not just RR but DRR?) mitigation, emergency preparedness. So the prospect of seeing an actual DRR pilot project and an example of what the term boiled down to in practice was a thrilling prospect.
First, after more than half a day of travel, Juan Manuel, myself and Ivonne, my interpreter began an arduous ascent by winding dirt road up one of the ever-present mountains. So unforgiving was the road, Juan Manuel’s truck bed whined and groaned on its frame at every rotation of the wheels. Our words came out in woofs and puffs as we jostled around like cargo. Nonetheless, the natural beauty was breathtaking. ECB Sharepoint users, you can see some pics here.

At last, after more than three hours of ascent, descent, and then ascent again through increasing darkness with only the intermittent trace of human existence, we drove up into Senahu, a fully functioning town. I was flabbergasted. I could not even conceive of how a cement truck could make it up the road we had just traveled. It seemed as though the town had been put together down below and then airlifted to its current site.

In the morning, we got together with the head of CARE’s health program and a food security guy, also from CARE and both apparently with vested interest in ECB3. The three gentlemen were kind enough to give me a detailed run-down of the pilot project in Senahu. It has a component which deals with catalyzing community members into some sort of risk reduction group, another component which deals with introducing risk reduction training into school curriculums working with a local youth group, and another which is about adopting some simple mitigation measures.

It was that last component that I got to see as we took a tour of the areas for proposed mitigation activities. In the daytime, it was easy to see that the town sat in a basin, surrounded by sharply sloping mountains. Juan Manuel and co. showed me a little video clip of the last landslide where floods and rocks tumbled into the town, killing 15, wounding others and destroying the church on the hill. ECB3 has already put in a mesh basket at the foot of a huge gulley, and wants to do a few different things like putting in culverts in one area of a mountain, improving drainage and putting up tree barriers. So we dashed around to a few of these sites where I got to ogle at the beautiful scenery while contemplating the fragility of the soil. Even without deforestation, it tends to fall of the slopes in chunks. Even the rocks are so fragile you can actually break them with bare hands.

After this geological escapade, we were off to meet with the assistant mayor to introduce these plans and garner their support. Hands clasped, the assistant mayor managed to keep up an intent look of interest through what was a thorough and long presentation. I personally thought the CARE doctor did a good job of stressing that in order for the project to be sustainable, they would need to work very closely with the municipality. The response back from the assistant mayor was very positive but frank – and so with assurances of collaboration and an admonition to come back and talk to the mayor, we left.

Overall, what I heard from many of the people I spoke to in Guatemala, was that collaboration is working. The IWG country directors met last week and have agreed to continue meeting once a month. They still plan on doing a lessons learned workshop on the multi-agency evaluation process. There have been mixed views about the evaluation itself. Most seem to believe it that though it was botched in many ways, it ended up being a useful tool and a catalyst for collaboration. There was one view that the loosely-defined objectives and the poor quality of the product have made it only marginally useful to that agency.

Will there be an ECB Phase II in Guatemala? It seems very much so, not necessarily because the Phase II design committee recommends that there is, or because the IWG principals think so, but because six IWG agencies in Guatemala seem adamant that collaboration continue.

Malaika

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