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
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
posted by Emergency Capacity Building Project Team Blog at 5:29 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home