UNICEF Consultation with

NGO Partners in Humanitarian Action

(Geneva, 13-14 December 2010)

Contact: Christine Knudsen, Chief Inter-Agency and Humanitarian Partnerships/EMOPS, UNICEFEmail: cknudsen@unicef.org, tel.: +41 22 909 56 23

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Table of ContentsExecutive Summary....................................................................................................................................3

Background, Objectives of the Consultation and Follow Up.......................................................................7

Introduction................................................................................................................................................9

Question and Answer Session with UNICEF Senior Management..............................................................9

Trends impacting on humanitarian action and partnership.....................................................................10

Models of partnership to enhance humanitarian action..........................................................................12

UNICEF’s revised CCCs and humanitarian capacity development............................................................14

Capacity Development with and of National Partners..............................................................................15

Standby Partnerships................................................................................................................................17

The Revised PCA.......................................................................................................................................18

Global Partnership Agreements...............................................................................................................20

Identified Opportunities and Recommendations for Follow Up Actions..................................................21

Closing Discussions...................................................................................................................................23

Evaluation of the Consultation.................................................................................................................24

Annex 1 Agenda

Annex 2 List of Participants

Annex 3 Report on Participant’s Evaluation

Annex 4 Background Papers

Guiding questions on humanitarian trends and implications for partnership UNICEF partnership case studies from Somalia, Haiti, and Pakistan ICVA's paper on opportunities and challenges for capacity development in national

contexts Findings from UNICEF's survey on the revised PCA Collected findings on the revised PCA from InterAction, Oxfam, and NRC Discussion paper on potential global agreements with UNICEF

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Executive SummaryUNICEF Consultation with NGO Partners in Humanitarian ActionGeneva, 13-14 December 2010

Following two years of joint action on partnership with NGOs, the second UNICEF Consultation with NGO partners in humanitarian action took place in Geneva 13-14 December 2010. It was designed to ensure that the momentum towards increasingly meaningful partnerships between UNICEF and NGOs is sustained in emergency response and to place the focus on putting partnerships into practice at field level.

This message was reinforced by Hilde Johnson, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director, who joined the meeting by video and conveyed the message that UNICEF intended to continue to take the necessary steps to ensure partnerships can deliver at field level for effective humanitarian action. Hilde Johnson also spoke of UNICEF’s intention to work together with NGO partners in delivering humanitarian advocacy messages both within and outside the sector.

The objectives of the consultation were to take stock of existing collaboration between UNICEF and NGO partners in humanitarian action at all levels; review changes in humanitarian policy and practice since the 2008 Consultation; identify areas for strategic collaboration and improved operational outcomes and find concrete ways to improve the work together in humanitarian action.

A joint practical and results-based Plan of Action, with a clear timeframe and allocation of responsibilities between UNICEF and NGO partners will be developed as the main outcome of the consultation.

The consultation was prepared together with key NGO partners and in close collaboration with UNICEF stakeholders in order to strengthen joint ownership of outcomes and recommendations. The discussion themes that they agreed were as follows:

Policy: Current and future trends in humanitarian assistance, partnerships models and reform projects, including discussions related to shared accountability within clusters and across membership.

Strategy: Revised CCCs and joint mechanisms for implementation and performance monitoring, national capacity development of and with NGO partners.

Operations: Experience with the revised PCA and rollout; updates on internal processes leading towards NGO global agreements.

Each of the thematic areas outlined in the Policy, Strategy, and Operational topics was introduced through joint presentations from NGOs and UNICEF. Background notes for each session were also prepared by UNICEF and NGO representatives and were distributed in advance of the consultation. Each paper included background and critical issues relevant to the session, recommended next steps and key questions to drive the discussions. These are annexed to this report.

The consultation was attended by 74 senior staff from NGOs, the Red Cross family, UN sister agencies and UNICEF. The consultation was held at the end of a year where the humanitarian sector had been challenged to respond to extremely large scale emergencies (e.g. Pakistan, Haiti) as well as sustaining capacity and response elsewhere.

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These challenges were expanded upon by the keynote speaker, James Darcy from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), who posed questions related to the need for additional capacity to respond which may add to the momentum for new ways of working and collaboration.

Participants were in agreement that recent emergencies demonstrated how, collectively, the capacity available had been well below that required for such massive operations. The meeting then focused on models and mechanisms to enhance capacity and ensure more effective collaborative working. Participants were keen to stress that risk transfer to NGOs should be avoided and that, instead, mechanisms for ensuring collective and transparent risk management should be put in place.

Predictability of response including humanitarian partnerships has been a critical issue during 2010 and was raised by UNICEF during the consultation (e.g. Pakistan and Haiti emergencies). It was repeatedly noted that true partnerships cannot be forged overnight, and that a strong element of preparedness aligned with emergency preparedness and contingency planning is required. For all organisations, particularly national NGOs, this offers opportunities for capacity building prior to (and sometimes during) the emergency.

The administrative demands of the vast number of agreements with individual partners (international, national and local NGOs) commonly managed by UNICEF at country level often preclude engagement in the more meaningful expectations of partnership. Potential solutions, such as support to national NGO consortia at the field level, were discussed during the consultation.

It was however agreed that clarity and transparency with regard to the nature of individual partnership is essential to manage expectations. The continuum of transactional to transformational partnerships was discussed and highlighted during the consultation. UNICEF and NGO Participants agreed that this was useful, that the concept should be developed further, and that it should be used during discussions at country level. It was thought to be helpful to those at field level that effective models of humanitarian partnership should be outlined more clearly.

One ongoing theme was the challenge of communicating and moving the understanding of the flexibility of agreements and the sense of partnership from the global level to the country level. The revised PCA needs to be seen as a partnership tool rather than a contractual mechanism if they are to be truly effective. In addition, many PCAs in emergencies signed in 2010 still use outdated formats. A number of tactics were proposed during the consultation to address this and they are presented in the recommendations below.

UNICEF and NGO partners undertook a series of joint presentations to update all participants on progress of key partnership tools. The rollout of the revised CCCs was explained and timelines clarified, the Standby Partnership model was explained and potential lessons for effective partnership working were discussed, the revised PCA was outlined and a detailed discussion on this was held. These discussions resulted in some practical and clear recommendations which are listed below and an emphasis on roll out in emergency contexts was agreed. UNICEF’s plan to clarify the structure and content of the potential NGO Global Agreements was also shared as was a commitment to communicate progress.

It was agreed by the Plenary that the consultation had been valuable and should be repeated regularly.

The consultation concluded by agreeing a series of recommendations which, once approved by UNICEF Management and NGO partners, will be translated into a joint UNICEF-NGO action plan which will require the contribution of key actors.

Participants prioritised what they believed to be key, joint and feasible follow-up actions to inform the 2011 joint Plan of Action.

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Key result area 1: Key changes required to enhance UNICEF-NGO partnership models in humanitarian action are identified and implemented jointly, to be more prepared and responsive

UNICEF/NGO partnership toolkit in emergencies Develop UNICEF-NGO handbook and/or partnership toolkit in humanitarian action focusing on quality

of humanitarian partnership, UNICEF/NGO roles and responsibilities includingo streamlined processes and procedures in emergencies (PCA options, best practices, etc)o ensure that the PoP are included in emergency preparedness planning

Develop light framework/tool to monitor partnership performance, to measure the effectiveness of UNICEF/NGO partnerships in emergencies

Principles of Partnership into practice Operationalize POP in preparedness plans and identify 3 countries to apply lessons learnt (e.g. GHP 6 case studies with 3 countries such as Ethiopia, Somalia, Philippines) Raise awareness of PoP across UNICEF/NGO senior management, ensure inclusion in accountabilities frameworks, JDs and performance appraisals

Clusters and NGO partnerships Update Guidance notes across all Clusters (including UNICEF) in addition to advocacy initiatives to the

IASC Principals Sustain NGO strategic and operational engagements in the Cluster Approach in order to

o agree on collective responsibility for gaps and capacity to respond and fix problems o use systematically Clusters to effectively screen incoming NGOs in the fieldo collect good practices on performance of cluster coordinators and members

Enhance humanitarian partnership knowledge management Establish e-portal to allow NGO and UNICEF partners to access key partnership documents Collect best partnership practices in emergencies and disseminate across UNICEF and NGO Develop NGO database at sectoral level including organizational assessments (what works well, what

does not work so well)

Key result area 2: Capacity development is jointly initiated to strengthen revised CCC-based emergency preparedness and response at national level

Joint capacity development strategy Develop rapid UNICEF/NGO capacity development toolkit including gap analysis

o to help identify new partners in large scale emergencies including local NGOso enhance national NGO consortia capacity in coordination.

Promote UNICEF preparedness activities, contingency planning and joint inter-agency emergency response training o to develop partnerships in advance and build in flexibilityo to enhance predictable response and streamline contract agreement processes.

Sustain capacity building efforts at the national level after initial emergency response a and ensure stronger engagement in DRR

Revised CCCs

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Create a reference group to discuss how NGOs and UNICEF can roll out the revised CCCs for more systematic strategic engagement together and identify additional partnership opportunitieso To identify a small number of countries (e.g. South Sudan, Somalia) to engage on CCC roll-out,

including capacity development analysis, and performance monitoringo To develop joint UNICEF/NGO country specific humanitarian advocacy strategy (e.g. in South Sudan,

Somalia)

Result area 3: Specific areas of the revised PCA guidelines which require clarification are identified and key actions implemented to further disseminate and streamline in emergencies

Develop a PCA toolkit and/or handbook (see also result area 1) Develop a handbook/toolkit which should include sections on pre-screening, contingency planning and

clarification on the use and implications of HACT Develop common PCA templates and encourage staff to utilise these.

Enhance knowledge management on revised PCA guidelines Update the FAQs on the revised PCA guidelines and disseminate across UNICEF and NGO Clarify with UNICEF Legal Office whether the revised PCA guidelines can be shared with NGO partners

to maximise the revised PCA roll out in 2011. Establish a website to include collection of best practices, monitoring of the rollout, interpretation of the

revised guidelines, clarification of what is allowable with regard to procurement guidelines

Train UNICEF staff and partners Identify critical countries (including emergency countries) for the revised PCA extended roll out Initiate training on the PCA to ensure a common understanding across UNICEF staff and NGO Invite NGO partners to participate in the revised PCA training.

Result area 4: NGO global agreements are explored and joint opportunities and risks identified and next steps implemented up to June 2010

Inform NGO partners of the outcome of the UNICEF discussion on Global Agreements including joint commitment to respond in emergencies

Clarify what global partnership agreements mean in terms of selection criteria, qualification, sectors, clusters, requirements including risk management

Result Area 5: Communication is sustained to engage key humanitarian NGOs as strategic partners for UNICEF in humanitarian action

Establish regular global consultations on humanitarian action with UNICEF/NGO senior management participation (on a predictable schedule).

Establish partnership consultation/feedback mechanisms in the field (including regional levels) to maintain communications, develop joint programme strategies and fix problems as they arise

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UNICEF Consultation with NGO Partners in Humanitarian ActionGeneva, 13-14 December 2010

Background, Objectives of the Consultation and Follow Up

The first UNICEF global consultation with humanitarian NGOs took place in February 2008 in Geneva, during which five priority areas for joint action were agreed1. Progress has been made on these areas for joint action since 2009 including the development of the revised PCA which creates an opportunity to move towards more strategic partnership agreements, regular informal consultations with partners including engagement of key NGO partners in the Core Commitments for Children (CCC) revision process, and the inclusion of the Principles of Partnership (PoP) within key UNICEF frameworks and management tools (such as the revised CCCs, the Emergency Preparedness and Response Training Package, the Global Partnership Framework, and the Programme Policy and Procedures Manual). The PoP will also be addressed in the new UNICEF management system (VISION) where they are included as key performance indicators at Country Office level.

The organisation has also adopted a new strategic framework for civil society partnerships in general which was approved by the Board in June 2009. An ‘Agenda for Action’ was outlined and 6 key actions were identified to start implementing this new global partnership framework.

Also, in 2009, UNICEF undertook a review of their partnership with NGOs in humanitarian action2. The review included interviews with 40 people from NGOs and UNICEF and found that despite good progress towards a more collaborative approach there were still some issues to be resolved and that many of these related to further developments in business process. Together with this furthering of business process, the review reiterated the need for ongoing strategic dialogue to ground partnerships in programme reality and identify mechanisms for resolving problems. The majority of NGOs interviewed during the course of the review requested a consultation similar to that undertaken in 2008.

The December 2010 consultation was attended by seventy four senior staff – thirty eight from NGO and other humanitarian stakeholders (e.g. UN, Red Cross family), and thirty three from UNICEF (including senior staff from HQs, RO and CO levels) The consultation was held at the end of 2010, a year, where UNICEF and NGO partners, in common with the rest of the humanitarian world, had been challenged to respond to extremely large scale emergencies (Haiti and Pakistan) as well as sustaining capacity and response elsewhere. In recognition of this, an external speaker from the Overseas Development Institute was invited to challenge the consultation participants by posing questions related to the trends and challenges that face the humanitarian sector which may force new ways of working and collaboration.

Background NotesBackground notes for each session were prepared by UNICEF and NGO representatives and were distributed in advance of the consultation. Each paper included background and critical issues relevant to the session, recommended next steps and key questions to drive the discussions.

These are listed here and are annexed to this report: Guiding questions on humanitarian trends and implications for partnership1 1. Revision of the PCA. 2. Enhance consultation on humanitarian policy, including the revised CCCs.3. Building NGO capacity in Emergency Preparedness and Response (EPR). 4. Enhanced communication in emergencies. 5. Development of a global partnership framework.2 ‘Enhancing the dialogue between UNICEF and non-governmental organisations in humanitarian action. 2009 UNICEF-NGO partnership review in humanitarian action.’ Sida, L, UNICEF, 2009.

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UNICEF partnership case studies from Somalia, Haiti, and Pakistan ICVA's paper on opportunities and challenges for national capacity development Findings from UNICEF's survey on the revised PCA Collected findings on the revised PCA from InterAction, Oxfam, and NRC Discussion paper on potential global agreements with UNICEF

The dialogue sparked by these background papers is represented in this report together with agreements made, unresolved issues, and areas of recommended identified action.

Objectives of the ConsultationThe consultation held in Geneva on 13 and 14 December 2010 was designed to ensure that the momentum towards increasingly meaningful partnerships between UNICEF and NGOs continued, and was sustained, in emergency response.

The overall aim of the consultation was to improve the way UNICEF and NGO partners work together to realize children’s rights in humanitarian action, and to help achieve more broadly children’s rights linked to the MDGs. More specifically, the objectives were to: Take stock of existing collaboration between UNICEF and NGOs in humanitarian action at all levels Review of changes in humanitarian policy and practice since the 2008 Consultation Identify areas for strategic collaboration and improved operational outcomes Find concrete ways to improve the work together in humanitarian action

The consultation was prepared together with key NGO partners and in close collaboration with UNICEF stakeholders to strengthen joint ownership of outcomes and recommendations. The discussion themes that they agreed were as follows:

Future of humanitarian assistance and reform projects including shared accountability within clusters and across membership. Revised CCCs, joint mechanisms for implementation and performance monitoring, and capacity development of, and with, NGO partners in national contexts. Operational discussions including a review of partnership forms including the stand-by partnership, the PCA revision and rollout, and updates on internal processes leading towards NGO global agreements).

Follow UpDuring the consultation, participants reviewed existing collaboration at both HQ and field levels, considered areas for strategic partnership, and identified priorities. Following agreement of this summary report of the consultation, a joint action plan with allocation of responsibilities will be prepared and submitted to UNICEF senior management.

Expectations Expressed by ParticipantsParticipants were encouraged to write down their expectations and concerns with regard to the consultation meeting during the initial morning. These expectations and concerns were used by the facilitators to shape the remainder of the programme.

Participants strongly expressed a hope that the consultation could focus on partnerships at the field level and lead to a better understanding of complementarities and the necessary flexibility to suit different contexts. There were repeated calls for the meeting to:

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develop constructive and actionable recommendations for follow up and for these recommendations to be limited in number and hence extremely focused and concrete.

lead to an enhanced efficiency of response provide a foundation for regular strategic dialogue between UNICEF and the NGO community.

A challenge for those facilitating the meeting was that approximately fifty percent of the concerns were that the discussion would not be concrete enough while others worried that the discussion could be too general to allow for clear, actionable recommendations.

Expected outcomes of the consultation A joint practical and results-based Plan of Action, with a clear timeframe and allocation of responsibilities Commitment to mutual dialogue and consistent engagement between UNICEF and NGOs for improved humanitarian action and resolve the constraints that hinder this Effective process in place by which UNICEF and NGO partners can get to know each other better, understand each others’ strategies, approaches, systems and procedures in emergencies

IntroductionIntroductory remarks by both UNICEF Louis-Georges Arsenault and Manisha Thomas, NGO representative from ICVA, agreed that the focus, both in the consultation and afterwards, needed to be on putting partnership into practice at field level.

The focus at field level should be maintained by ensuring that the partnerships were strategic and prioritised collective working even when there was no direct transfer of resources involved. The consultation would offer opportunities to discuss ways of working and lessons learnt in collective working.

At the same time, it was recognised that processes need to be rolled out consistently at field level and that the flexibility of UNICEF guidelines needed to be well understood in order to allow the space on both the UNICEF and NGO sides to allow this strategic work to take place. A frank discussion of some of the challenges, in the spirit of partnership, would allow priorities to be set and actions to be agreed.

Question and Answer Session with UNICEF Senior ManagementThe UNICEF Deputy Executive Director, Hilde Johnson, joined the meeting by video on Day 1 and was able to address a number of key issues and questions posed by participants. A strong message was conveyed that UNICEF intends to continue to make the necessary adjustments and changes to ensure partnerships can deliver at field level and particularly in humanitarian action.

Hilde Johnson emphasised, in particular, the importance placed by UNICEF Senior Management on the dependency upon partners to meet the revised Core Commitments to Children (CCCs), and the need for: additional clarity on clusters and the role of cluster partners and how UNICEF intended to push for this at IASC level, stronger Humanitarian Country Teams, the intention of UNICEF to work with prospective global partners to define priorities for the global agreements, and to receive clear feedback from partners on how the revised PCA guidelines are implemented at country level.

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Trends impacting on humanitarian action and partnershipThe initial session on current and future trends in humanitarian assistance and partnerships was intended to map out the state of the official system and pose questions with regard to adaptation and partnership in order to ensure a more effective official response system.

The speaker, James Darcy of the Overseas Development Institute, indicated that the sector already knows a great deal about the clear trends in natural disasters and are able to make predictions about short- to medium-term food insecurity, conflict, pressurised migration, urban disasters, and population increase. The relevant question for the consultation is whether the current official system has the capacity to respond to these trends. The experience of 2010 which includes the responses to Haiti and Pakistan suggests that the official system is struggling. It is important to question to what extent the role of the international system is correctly represented in response. In a rapid onset emergency the majority of people who die do so immediately and the value added of the official system is in providing support to survivors and perhaps in recovery. An increased focus on prevention by official actors needs to be more of an imperative.

The current official response system was illustrated by use of the diagram below where the box represents the official existing system while the circle represents the crisis context and the different actors therein. While this is helpful in understanding the flow of official aid flows (now increasingly coming to NGOs via the UN), it tells us little about the flow of unofficial aid (especially that which comes via the diaspora), or about the role played by militaries, corporates, and others. Partnerships will need to take account of the role played by other actors in order to ensure that they continue to be relevant in individual responses.

While trends in conflict are more difficult to determine, trends in donor focus are clearer and demonstrate a fairly clear correlation between security agendas and funding priorities. This is also related to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and a failure by fragile states to meet these Goals. The reality, illustrated by the graph below, is that the 70-80% of official humanitarian assistance is spent on protracted crisis which, in turn, means an operational commitment by the UN agencies, Red Cross/Crescent Movement, and NGOs to these contexts. This commitment has

evident implications on the official system and the ability to then respond effectively in the more traditional first phase emergency response. If the donor emphasis on stabilisation continues, then how can additional capacity be built and retained either within the official system or in coordination with the official system?

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The increasing donor focus on accountability was also noted and questions posed about what is realistic to expect in certain contexts. The issue of risk transfer by donors to operational agencies, institutionalised through such mechanisms as pooled funding, may conflict with calls for more innovative approaches to be developed and utilised.

Indications are that the system (in some contexts) will become more demand driven through an enhanced role being played by affected State. Dependant on the conditions established by affected States and by new donors bypassing the official system, agencies may feel increased pressure to demonstrate comparative advantage individually and collectively. This may require new discussion and partnerships with States on a case by case basis and thereby will give a new impetus to the ongoing dialogue about the PoP. Agencies will need to think more broadly and to focus on collective reforms and upon delivery. In effect, partnership will become a necessary precondition to effective response.

To date, the reform agenda has been about enhancing the status quo. The new drivers may demand a more radical view of the system and a wider approach to partnership. There are policies, tools and coordination systems set (for clusters or agency specific responses), but no agency, not even the collective UN agencies together/UNICEF, can respond to increasingly complex emergencies, with scale, scope and frequency of response needed.

What will be required is an understanding of larger drivers and implications for re-modelling humanitarian action and partnerships. Meaningful partnership requires true shift in attitudes, practices, expectations and shared commitments to results both from the UN (ie UNICEF) and the non UN (ie NGOs).

Participants broadly accepted the points made and agreed that new donors (such as China) will back affected States thereby ensuring a new dynamic in the dialogue with the official system. This will require agencies (and official donors) to work together more effectively including in preparedness and advocacy. What are the implications for impartial delivery of assistance in such contexts, particularly when the affected State is a strong state? How can tools such as International Disaster Response Law (IDRL) be used more effectively to put in place working level agreements with States?

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Participants also agreed that recent emergencies (such as the Pakistan floods of 2010) demonstrated that, collectively, the capacity available had been well below that required. Is the answer an increase of capacity in the official system – are agencies now too quick to take the role of first responder? To what extent are organisations driven to do this through engagement with the media? Can common positions be defined and held through partnership?

The following questions were posed by the keynote speaker to shape the remainder of the consultation:

1. Has the capacity of the international humanitarian system as currently constituted already been exceeded by the scale and nature of needs? If not yet, will it soon be? If the answer is yes, should the humanitarian system:

(i)  Seek to expand its capacity to fill the vacuum? Would this result in new agencies, new skills, bigger agencies, or increased levels of contracting out?

(ii) Look to increase efficiency within the system through more effective inter-agency collaboration and partnerships while considering whether collaboration & partnership actually increase or instead diminish efficiency?

(iii) Build new alliances and partnerships beyond the specialised humanitarian sector with, say, the commercial sector (international/local)? What would this be based on in terms of labour and skills and does this mean that there are things the humanitarian agencies should stop doing and let others do?

2. Does the humanitarian sector need a fundamentally different kind of working relationship with host governments, at least for natural disaster response and for preparedness/DRR?  And if this is happening anyway, how are organisations (collectively) trying to shape it?

What about our working relationships with local civil society? Do these need reshaping?

3. In the relationship between UN agencies and Red Cross/NGOs, are organisations playing to their respective strengths? Are the roles complementary or are organisations getting in each other’s way? How would a reallocation of roles answer questions of mandate, efficiency, legitimacy, credibility? Or is the bigger picture being missed? Has current humanitarian reform run its course, and something bolder is needed?

4. How can Government, private sector and other capacity be utilised in a form that is supportive of traditional partnerships?

Models of partnership to enhance humanitarian actionDermot Carty, UNICEF EMOPS Deputy Director, introduced this session by presenting the background paper based on recent experience in Pakistan and Aimee Ansari, Humanitarian Policy Officer of Oxfam International, followed this by speaking on broader Oxfam experience of forming and maintaining partnerships3.

In Pakistan there had been a perception that the humanitarian system had failed to deliver. Yet, the WASH cluster agencies have been delivering clean water to three million people per day and, more recently, to 4.5 million people per day. Now the WASH cluster is delivering clean water to more people than had access to it before the floods began.

3 UNICEF Haiti and Partners were invited to present in plenary however security issues in Haiti prevented them travelling. This necessitated the session being revised. The background paper from Haiti is annexed to this report along with all the other background papers.

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In UNICEF’s view, a clear need of partnership is for all partners to be aware of collective achievements and work to describe these to all stakeholders and publicly. Expectations have not been managed well, different actors and individuals have differing views on what might be expected of the clusters in terms of delivery. This needs to be addressed. Experience suggests that currently cluster membership does not equate to partnership and cluster members are not seen as stakeholders in the outcomes. From UNICEF’s perspective this needs to evolve. There was a suggestion that membership of clusters needs to be formalised to ensure this level of buy in.

UNICEF stated that partnership requires all actors to trust that the intent to move resources quickly in emergencies exists and that capacity is mobilised as rapidly as resources allow. A challenge for the meeting was to determine how organisations can truly establish this trust and ensure that predictability of response can be managed. Currently in Pakistan, UNICEF is managing approximately 111 live agreements and it is not possible to meet expectations of partnership for all of these.

There was then a focused discussion on the feasibility of NGOs organising themselves into consortia (as funding umbrella organisations) or collectives. Different views were expressed as some NGOs were open to the idea of participating in and leading consortia, while others maintained that it would be impossible to ask one NGO to take on the risk of guaranteeing the accountability of others. The dilemma was frankly and constructively discussed together with a clear articulation of the impossibility for UNICEF to continue to manage individual partnerships at this scale. It was understood that this was an issue that underpinned many other problems in terms of business management at field level, and that more discussion would be required to move to a sense from UNICEF and NGO partners as to what might be possible.

During the debate there was a strongly articulated sense that true partnerships cannot be forged overnight and that to make partnerships during a rapid onset emergency is challenging. Nevertheless, it was acknowledged that, despite the challenges of operating in an emergency, the PoP should still apply albeit it adapted to the need for speed of response. For example, the focus might be on results rather than on the alignment of strategies.

It was frequently noted by participants that it is important to be transparent when the nature of the relationship is a contracting one based on partner skills and the transfer of resources and that to be transparent about this when it is the case is a more equal and respectful approach.

Oxfam noted that a partnership which is based on more than a contracting approach does demand trust which needs to be built up over time, and will require such mechanisms as a common country strategy to be discussed and agreed. It will likely require working together, or at least continuing to have dialogue, outside of emergency responses. NGOs felt that there were lessons that they could bring to the table about how they manage partnerships and build capacity in national NGOs. The Plenary agreed with this and felt that there were such examples and that a process for sharing and building on these could be established.

There is a real need for all partners to understand the demands of partnership and understand clearly the expectations of any contract. UNICEF and NGOS need to take equal responsibility for making the partnership meaningful and sustaining the dialogue and both need to be flexible. There should be complementarity and this complementarity should be clear to the partners.

During the debate it was mentioned that that for UNICEF, the purpose of partnership in humanitarian action is multifaceted: to catalyse, mobilise and advocate (e.g. child trafficking, SCR 1612/1888, emergency preparedness and contingency planning), to respond and deliver aid (e.g. revised CCCs-based interventions, standby arrangements), to coordinate, to agree on norms and standards (e.g. cluster coordination; Sphere and INEE), to increase reach and coverage (e.g. standby arrangements, capacity development of national partners),

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to promote monitoring and reporting (e.g. revised CCCs performance monitoring framework), and to improve intellectual exchange and knowledge (e.g. social cash transfers, ready-to-use therapeutic food).

A challenge clearly articulated was how to move the sense of partnership and the dialogue from the global level to the country level. Organisations must find ways of ensuring that global agreements can be known and be meaningful in terms of trust and relationships at the country level. Additionally an acceptable level of risk management (for all partners) must be identified transparently which does not simply involve the transfer of risk to NGOs.

The revised PCA needs to be communicated with realistic guidelines and senior management on all sides must be involved. Currently the PCA is seen as a contractual mechanism as opposed to a partnership tool. Partnership must be continuous with mutual investment in ensuring business as usual, and including preparedness in this dialogue may help with this. There was a suggestion that two tiers of relationship could be considered with UNICEF taking a global approach to the fifty or so NGO partners who could be guaranteed to deliver in an emergency. This may require the establishment of a (UNICEF) management information system to ensure that country offices could quickly access the information they needed about UNICEF’s past and current relationship with a particular NGO globally. This could speed up the individual risk management process.

Strategic partnerships where there may never be a transfer of resources were agreed to be important, particularly with regard to preparedness and advocacy. However if the system is consumed by process this will remain challenging and participants wondered if a global agreement would ensure more commitment and give the NGO a tool to leverage engagement at the country office level. It was recognised that in some contexts NGOs may not wish to have a formal partnership with the UN and that this should still be respected: the lack of a formal agreement for collaboration does not prevent broader coordination, collaboration, and partnership. Again, the establishment of global agreements may respect this and still give the relationship the priority and time that it needed to ensure collective problem solving and planning.

The final consensus was that clarity on different models of partnership needs to be established and there needs to be an understanding at country level that there is a menu of models of partnership from which to choose a valid model. It may be simplest to distinguish between a collaborative model and one based more clearly on an MOU and written agreement though both would need to exist under the values of the PoP.

UNICEF’s revised CCCs and humanitarian capacity developmentThe third revision of the CCCs was presented by Genevieve Boutin, Chief Humanitarian Policy in EMOPS, to the Plenary. The CCCs have been revised with two major changes related to changes that have occurred in the broader humanitarian context. First, the shift from humanitarian response to humanitarian action within UNICEF. Second, the establishment of cluster responsibilities either as a lead agency or as a participating member. The presentation demonstrated how the CCC benchmarks were aligned with global standards including that of SPHERE and INEE and also focused on the explicit inclusion of the essential contribution of

partnership to ensuring effective and scaled delivery. UNICEF has made a number of commitments as part of Humanitarian Reform, and the CCCs needed to be adjusted to reflect these in the core humanitarian policy.

The revised CCCs bring a stronger results focus to UNICEF humanitarian action for children, from a strategic level of engagement with partners through to more specific actions that UNICEF will support directly. Each sector contains specific strategic results, commitments, and benchmarks. It is explicitly recognised that the ability to fulfil the CCS is tied to UNICEF’s ability to find and work with partners and to the ability of partners to deliver on the ground.

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The implications for country offices include: situation monitoring, advocacy, minimum preparedness, and to build capacity in partners to address the CCCs. Dilemmas linked to this latter point include whether capacity building of State institutions might affect (perceptions of) neutrality, how to know whether capacity building is being undertaken for the right reasons or whether capacity building is being instrumentalised to transfer risk, how to ensure that capacity building strategy is based upon transparent assessment and is collectively agreed, and how to keep the capacity building processes simple and agile to support the response. The principle of sustained support to capacity building over a period of time has been mainstreamed within the CCCs.

The roll out of the new CCCs is not yet completed and this, coupled with the decentralised nature of UNICEF, may prove frustrating for some partners. However many countries are already working with the revised CCCs and Pakistan, for example, is reporting against the revised CCCs.

Capacity Development with and of National PartnersThe session was informed by a background note prepared by Manisha Thomas, Policy Officer ICVA, which discussed Local NGO/International NGO expectations of capacity development in humanitarian contexts, capacity gaps and priorities, and the Global Humanitarian Platform’s review and discussions on new business model of humanitarian action. UNICEF in the field, Hannan Sulieman, Deputy Representative in Somalia, highlighted successes, challenges and activities in capacity development of national partners for improved humanitarian response.

A presentation from Vladimir Hernandez, Director CFSI Philippines, began this session and described how much of the capacity building on offer to national NGOs such as CFSI in the Philippines was project-centric and functional. This could be beneficial to NGOs, for example, financial management review could be useful if done in the right manner in terms of identifying areas of risk and improvement. However this would only be the case if support was present to ensure that action was taken to mitigate the risk and to share the burden.

In general, a greater focus on policy development and advocacy in the Philippines would be beneficial. In addition, preparation for representation at fora such as the UNCT or clusters is still needed to ensure to ensure that the significant role played by national NGOs in response is recognised.

The downside to effective capacity building of national NGOs is that very often staff can then be lost to bigger or international organisations – this be addressed through aligning capacity building and human resource strategies. International organisations are often reluctant to highlight or profile the work of national NGOs in fundraising or advocacy campaigns and yet providing these national NGOs with such platforms would be a very effective form of capacity building – the question is whether international organisations are prepared to stand back and offer this opportunity?

This presentation was enlarged upon by Manisha Thomas who maintained that few of the questions related to NGO capacity building were new and related to the need to collectively assess the impact of capacity development of NGO partners for emergency preparedness and response. This is especially important with regard to national NGOs.

In the reorientation of international organisations from the delivery of aid to supporting the delivery of aid, there is series of options on capacity building but there is also a need to adapt the approach to fit different contexts. The theme of risk management was picked up again with a reiteration of the point that it is important to ensure that international organisations are not simply passing on risk to international NGOs and from there to national NGOs.

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The challenge is how to make the restatement in the revised CCCS to capacity building translate to programming. We should share mechanisms that have been effective in identifying opportunities to build capacity and develop a clearer sense of what might this mean given the new emphasis that the sector is placing upon preparedness.

Most challenging perhaps, in terms of the need of international organisations for profile, is an obligation to ensure that the capacity built is at the forefront of a response. There may be implications for the commitment to the responsibility of the affected State to lead the response which will need to be managed.

Finally, in a context where local actors are challenged to adhere to humanitarian principles, there may be implications for capacity building.

The Plenary began with an agreement that many organisations make a verbal commitment to capacity building but are not able to demonstrate that commitment. There was a suggestion that UNICEF and partners look at mapping who is doing what at country level prior to the emergency in order to get a sense of strengths and weaknesses. The suggestion that there might need to be internal advocacy with development colleagues and with donors to promote the need for preparedness and capacity building was received more positively.

It was agreed that capacity building needs to have a longer term perspective and needs to be included in longer term agreements when they are initiated at the country level. The building of INGO and national NGO capacity need not be mutually exclusive.

Capability building must follow the needs and desires of the partners and therefore capacity assessments should be done transparently and collectively. This also means recognising that national NGOs need the financial resources even to engage in the process

One way to ensure that capacity building is not purely instrumental is by investing in staff with potential, and ensuring that leadership training takes place. Then it is critical to plan to utilise this new capacity in response.

There is a risk that the focus is entirely on cluster countries and it is important to continue to support capacity building in non cluster countries. At the same time it is essential to risk manage by working with Government in cluster countries to ensure that they are involved in capacity building and that there is not tension as clusters withdraw. Secondments in to Ministries should be considered as well as building on existing platforms and activities.

Despite the richness of the discussion, the Plenary concluded that much of what had been offered was comment rather than concrete recommendation. The critical question is to what extent capacity building can be undertaken in the middle of a crisis and the majority feeling was that it was extremely challenging. The solution was again seen to lie in preparedness and also integration within early recovery. The ethical dilemma was centred upon effective risk management rather than simply risk transfer.

Standby PartnershipsThe second day of the consultation opened with a presentation of different partnering models and operational discussions. The first session featured Julien Temple, UNICEF EMOPS standby partnership manager, on Standby Arrangements in order to outline the key lessons learnt and benefits derived from the partnership model itself.

The original purpose of the Standby Arrangement is to maintain a pool of (pre-identified) operational resources that can be rapidly deployed as a temporary gap filling measure to augment the capacity of a

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country team in the immediate aftermath of the emergency. It is a complementary resource not a substitute for UNICEF’s own resources.

The mechanism has been used for preparedness as well as for response. It has also been used to support the cluster response. The partnership which has accompanied the deployment mechanism has, however, also allowed for further leveraging of resources, efficiencies, and new collaboration.

In 2009, UNICEF undertook a review of the Standby Arrangements. This was due to: the growth in the number of partners, the renewed emphasis on partnership within humanitarian reform and the cluster system, and the new UNICEF Strategic Framework for Partnerships and Collaborative resources. It was not an evaluation of deployment effectiveness but was intended, rather, to provide an assessment of the eighteen partnerships which comprise the standby arrangements and how a shared strategic vision could be developed for 2011-2015.

For the purposes of the consultation the two most important findings were as follows:

That the attributes which were purposefully built into the partnerships (and contributed to success) were: cost effective, quick, flexible, predictable, built on partners’ strengths and their comparative advantage.

A second set of attributes recognised by the review were not necessarily in the original design of the Standby Arrangements but have developed over time. They include the fact that though the Standby Arrangement is a pragmatic tool, it goes beyond surge capacity and the partnerships which have developed within the group have allowed for more innovation as well as collaboration in other areas. It appears that the Standby Arrangement provided a vehicle for partners’ broader collaboration, strategic alliance, common practice, development of shared standards, and good modeling of principled partnership.

Currently the Standby Arrangement is a unique model for partnership within UNICEF, was developed together within partners, has very clear conditions for secondment, and is based very clearly upon common objectives (all these were mentioned by many on Day 1 of the consultation as necessary preconditions for effective partnership working). Most of the Standby partners expressed an interest in enhancing the partnership towards a more strategic or “transformational” approach. There is already an annual consultation with Standby partners which is made more productive by the intimate knowledge that the partners have of UNICEF.

The following diagram was used by the team conducting the Standby Arrangements review and

summarises neatly the spectrum of partnership that is under consideration.

The Standby Arrangement was briefly discussed by the Plenary who concluded that there was a sense that this was one of the best models currently available to partners who could afford to participate. Mobility was thought to be the key to the success of this arrangement and therefore partners needed to be contracted based on their capacity to respond flexibly. It has been found to offer opportunities to donors who wish to contribute but have some timing and other constraints and it also offers donors the opportunity to contribute to preparedness activity.

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TRANSACTIONAL TRANSFORMATIONAL

o One party decides o One party purchases (or donates)

a specific resourceo Inflexible expectations and

contract with clear deliverables decided at beginning

o Limited interest or buy-in from partners beyond the contractual agreement

o Transparency not necessaryo Risk and reward individually

mitigatedo Relationship must fulfil

contractual obligation; equity not needed

o Co-generation of programmeo Partners bring together a range of

complementary resources and competencies

o Ongoing discussions with organic deliverables adapted to local, changing realities or unexpected events

o Transparency essentialo Risk and reward sharedo Equity core to vision

Relationship Spectrum

Following the presentation, participants had a better understanding of UNICEF’s stand-by arrangement as a highly effective global system complementing UNICEF staffing in emergencies. In addition, participants also understood how UNICEF and NGO stand-by partners sustained a partnership consultation process to better assess the results of engagement in partnerships and collaborative relationships, and if necessary, to address outstanding stand-by partnership issues more consistently.

There is some desire to see scale up of this model but also concerns around the flexibility. Some of the Standby Agreements are not active and there is a need to understand whether the capacity of partners was correctly assessed in the first place and whether the objectives of the partner continue to match those of UNICEF.

The Revised PCA The revised PCA, effective as of 1 January 2010, was presented to the Plenary by Richard Morgan, Director of UNICEF Division of Policy and Practice, in order to underline the strategic shift towards more strategic partnership away from a simple service delivery or transactional relationship.

During this session, participants were made aware of the key changes in the revised PCA guidelines, roll-out plan initiatives taken to date, and what will be the next steps to ensure adequate implementation of the revised PCA and adherence across UNICEF and partners, particularly in humanitarian contexts.

The aim of the revised PCA is to determine and to achieve shared results from partnership. Also included in the new PCA is the concept of capacity building particularly for national NGOs.

While there is a new PCA review process at country level, taking this out of the contract review committee, the remainder of the key changes are in the categories of funding. UNICEF financial rules are still utilised, as is the Harmonised Approach to Cash Transfer (HACT), and the regulations on cash advances and liquidation within six months remain constant.

Roll out of the revised PCA to Country Offices is underway using various means and technology. Two surveys of the revised PCA were then presented to the summary. The first was of 13 UNICEF Country Offices by telephone while the second survey was presented by Jason Phillips, Deputy Director, IRC on behalf of Inter Action members, IRC, NRC and Oxfam GB. Background papers presenting both surveys can be found in the annexes of this report.

UNICEF Country Offices were very positive in development contexts though less so in emergency settings where they said that they were not sufficiently prepared in terms of vetting partners. Some offices felt that they had had difficulty in terms of preparing costs. It was noted that some field and sub-offices had given authority to Country Offices to approve some PCAs and also that there needed to be a broader awareness of the six month liquidation period.

The NGO findings began by acknowledging progress and noted that as the PCA involved many people in many departments of UNICEF and partners (including finance and compliance) it was a good vehicle to mainstream the concept of partnership throughout organisations. The NGO survey suggested that great progress had been made in some areas, including that of indirect costs which had previously been the greatest source of contention, and furthermore that it was a positive sign that there was no longer a barrier to longer term relationships.

This latter presentation highlighted that the key issue of contention now was about the functionality (rather than the concept) of the PCAs – in other words that there continue to be significant delays in some countries

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to agreement of PCAs and to the transfer of funds, and the new PCA is not being used in the majority of humanitarian contexts.. Typically, when the proposal is submitted, there are lengthy negotiations, including on issues that have been resolved in the new PCA, and a way must be found in emergency contexts to move beyond this. In conclusion, the NGO survey found that more needed to be done to educate on this way of working.

As the discussion moved to Plenary, focus was on this last point regarding the length of time required to process PCAs and transfer funds. UNICEF made the point that in Pakistan there are currently 111 PCA agreements and in Zimbabwe there are 182 PCA partners in Child Protection alone. UNICEF then reiterated the point that, for them, it will be necessary to find a way to more effectively manage this number of partners at a local level or it will not be possible to make progress on all the other issues that have been identified. As many of the PCAs entail relationships with local organisations there is a strong (and time consuming) capacity building role. UNICEF will need to return to the investigation of the feasibility of umbrella roles for larger NGOs and will look for partners to work with them on this. The Country Representative (CR) informed the meeting that in Somalia the office was hiring someone to process and manage PCAs for the office. This is another possible solution.

The Plenary agreed that more roll out of the revised PCA at Country Office level would be desirable. It would also be necessary for existing partners to be regularly updated on the process (due to staff turnover). It was proposed that regular partnership meetings should take place between UNICEF and those funded through PCAs at country level.

Following group work, the Plenary concluded that there is a need to gather practice on how the PCA can be facilitated in emergencies and questioned whether the available flexibilities are known and trusted at Country Office (Rep and Programme Officer level). It was agreed that the issue of umbrella PCAs should be examined as should the possibility of multi-sectoral PCAs.

Based on feedback from participants (UNICEF and NGO partners), key and joint actions were identified to further disseminate the revised PCA guidelines both internally and externally, and what specific areas of the revised guidelines would require clarification and additional guidance

It was felt that preparedness planning with partners to outline potential roles and PCAs could be helpful in speeding the process and that standby arrangements (as already used in Ethiopia) could streamline the process once initial approval is given. These examples should be collected, shared and mainstreamed.

The Plenary felt that it was good to have a focal point at country level to deal with PCAs and that it would be excellent to have a tool box of good PCAS that have worked by sector, and by partner, to act as templates for the Country Office in order to give confidence and speed decision making.

There was also a series of suggestions for more strategic approaches to the problem: for larger INGOS to be vetted at the corporate level rather than at country level to acquire a global prequalification, utilise a contracted help desk following the ECHO example, publicise the website/global helpdesk4, better knowledge management and sharing of good practice, standard procedures in the PCA to be better utilised, standard templates, joint risk and capacity assessments, development of annual workplans and proposals, joint contingency planning with an emphasis on preparedness where the main partners would be pre-identified, and finally again the suggestion of consortia.

The latter was greeted cautiously by the NGOs (despite the fact that it is already happening in many countries) who felt that the emphasis for now should remain on UNCEF as the problem identified related to PCA

4 Currently assistance can be sought by emailing pcaguidance@unicef.org.

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implementation. It was also mentioned that umbrella grants imply a transfer of transaction costs which has to be offset.

The discussion was concluded by agreeing that the trend was towards streamlining and good practice and that more could be done to more effectively promote what is already in place (for example there are already multi-sectoral PCAs) while information is collected and KM examples are created. To be effective in an emergency context tools need to be put in place to ensure planning and pre-screening.

Global Partnership Agreements The consultation was also an opportunity to update on UNICEF progress made on the proposed global PCA agreements and to solicit feedback from NGOs on the goals and objectives for global agreements, as per the commitment expressed in the revised PCA Guidelines (2009). A presentation was delivered by Kate Rogers and Liza Barrie of the UNICEF Programme Division, and a debate on the proposed global PCA agreements followed.

UNICEF has not yet defined the structure or content of Global PCA Agreements. They will not be a panacea however they will be based on the following Guiding Principles: Enhance the quality of civil society partnerships Respect UNICEF’s existing hierarchy of accountabilities Build on existing precedents across the UN system.

A survey of mechanisms used by other UN agencies has been undertaken and lessons include: that it is important to respect the existing hierarchy and accountability framework which state the Country Representatives are responsible for country level partnership, that awareness had to be paid to potential complications resulting from the decentralisation and/or global networks of NGOS to understand where responsibility for agreements might sit within the hierarchy (in other words to be certain that a headquarters always has the entitlement to make commitments on behalf of members or decentralised offices), that the current basic cooperation agreements between UNICEF and Governments does not mention NGOs and that this may need to be addressed.

Examples of the modalities include: Prequalification system Institutional contracts Long-term agreements Fast-track policies and procedures Letter of intent.

In early 2011 the Office of the Executive Director will convene UNICEF Directors to discuss feedback from the humanitarian consultation, the PCA’s performance, and possible modalities for global agreements and UNICEF will convene a small group of NGO partners to discuss recommendations for global agreements. UNICEF intends to reach on internal agreement on the purpose and scope of global agreements by June 2011.In Plenary, NGOs fed back on their expectations of a global agreement citing as important that it would speed up current process for approvals and transfer of resources. The benefit should be in formalising good intentions and conveying the message on partnership within organisations thereby expediting process. In cases such as Haiti, UNICEF and global NGOs should have a global arrangement which allows them to operate on a one pager at the outset of a response if the parameters are discussed in advance.

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Identified Opportunities and Recommendations for Follow Up ActionsThe afternoon of Day 2 was devoted to the discussion of opportunities that had been identified in Plenary and the development of concrete follow up actions. Following the original agenda, participants worked in three groups and then brought their recommendations back to Plenary. Building on the information generated so far this session was designed to:

1) recommend a list of joint actions which could be implemented in the short term which would bring quick wins to our humanitarian partnerships, particularly at the field level and

2) continue the development of the key elements of a UNICEF-NGO partnership strategy in emergencies with a longer term focus on upstream and humanitarian policy issues.

The Plenary collectively agreed on the most effective approach for developing the follow-up action plan. Participants prioritised what they believed to be key, joint and doable/feasible follow-up actions to inform the 2011 joint Plan of Action.

These are as follows:

Key result area 1: Key changes required to enhance UNICEF-NGO partnership models in humanitarian action are identified and implemented jointly, to be more prepared and responsive

UNICEF/NGO partnership toolkit in emergencies Develop UNICEF-NGO handbook and/or partnership toolkit in humanitarian action focusing on quality of humanitarian partnership, UNICEF/NGO roles and responsibilities includingo streamlined processes and procedures in emergencies (PCA options, best practices, etc)o ensure that the PoP are included in emergency preparedness planning Develop light framework/tool to monitor partnership performance, to measure the effectiveness of UNICEF/NGO partnerships in emergencies

Principles of Partnership into practice Operationalize the POP in preparedness plans and identify 3 countries to apply lessons learnt (GHP 6 case studies with 3 countries such as Ethiopia, Somalia, Philippines) Raise awareness of PoP across UNICEF/NGO senior management, ensure inclusion in accountabilities frameworks, JDs and performance appraisals

Clusters and NGO partnerships Clarify the Cluster Approach and update Guidance notes across all Clusters (including UNICEF) in addition to advocacy initiatives to the IASC Principals Sustain NGO strategic and operational engagements in the Cluster Approach in order to o agree on collective responsibility for gaps and capacity to respond and fix problems o use systematically Clusters to effectively screen incoming NGOs in the fieldo collect good practices on performance of cluster coordinators and members

Enhance humanitarian partnership knowledge management Collect best partnership practices in emergencies and disseminate across UNICEF and NGO Establish e-portal to allow NGO and UNICEF partners to access key partnership documents

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Develop NGO database at sectoral level including organizational assessments (what works well, what does not work so well)

Key result area 2: Capacity development is jointly initiated to strengthen revised CCC-based emergency preparedness and response at national level

Joint capacity development strategy Develop rapid UNICEF/NGO capacity development toolkit including gap analysiso to help identify new partners in large scale emergencies including local NGOso enhance national NGO consortia capacity in coordination both at national and sub-national levels Promote UNICEF preparedness activities, contingency planning and joint inter-agency emergency response training o to develop partnerships in advance and build in flexibilityo to enhance predictable response and streamline contract agreement processes. Sustain capacity building efforts at the national level after initial emergency response a and ensure stronger engagement in DRR

Revised CCCs Create a reference group to discuss how NGOs and UNICEF can roll out the revised CCCs for more systematic strategic engagement together and identify additional partnership opportunitieso To identify a small number of countries (e.g. South Sudan, Somalia) to engage on CCC roll-out, including capacity development analysis, and performance monitoringo To develop joint UNICEF/NGO country specific humanitarian advocacy strategy (e.g. in South Sudan, Somalia)

Result area 3: Specific areas of the revised PCA guidelines which require clarification are identified and key actions implemented to further disseminate and streamline in emergencies

Develop a PCA toolkit and/or handbook (see also result area 1) UNICEF to develop a handbook/toolkit which should include sections on pre-screening, contingency planning and clarification on the use and implications of HACT UNICEF to develop common templates and encourage staff to utilise these.

Enhance knowledge management on revised PCA guidelines Update the FAQs on the revised PCA guidelines and disseminate across UNICEF and NGO Clarify with UNICEF Legal Office whether the revised PCA guidelines can be shared with NGO partners to maximise the revised PCA roll out in 2011. Establish a website to include collection of best practices, monitoring of the rollout, interpretation of the revised guidelines, clarification of what is allowable with regard to procurement guidelines

Train UNICEF staff and partners Identify critical countries (including emergency countries) for the revised PCA extended roll out Initiate training on the PCA to ensure a common understanding across UNICEF staff and NGO Invite NGO partners to participate in the revised PCA training.

Result area 4: NGO global agreements are explored and joint opportunities and risks identified and next steps implemented up to June 2010

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Inform NGO partners of the outcome of the UNICEF discussion on Global Agreements including joint commitment to respond in emergencies Clarify what global partnership agreements mean in terms of selection criteria, qualification, sectors, clusters, requirements including risk management

Result Area 5: Communication is sustained to engage key humanitarian NGOs as strategic partners for UNICEF in humanitarian action

Establish regular global consultations on humanitarian action with UNICEF/NGO senior management participation (on a predictable schedule). Establish partnership consultation/feedback mechanisms in the field (including regional levels) to maintain communications, develop joint programme strategies and fix problems as they arise

Closing Discussions The meeting was closed by Louis-Georges Arsenault from UNICEF and Ed Schenkenberg of ICVA who remarked on the growing sense of commitment, communicated by those in the meeting, that an investment into sustaining partnerships and relationships would contribute to improved humanitarian response. Louis-Georges Arsenault stressed the huge commitment to this that existed at the UNICEF Senior Management level and also UNICEF’s desire to continue to learn and to partner effectively with NGO in emergency preparedness and response.

Louis-Georges Arsenault noted that out of the consultation had come two very strong themes. First of all that it was important for all partners to ensure a comprehensive mindset change within their organisations in order to engage with more purpose, and secondly that organisations need to better operationalise the partnership framework in emergencies.

The consultation had reinvigorated the sense that capacity development needed to be on the agenda of every agency when working at the national level. This now has a new urgency given the need for improved humanitarian response on the ground and stronger action for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. New and more varied operational partners need to be engaged especially around preparedness and contingency planning.

While UNICEF - like all large organisations - faces challenges in moving system changes forward, it is committed to progress on the joint actions identified. Next steps will be:

a) A rapid circulation of the outcome report before Christmas 2010 so that the implementation plan can be agreed early in 2011.b) Validate the critical actions that will be implemented by UNICEF and those undertaken jointly with NGO partners.c) Invite NGO partners including NGO consortia to join and support implementation of the actions.

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Evaluation of the ConsultationParticipants were invited to complete an evaluation form. Twenty one completed forms were received. Of these, nineteen agreed5 that the workshop objectives were adequately covered while eighteen agreed the content was what was needed as a first step to enhancing dialogue. Thirteen agreed that the workshop met their own objectives while no participant felt that their own objectives (personal or organisational had not been met).

Participants overwhelmingly (eighteen) felt that the workshop was the correct length with just enough participants. Eighteen participants agreed that the programme was well paced with nineteen participants finding the background materials useful.

Recommendations offered by participants with regard to future consultations included the need for such UNICEF/NGO consultation should be organised every 18 months / annually, to ensure more UNICEF field level presence and invite more national organizations, to discuss operational matters in the field particularly during rapid onset emergencies. Finally, UNICEF/NGO background papers should include country level experience working in clusters.

5 Note that for the purposes of this summary ‘Agree’ means both ‘Agree’ and ‘Strongly Agree’. The full analysis can be seen in Annex 3.

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Annex 1: UNICEF consultation with NGO partners in humanitarian action, 13-14 December 2010AGENDA

Day 1: 13 DECEMBER

Time Topic Presenters

08:30-09:00 Registration at CCV and morning coffee

Introduction and welcoming participants

09:00-09:30

Opening remarksLouis-Georges Arsenault, UNICEF Manisha Thomas, ICVA

Review of AgendaChristine Knudsen, UNICEF EMOPS

Linda Doull, Merlin

Discussion theme: Humanitarian Policy Development

09:30-10:30

Current and future trends in humanitarian assistance and partnerships

Discussion of drivers of evolving humanitarian contexts and implications for humanitarian action and partnerships; opportunities and challenges

James Darcy, ODI / HPG

10:30-10:45 Coffee break

10:45-13:00

UNICEF-NGO partnership models and humanitarian assistance

Key lessons learnt from the field and key changes required to enhance UNICEF/NGO partnership models

Dermot Carty, UNICEF EMOPS

Aimee Ansari, OXFAM GB

13:00-14:00 Lunch break

14:00-14:30 UNICEF-NGO partnership models and humanitarian assistance (contd) Rapporteurs from group works

Discussion theme: Strategic partnership in humanitarian action

14:30-16:00

UNICEF’s revised CCCs and humanitarian capacity development

Opportunities and challenges in revised CCCs framework and what approach to national capacity development

Genevieve Boutin, UNICEF EMOPS

Opportunities and challenges in NGO capacity development

NGO expectations and key obstacles to address for more meaningful capacity development at the national level

Manisha Thomas, ICVA

Vladimir Hernandez, CFSI

16:00-16:15 Coffee break

16:15-17:15 Open discussion forum with UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Hilde F. Johnson, UNICEF

17:15-17:45 Opportunities and challenges in NGO capacity development (contd) Rapporteurs from group works

17:45-18:00 Conclusion of Day 1 Louis-Georges Arsenault, UNICEF

18:00-19:00 Cocktail at CCV

Day 2: 14 DECEMBER

Time Topic Presenters

08:30-09:00 Morning coffee at CCV

Discussion theme: Operational partnership in humanitarian action

09:00-09:30Lessons learnt on operational partnership practices from surge capacity

Key lessons learnt and best operational practices from the standby partnership modelJulien Temple, UNICEF EMOPS

09:30-10:30Update on the revised PCA and next steps

Progress made since 2008, opportunities and challenges, next steps

Richard Morgan, UNICEF DPP

Jason Phillips, IRC

10:30-10:45 Coffee break

10:45-11:30 Update on the revised PCA and next steps (contd) Rapporteurs from group works

11:30-12:30Exploring future opportunities on NGO partnership agreements

Update on UNICEF’s survey on global partnership agreements and next stepsLiza Barrie, UNICEF PD

12:30-14:00 Lunch break

Ways forward to strengthen partnership between UNICEF and NGO partners in humanitarian action

14:00-15:30Joint opportunities and recommended follow-up actions

Next steps and working towards a strategic partnership approach

15:30-16:00 Closing statementsLouis-Georges Arsenault, UNICEF Ed Schenkenberg, ICVA

Annex 2: Consultation between UNICEF and Humanitarian NGOs, 13-14 December 2010, Geneva, Switzerland

List of Participants

Name Firstname Title Office Emails

NGOs

Mr Gonnet Thomas Operations Director Action contre la Faim tgonnet@actioncontrelafaim.org

Ms Israel Anne-Dominique Senior Nutrition Adviser Action contre la Faim adisrael@actioncontrelafaim.org

Mr Ali Gardo Ismael Director APDA, Ethiopia cf ICVA

Mr Baker Jock Programme Quality & Accountability Coordinator Care International baker@careinternational.org

Ms Bell Jacqueline Technical Advisor, Training Partnership for IAWG on RH in Crises Care International jbell@careinternational.org

Mr Hernandez Vladimir Director for Philippine Programme CFSI, Philippines cf ICVA

Ms Starup Kathrine Senior Protection Advisor DRC kathrine.starup@drc.dk

Mr Schenkenberg Ed Coordinator ICVA ed.schenkenberg@icva.ch

Ms Thomas Manisha Policy Officer ICVA manisha@icva.ch

Mr Charny Joel Vice President for Policy InterAction jcharny@interaction.org

Ms Pack Mary Vice President of Domestic and International Affairs International Medical Corps mpack@imcworldwide.org

Mr Phillips Jason Deputy Vice President, Field Operations IRC jason.phillips@theirc.org

Ms Doull Linda Director, Health & Policy Merlin doull@merlin.org.uk

Ms Beytout Coline Advocacy and Humanitarian Officer MSF International Coline.BEYTOUT@geneva.msf.org

Ms Vasset Magnhild Deputy Director, International Programme Department NRC Magnhild.Vasset@nrc.no

Ms Solheim Nordbeck Heidi Institutional Donor Adviser NRC Heidi.SolheimNordbeck@nrc.no

Ms Spence Arnhild Resident Representative NRC Geneva arnhild.spence@nrc.ch

Ms Williams Tess Humanitarian Funding Coordinator & UN Donor lead Oxfam GB TWilliams@oxfam.org.uk

Ms Ansari Aimée Humanitarian Policy Advisor Oxfam International aimee.ansari@oxfaminternational.org

Mr Owen Gareth Emergency Director Save the Children UK g.owen@savethechildren.org.uk

Ms Buswell Misty Senior Advocacy Advisor, Deputy Head of Office Save the Children Geneva misty@savethechildren.ch

Mr Hofmann Charles-Antoine Executive Secretary SCHR ca.hofmann@ifrc.org

Mr Leblanc Jean Marc Wash Advisor Solidarités JmLeblanc@solidarites.org

Ms Rakotomalala Sabine Child Protection Advisor TDH sra@tdh.ch

Ms MacLeod Heather Associate Director GRRT Technical Team World Vision International heather_macleod@wvi.org

UN and others

Mr Daniel Helle Multilateral Organisation, Legal Division ICRC lboudreault@icrc.org

Ms Charlotta Relander Head of Sector, Cooperation and Coordination within the Movement ICRC crelander@icrc.org

Mr Eccleshall Simon Head, Disaster Services Department IFRC simon.eccleshall@ifrc.org

Mr Lawry-White Simon Chief, IASC Secretariat OCHA lawrywhite@un.org

Ms Hassan Randa Humanitarian Affairs Officer OCHA hassan50@un.org

Mr Scott Niels Chief, HRSU OCHA scott2@un.org

Mr Darcy James Senior Fellow Researcher, ODI/Humanitarian Policy Group ODI London j.darcy@odi.org.uk

Mr Doyle Bernard Head, Inter-Agency Unit UNHCR DOYLE@unhcr.org

Mr Risi Adelmo Senior Inter-Agency Coordination Officer UNHCR RISI@unhcr.org

Mr Demiroz Cagatay External Relations Officer UNHCR DEMIROZ@unhcr.org

Ms Tymo Darlene Deputy Director WFP darlene.tymo@wfp.org

Mr Kaatrud David Director of Emergencies WFP david.kaatrud@wfp.org

Ms Sleeuwenhoek Tanja Ellen Technical Officer, Alliances and Partnerships, SPR, HAC WHO sleeuwenhoekt@who.int

UNICEF

Ms Aguilar Pilar Snr. Advisor, Education in Emergencies (Programme Division) UNICEF GVA paguilar@unicef.org

Ms Aliko Blerta Early Recovery Specialist, RRRS, (EMOPS) UNICEF GVA baliko@unicef.org

Ms Andrea James Emergency Specialist UNICEF WCARO, Geneva ajames@unicef.org

Mr Arsenault Louis-Georges Director (EMOPS) UNICEF NY lgarsenault@unicef.org

Ms Barnett Catherine Child Protection Cluster Coordinator (Programme Division) UNICEF GVA cbarnett@unicef.org

Ms Barrie Liza Chief, Civil Society Partnership (Programme Division) UNICEF NY lbarrie@unicef.org

Ms Bill Laura Emergency Specialist UNICEF APSSC, Thailand lbill@unicef.org

Ms Boutin Genevieve Chief, Humanitarian Policy Section (EMOPS) UNICEF NY gboutin@unicef.org

Mr Carty Dermot Deputy Director (EMOPS) UNICEF GVA dcarty@unicef.org

Mr Davin Thomas Regional Chief Emergency Preparedness and Response UNICEF MENARO, Jordan tdavin@unicef.org

Mr Fellows William Global Cluster Coordinator, WASH (Programme Division) UNICEF NY wfellows@unicef.org

Ms Golaz Anne Snr. Health Advisor (Programme Division) UNICEF GVA agolaz@unicef.org

Ms Haque Yasmin Director of Operations UNICEF Southern Sudan yhaque@unicef.org

Ms Hofmeister Marika Emergency Specialist, IAHP (EMOPS) UNICEF GVA mhofmeister@unicef.org

Ms Ippe Josephine Global Cluster Coordinator, Nutrition (Programme Division) UNICEF NY jippe@unicef.org

Ms Ishihara Tomoko Intern, IAHP (EMOPS) UNICEF GVA tishihara@unicef.org

Ms Johnson F. Hilde Deputy Executive Director UNICEF NY hjohnson@unicef.org

Ms Knudsen Christine Chief, Inter Agency and Humanitarian Partnerships (EMOPS) UNICEF GVA cknudsen@unicef.org

Mr Le Pechoux Michel Chief, Early Warning and Preparedness (EMOPS) UNICEF GVA mlepechoux@unicef.org

Ms Madi Kirsi Deputy Regional Director UNICEF CEE/CIS kmadi@unicef.org

Mr Morgan Richard Director (Division of Policy and Practice) UNICEF NY rmorgan@unicef.org

Mr Nguyen Quoc Dang Emergency Specialist, IAHP (EMOPS) UNICEF GVA qnguyen@unicef.org

Mr Nuguid Joselito Deputy Director, Operations (Supply Division) UNICEF DAN jnuguid@unicef.org

Mr Omol Shadrack Chief, Field Operations & Emergency UNICEF Ethiopia somol@unicef.org

Ms Peugeot Heidi Emergency Specialist UNICEF TACRO, Panama hpeugeot@unicef.org

Ms Reddick Moira Consultant, Report Writer IAHP (EMOPS) UNICEF GVA moira@raddick.org.uk

Mr Rehman Asim Regional Emergency Specialist UNICEF CEE/CIS arehman@unicef.org

Ms Rogers Katherine Project Manager, Civil Society Partnership (Programme Division) UNICEF NY kroger@unicef.org

Mr Spalton Antony DRR Specialist, RRRS, (EMOPS) UNICEF GVA aspalton@unicef.org

Ms Sulieman Hannan Deputy Representative UNICEF Somalia hsulieman@unicef.org

Mr Temple Julien Manager, Emergency Surge Capacity, IAHP (EMOPS) UNICEF GVA jtemple@unicef.org

Ms Tobin Vanessa Representative UNICEF Philippines vtobin@unicef.org

Ms Van Kalmthout Ellen Global Cluster Coordinator, Education (Programme Division) UNICEF GVA ekalmthout@unicef.org

Annex 3: Participant’s Evaluation Form(21 responses)

Please circle/ indicate to what extent you agree or disagree with the following statements:

Strongly Agree

AgreeNeither

Agree nor Disagree

DisagreeStrongly Disagre

e

1. Workshop overall objective was adequately covered

1 18 1 1

2. Content was what I needed to discuss as a first step to enhancing dialogue

2 16 3

3. Programme was well-paced 3 15 3

4. Pre-workshop materials and background documents were useful

9 10 1

5. Participants were encouraged to take an active part

13 6 1

6. The workshop met my individual and/or my organization’s objectives

2 11 7

Please rate the following, as applicable (5=excellent to 1=poor)

7. Meeting space 17 4

8. Meals/refreshments 15 5 1

9. Overall organisation 15 5

10. Was the workshop length: correct? 18 too short? 1 too long ? 1

11. Were there: just enough participants? 18 too few? 1 too many ? 0

12. What are the 3 most important things you discussed/ learnt during the workshop?

Broader/better understanding of UNICEF, PCA, CCCs, Principles of Partnership, CD, Global partnership agreement,

Different model of partnership (standby)

That the meeting gave a few concrete follow-up points at country level.

Obstacles posed by decentralised UNICEF structure.

Perceptions NGOs have of UNICEF

Relationship/Perceptions of donors’ role within humanitarian community

Complexity of coming up with practical solutions

13. Recommendations

More national organisations Keep small groups to manageable size Think about a process of prioritization to come up with a concrete number of actions. Necessity to strengthen the discussion on mutual accountability and how we take ownership/foster

‘collective’. Partnership issues around the cluster can be incorporated and/or be arranged as a separate discussion. Proper presentation on the experience on the cluster approach – achievement and challenges in a

structured manner. Country level experience/background documents should have included clusters CD discussion was interesting but could have narrowed down More awareness from UNICEF’s side of what it wants to achieve from global partnership agreement This consultation should be organised every 18 months / annually. Make the UNICEF Executive address to the opening session

14. Comments

In all the discussions it seemed the need for change/adaptation is solely on UNICEF part and very little on NGOs.

Hilde Johnson’s intervention was helpful. Difficult on the PoP actions to get more concrete things out. Main value from the 2008 consultations was the follow-up on concrete issues, such as the PCA, which

has created greater trust and a better operating dynamic. Felt we were getting into some big issues at the end of Day 2 – wonder if we could have structured

consultation to have gotten theses big issues out sooner.

Please rate the individual workshop sessions(11 response)

5 = Excellent 3 = Average 1 = Poor 0 = Does not apply x = blank

Session ContentDelivery or

PresentationExercises

DAY 1 5 4 3 2 1 0 x 5 4 3 2 1 0 x 5 4 3 2 1 0 x

Welcome and introduction 8 1 1 9 1 1

Agenda review, Fears and Expectations

3 2 3 1 2 2 5 2 2

Current and future trends in humanitarian assistance and partnerships

3 5 3 2 6 3

Experiences of UNICEF/NGO collaboration –partnership models in humanitarian assistance

2 7 1 1 1 8 2 2 7 2

Discussion with DED Hilde Johnson

2 5 4 2 4 2 3

UNICEF revised CCCs and opportunities and challenges in NGO capacity development

6 2 1 1 1 5 2 1 1 1 3 1 6

DAY 2

Lessons learnt from standby arrangement

4 5 1 3 5 1 2

Update on the revised PCA 2 6 3 1 7 1 2 5 2 1 3

Future opportunities on NGO partnership agreements

2 5 3 1 2 3 4 2

Joint opportunities, recommended follow up actions and next steps

2 4 5 1 3 3 1 3 1 3 4 1 2

Wrap up and closing 2 4 2 3 2 5 4

Annex 4: Background Papers

CURRENT AND FUTURE TRENDS IN HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE AND PARTNERSHIPSJames Darcy, ODI

As a sector we are currently facing a range of new challenges and opportunities in humanitarian action. These will require us to develop new ways of working and developing and utilising our capacity. In addition, we are required to undertake this development while we are engaged in responding to ever higher levels of need globally.

Based on a presentation which will touch on a range of changes to the external operating environment, as well as implications of these changes for the international humanitarian system and community of humanitarian actors, there is an impetus for us to explore new forms of partnership and collaboration in humanitarian action.

The following key questions will be introduced to drive the opening discussion:

1. Has the capacity of the international humanitarian system as currently constituted already been exceeded by the scale and nature of needs? If not yet, will it soon be? If the answer is yes, should the humanitarian system:

(i)  Seek to expand its capacity to fill the vacuum? Would this result in new agencies, new skills, bigger agencies, or increased levels of contracting out?

(ii) Look to increase efficiency within the system through more effective inter-agency collaboration and partnerships while considering whether collaboration & partnership actually increase or instead diminish efficiency?

(iii) Build new alliances and partnerships beyond the specialised humanitarian sector with, say, the commercial sector (international/local)? What would this be based on in terms of labour and skills and does this mean that there are things the humanitarian agencies should stop doing and let others do?

2. Do we need a fundamentally different kind of working relationship with host governments, at least for natural disaster response and for preparedness/DRR?  And if this is happening anyway, how are we (collectively) trying to shape it?

What about our working relationships with local civil society? Do these need reshaping?

3. In the relationship between UN agencies and Red Cross/NGOs, are we playing to our respective strengths? Do we have complementary roles or are we getting in each other’s way? How would a reallocation of roles answer questions of mandate, efficiency, legitimacy, credibility. Or are we simply missing the bigger picture? Has current humanitarian reform run its course, do we need something bolder?

How can Government, private sector and other capacity be utilised in a form that is supportive of traditional partnerships?

UNICEF PAKISTAN MONSOON FLOOD EMERGENCY: CHALLENGES TO

APPLYING THE PRINCIPLES OF PARTNERSHIP IN HUMANITARIAN ACTION

Background During the monsoon season of 2010, Pakistan experienced the worst floods in its recorded history. The disaster is one of the largest ever experienced globally. Given the slow progression of the floods from Khyber Pakthunkhwa in the north-west to Sindh in the south, return is already well underway in most flood-affected districts, though people are still being rescued in parts of Sindh. As a result, different parts of the country require a different mix of relief and recovery support.

Given the scale and complexity of the emergency, the ongoing emergency response and recovery activity will require the combined efforts of all humanitarian actors, working in coordination and support of the Government and the people of Pakistan. In total, from the onset of the flood emergency up to end November 2010, UNICEF Pakistan has signed 111 new partnerships agreements (55 Small-Scale Funding Agreements and 56 Partnership Cooperation Agreements), with 72 organisations posing new issues related to working in partnership at this scale with existing and with new partners.

Critical issues / key highlightsCritical issues fall into two categories: cluster coordination and implementation with NGO partners.

Cluster Coordination The scale, geographic spread, and evolving nature of the emergency was a significant challenge for effective coordination. With the clusters established in 5 sub-national hubs, as well as at the federal level, it took some time to mobilise sufficient human resources for all four clusters (WASH, Nutrition, Education and Child Protection sub-cluster) in all locations.

At the federal level, the UNICEF-led clusters have successfully coordinated the preparation of cluster response strategies and the cluster inputs for the inter-agency flash and revised appeals. Cluster partners have been actively involved in Strategic Advisory Groups and Technical Working Groups within their respective clusters, and a number of capacity building initiatives have been rolled out through the cluster partners at the sub-national level. At the district level, UNICEF was not able to directly provide dedicated resources for coordination, and has requested cluster members to respond to this need. In Dadu district for example, Care is the focal point agency for the WASH cluster

In some areas, weaknesses in the overall response have been attributed both to gaps in coordination capacity and to gaps in the implementation capacity of cluster partners.

Implementation with NGO Partners. As stated above UNICEF Pakistan has signed 111 new partnerships agreements with 72 organisations, for a total value of US$ 28.1 million (of which the UNICEF contribution is US$ 26.4 million). Out of these 72 NGO partners, 53 are national or local organisations. Although this is a considerable achievement, a review of the existing partnerships highlighted a number of issues:

Timeliness and Availability of Resources The funding response from international donors was initially both slow and limited, which severely constrained scaling up with partners. As of end August, UNICEF had received US$ 35 million, out of which US$ 21 million was earmarked for WASH. As of 23 rd

November, UNICEF had received US$ 132.8 million, just 53% of the funds required to provide relief and early recovery services through to August 2011.

UNICEF has to have a Partnership Cooperation Agreement (PCA) or a Small-Scale Funding Agreement (SSFA) with an organisation in order to be able to channel resources to them (be it supplies or funds). Within one month of the start of the flood emergency, UNICEF had activated its contingency WASH PCA with Oxfam, and signed 16 SSFAs and 10 PCAs. However, a recent review noted that the

development of PCAs for the flood response took on average 5 weeks (from initial discussions to having a signed PCA), with on average a further 3 weeks to transfer funds over to the partner.

In line with the revised PCA guidelines and due to the emergency needs, UNICEF staff did make extensive use of Small-Scale Funding Agreements to kick start the flood response, as these can be developed and approved more quickly than complete PCAs. For example, supply packages for nutrition interventions were channelled to a number of NGOs in this way, while discussions on a more comprehensive agreement were being held.

Geographic Coverage of the Floods The gradual evolution of the floods challenged the humanitarian community to respond simultaneously with rescue, relief and early recovery activities. It also led to some areas – such as Khyber Pakthunkhwa – being comparatively better served than others, as humanitarian actors focused their initial attention on those areas that first emerged as severely affected.

Humanitarian agencies have struggled to identify sufficient capacity and resources, especially technical experts, and to link up quickly and effectively with local capacities already on the ground. This particularly applies to provinces such as Punjab and Sindh (where the vast majority of humanitarian actors did not have a significant presence or established partnerships prior to the floods) and in Balochistan (where problems of access and security have made it difficult to scale up as rapidly as was required). On a number of occasions, UNICEF channelled requests through the Global Clusters for international organisations to move resources from KPK and expand their presence in the south.

Engagement with Partners UNICEF received hundreds of unsolicited proposals from a wide variety of organisations, with significant variations in quality of proposals and relevance to UNICEF’s mandate. This was at a time of considerable pressure to begin delivery, therefore there was no opportunity during the initial stages of the response for engaging more strategically with key partners to develop and achieve common objectives.

A more strategic approach began to come into play a few months after the onset of the emergency, when there was more time to review joint priorities and programmes. An open dialogue with implementing partners was initiated which included consultations on results based monitoring and field monitoring plans with partners at the provincial level.

Inevitably, when working on such a large scale and in light of the challenges expressed above, there were some problems in maintaining productive working relationships. Frustrations caused by miscommunications around funding, as well as slow disbursement of funding, have been very difficult for all actors and work is now required to transparently discuss these and work to improve matters.

Capacity of UNICEF staff The arrival of new/surge UNICEF staff during the emergency response without knowledge of existing agreements or of the numerous organizations in Pakistan has complicated working relations with both Government and NGO partners. During the PCA development process, discussions with the same partner were undertaken by various people within the section/office, including people at different levels (hub office, field office, Islamabad). It was not always clear who was responsible for what, with sometimes quite different agreements/conclusions being reached with the same partner and different UNICEF staff members. These mixed/contradictory messages then took additional time to clarify and resolve.

New staff, and in some cases existing staff, were also not familiar with how to develop partnership agreements and the related rules/regulations, and in particular on how these could be applied in an emergency situation. While SSFA were successfully used as a quick way to start implementing programmes, the limitations of SSFAs were not fully understood by UNICEF staff or partners (SSFAs have a value less than US$ 20,000 in terms of funding and/or the equivalent value of supplies as a single or cumulative set of transfers related to the partnership to an individual civil society organisation in a calendar year).

Capacity of NGO partners Due to the previously ongoing IDP crisis, as well as the security situation in some areas of the country, there is a wide variation in the presence of NGOs in different provinces, in

particular INGOs. In many provinces in Pakistan, UNICEF is reliant on a limited number of partners (either Government departments or NGOs). During the emergency response, these partners were inundated with offers of partnerships and funds. In some cases, NGOs may have overcommitted both in terms of geographical coverage, as well as areas of response (sectors beyond their technical experience and /or expertise). The quality of programmes being implemented may be suffering as a result.

Within UNICEF’s existing financial systems, a partner must submit receipts for funds received within 6 months. If a partner’s accounting practices/capacity is therefore not able to ensure timely financial reporting, no additional funds can be channeled to that partner. This happened with a number of partners in Pakistan as a result of funds provided prior to the floods – thereby further limiting partnership options.

Many partners have limited time and capacity to conceptualise and write good proposals quickly, leading to delays while clear results and monitoring framework are developed, errors corrected (in particular in budget calculations), and the document finalised by UNICEF staff who are also under time and capacity pressures.

For Nutrition and Child Protection especially, UNICEF has struggled to find sufficient partners with technical expertise. As a result, UNICEF has had to undertaken capacity building activities with local partners during the midst of the emergency response.

Working with other partners A major partner for UNICEF both in development and emergency contexts is the Government. In particular, the Provincial Ministries of Health were the main partner for UNICEF Health programmes during the emergency response, and through them a number of large-scale interventions have been successfully carried out.

UNICEF also decided early on in the emergency to contract the private sector to carry out specific service delivery functions, such as water trucking and delivery of supplies, for a quicker and more cost-effective response. This proved to be a controversial decision which some partners questioned.

Recommended Next Steps Opportunities for developing international and national NGO partner capacity in sub-national cluster coordination in Pakistan should be explored together.

UNICEF PCO must proactively engage with partners in analysing strategic programme and geographic priorities, and in developing PCAs based on this rather than simply receiving proposals. UNICEF PCO should ensure open two-way communications, including on transparency regarding the selection of partners, the prioritisation of projects and allocation of resources.

UNICEF PCO could explore allocating ‘focal points’ for negotiations/oversight of particular partnerships to facilitate discussions with each partner, and to ensure that UNICEF provides one consistent view to partners.

As part of contingency planning for the next emergency, PCO should ensure that the NGO assessments are up to date for key partners, develop standard templates covering CCC response for each sector (standard ‘package of activities’, indicators, budget lines, costed supply list, etc) which can then be adapted as needed, and should expand the use of contingency PCAs for different geographical areas and sectors. Clear SOPs for the activation of these agreements should be established to limit delays in advancing resources in the event of an emergency.

More broadly:

UNICEF should document good practices in using contingency PCAs in different contexts and should actively promote/institutionalise this as part of emergency preparedness.

UNICEF should follow-up on the dissemination of the revised PCA guidelines, to ensure that staff understand these and have the skills/capacities to apply the guidelines in both development and emergency contexts.

UNICEF could explore options for a flexible tool that allows the rapid transfer of supplies to partners in emergency contexts (above the SSFA limit of US$20,000).

Key questions to drive the discussion

How can UNICEF and key international partners ensure that they are working to maximum efficiency and that the demands of partnership (e.g. review of proposals) do not impede aid delivery efficiency at the onset of emergency response?

How can UNICEF and key international NGO partners work together more effectively to build capacity of national and local organisations for overall emergency response management (including cluster coordination) and in specific technical areas of emergency response (e.g. Nutrition in Emergencies, Child Protection, etc)?

How can we ensure open and transparent dialogue is maintained – even during stressful periods of emergency response – to minimise miscommunications and mistrust, and foster shared expectations?

How can Government, private sector and other capacity be utilised in a form that is supportive of traditional UNICEF/CSO partnerships?

UNICEF, HEARTLAND ALLIANCE, AND BPM: PARTNERSHIPS IN HAITI

UNICEF Haiti, Heartland Alliance and BPM

Background In the chaotic aftermath of the January 12 2010 earthquake, leadership and coordination were major challenges as much of the local leadership were destroyed or crippled. The impact of this crisis was felt on the very entities that would otherwise have been best positioned to respond: the Government of Haiti, the UN, and the numerous non-governmental organizations already established in country.

A good example of this is the Brigade Protection des Mineures (BPM), the social service arm of the Haitian National Police, which was created in 2003 with the support of UNICEF. Following the earthquake, BPM required additional capacity in order to extend their work to prevent, investigate and respond to child abuse and exploitation throughout Haiti. UNICEF therefore sought a partner who could support BPM capacity in addition to implementing their own programme.

UNICEF forged a partnership with Heartland Alliance (HA) early in the earthquake response in order to work on family tracing and reunification (FTR), anti-trafficking, and youth and community mobilization in camps. Though HA had made only a few reconnaissance missions to Haiti prior to the earthquake it was in the process of developing plans to address some of these pre-existing child protection issues. Although HA was a lesser known CSO and not among UNICEF’s established Child Protection partners, its small structure with little bureaucracy allowed for greater flexibility that produced quick results, especially on FTR and allowed for support to BPM. HA has technically strong and motivated staff, all of whom speak French and the majority of whom are Haitian.

HA and BPM cooperated in Child Trafficking Prevention and Response and in particular:

HA and BPM, with financial and technical support from UNICEF, established and maintain physical presence at key locations at the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti to screen for and respond to child trafficking cases. HA and BPM agents work side-by-side, employing strategies to screen individuals crossing the border and handling referral of suspected child trafficking cases, among other activities such as maintaining drop-in centers to provide hot meals, structured activities and psychosocial support to vulnerable children.

Critical issues / key highlightsThe Child Protection Sub-Cluster, co-led by UNICEF and the Social Welfare Ministry (Ministere des Affaires Sociales et du Travail), was established in Port-au-Prince 3 days after the January earthquake. The Child Protection Sub-Cluster and Working Groups identified strategies, largely oriented by UNICEF’s Core Commitments for Children in Emergencies (CCCs). This yielded prioritization of key interventions and identification of gaps.

Key Challenges

There were some key challenges shared by the main actors in Child Protection, namely:

Lack of capacity of the Social Welfare Ministry which was co-leading the CP Sub-Cluster with UNICEF. Problems in reaching consensus around vital and timely questions of coordination and implementation. Deployment of international staff without the right profile. High turnover of international staff deployed, including both Cluster and Programme staff on UNICEF’s side. Lack of demonstrated leadership and capacity by some partners.

Highlights

Several highlights from the partnership illustrate how partners were able to move forward and mitigate some of these challenges:

Focusing the partnership on qualitative and quantitative results. For each project, HA established common understanding of the results and were clear on indicators which were tracked over time. Indicators ranged from number of children reunited with families to number of law enforcement agents trained, providing information on constraints affecting results and where opportunities or linkages exist. These were reported to both the UNICEF Child Protection Programme and to the Sub-Cluster. Addressing coverage issues through the Sub-Cluster. For FTR, there was weak coverage in the Northeast department because the NGO working in this area was not able to mobilize a response. HA identified this gap and used the Sub-Cluster forum to advocate for it to begin work in this area. Using a transparent approach of first negotiating improved division of labour among cluster members, it was then acceptable among for the UNICEF Child Protection Progamme to provide technical and financial support to HA to work in this area. Sharing of innovative approaches within the Sub-Cluster Working Group. HA was able to innovate on FTR system to reunite families at a faster rate than any other NGO, quickly moving from registration to comprehensive tracing and reunification. This approach was shared with the FTR Working Group via HA’s contributions to the design and implementation of inter-agency FTR trainings so that other actors in FTR could learn from HA’s innovations.

Lessons Learned

In addition to partnership highlights, several key lessons learned stand out:

Despite improvements overall in using the Cluster Approach, there are still challenges in terms of providing a strong coordination function and ensuring government leadership even with a co-lead. This has proved to be particularly the case at the local level. Capacity development can be enhanced by leveraging complementarity among partners for more comprehensive approaches. For example when the number of GoH agents present at border areas was lower than expected, rather than hire more HA staff to fill these gaps, HA sought to collaborate with CSOs through joint patrols and knowledge sharing. Especially in a humanitarian context, it is important for partnerships to be based on equality and flexibility; in an evolving emergency context, the implementing partner should be encouraged to propose project modifications based on evidence and lessons learned. HA and UNICEF worked together to adapt projects on three occasions which were justified by changing conditions, lessons learned and feedback from partners and stakeholders. This makes the partnership more agile in responding to new features of an issue or gaps in the response. Partners can use each other’s networks and resources to access new groups of vulnerable individuals. HA is currently distributing supplies provided by UNICEF to prevent cholera in RCCCs as a way of starting to connect with centres working with separated or orphaned children. This gives HA access to new groups of potentially vulnerable children who could eventually benefit from FTR, psycho-social or other interventions depending on needs identified.

Recommended Next Steps

Social services in Haiti have a very limited national budget and restricted and highly centralized human resources. Strengthening this sector will require long-term efforts from diverse actors in the areas of advocacy, capacity development and interim service delivery. Such initiatives need to simultaneously contribute to capacity of civil society and government actors.

Short-term

Partners should look to leverage existing resources to strengthen capacity, encourage on-the-job training, enhance transparency, etc.

Further technical and financial support should be channeled from UNICEF to partners to support the reform of social services. UNICEF needs to use its networks to promote the impressive work of BPM and HA to facilitate opportunities to diversify their partnership base.

Longer-term

UNICEF and partners need to determine a strategy at the Child Protection Sub-Cluster level to transition from emergency to development, including a strategy to transfer Cluster Coordination to a structure focusing on development. Due to the absence of a nationally recognized curriculum and degree for social work, UNICEF and partners should support the government in designing and rolling out curriculum for social work.

Key questions to drive the discussion

In these kind of contexts, what are the challenges in identifying effective new partners and quickly securing new organizational partnership. What kind of flexibility is required within existing practice? What criteria should be used for partner selection?

In contexts such as Haiti where local capacity has been devastated by the emergency how can UNICEF and partners ensure that remaining local capacity is supported and placed at the forefront of the response?

In cases of wide-scale and widespread humanitarian need, such as that following the January 2010 Haiti earthquake, how can best practices and knowledge management i.e. lessons learnt be quickly transferred between partners?

UNICEF SOMALIA PARTNERSHIP CASE STUDY IN INSECURE ENVIRONMENTSHannan Sulieman, UNICEF Somalia

I - Background

UNICEF, through its partners, supports over 80% of the public health, water, nutrition and basic education services in Somalia and thus has considerable influence, effective relationships and networking/ partnerships with major sector partners such as EU, DFID.

UNICEF’s main gateway to reach the most vulnerable Somali children and women is through partnerships with over 100 national and international organizations. However, high levels of insecurity pose serious threats to our partner’s access and safety and raise the question of whether the humanitarian imperative of being on the ground outweighs the cost of doing further harm and endangering staff, partners as well as the population we serve.

Despite the environment, highly committed partners still find it possible to build resilience and capacity and ensure the provision of social services amongst the conflict affected and displaced, especially in areas where there is local leadership, community engagement and support from the international community.

There is a significant dilemma around the ethics of “transferring risk” to partners for the implementation of sensitive activities such as the Security Council Resolution 1612 Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism (MRM), community mobilization on protection, advocacy on prevention of child recruitment, etc. An evaluation of MRM indicated that NGOs involved in protection monitoring felt the UN should be playing a larger role in protecting staff of national and international NGOs and suggested the allocation of a percentage of the budget for security measures.

II - Critical issues / key highlights

The lack of government in Somalia has translated into UNICEF relying heavily on NGOs to reach the most vulnerable population and often working directly with communities

Humanitarian space in South and Central Somalia where 70% of the population resides continues to reduce. Between October 2008 and September 2010, 18 humanitarian organizations (NGOs and UN) have stopped activities due to their direct expulsion by armed groups or as a consequence of interference in their programs. This interference ranges from ‘taxation’ and extortion to the seizure of compounds, supplies and assets. Some stopped organizations maintain that they will return imminently and do not want to be replaced and others are less clear. Often, new actors have replaced those who have stopped activities due to the urgent humanitarian needs.

Inter-agency coordination and cooperation on humanitarian access is challenging. Agencies take different positions when balancing the humanitarian imperative to address humanitarian needs with the implications and costs (financial, risk to personnel, threats to humanitarian principles). The Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC) developed a Position Paper on Humanitarian Presence in South and Central Somalia6 to govern the manner in which these expulsions are dealt with by the humanitarian community in order to balance the humanitarian consequences of the “stoppage” with the practical and principle issues at stake. The Paper, clarified the humanitarian community’s position on taxation and other forms of interference. The UN Country Team (UNCT) Policy on Humanitarian Engagement agreed in November 2009 outlines the process by which UN agencies would jointly review decisions to suspend activities. However neither of these processes are consistently applied. Finally, the NGO Red Line Paper prepared in November 2009 identified three forms of taxation as a ‘red line’ and underscored the importance of staff safety and information sharing on security and access negotiations.

6 IASC Negotiation Ground Rules, agreed in March 2009

UNICEF focuses on strengthening the capacities of local NGOs. Given UNICEF’s unique role in Somalia of being the major provider of social services, large-scale technical trainings are organized [across the border or in the northern areas] to strengthen the capacity of the national “civil servants/social service providers”. This implies higher cost and complex logistics. Despite these efforts, institutional and human resources capacities among local partners are still quite weak. One critical issue is the delays in partnership agreement processing particularly in cross-border operations as full responsibility for a particular partnership rests with more than one office due to the partners being located in different locations with different authority levels (Kenya and/or Somalia), and the constant relocation of UNICEF staff. Lessons learned:

Need to apply rigorous risk management practices to ensure consistent approach. Investment in services without institutional strengthening has limitations and there is a need to support sector standard and policy formulation and strengthening of government. A formula for the engagement of civil society in this element is critical for crisis/fragile situations. Build on NGO-UNICEF strong community relations to keep staff and assets safe: being in Somalia and listening to its people is crucial to response. Improve fund-raising mechanisms through the use of evidence based programme information and improve coordination of activities and mobilization of resources. Joint global advocacy that is issue or country focused would be helpful.

III - Recommended Next Steps

1. Emphasize that capacity building in emergencies must be jointly initiated. 2. Ensure a united front and common stance to issues such as taxation, diversion of relief supplies to warring factions, purchase of security services from warring fractions, and the assistance of only certain sides of the conflict. 3. Emphasize the need to further streamline the coordination structures from their current formation to a more strategic sector approach and to “move” more of the coordination and decision-making to Somalia – starting with the northern regions. 4. Develop a common database on CBO/NGO partners to map and understand the scale and scope of our current partnerships (this was a key recommendation from the joint UN Risk Management mission). 5. Improve joint communications on partnership work, including media/ press work and advocacy where there is a need to work on common models for joint UNICEF-NGO resource mobilization strategies in emergencies and include NGOs in policy dialogue.6. Develop joint emergency training/ orientation packages and increase NGO participation in UNICEF early warning and preparedness system in emergencies.7. Ensure improved learning and best practice by putting in place a mechanism to share best practices in emergencies. 8. Initiate a peer review type process between UNICEF and its NGO partners.

IV - Key questions to drive the discussion

1. The following clause has been introduced into the PCA as per global guidance:

Para 30. “Partner agrees to apply the highest reasonable standard of diligence to ensure that the supplies and equipment and money provided by UNICEF under this Agreement (a) are not used to provide support to individuals or entities associated with terrorism; (b) are not transferred by Partner to any individual or entity on the list maintained by the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolutions 1267 (1999), available at http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/committees/1267 ; and (c) are not used, in the case of money provided

by UNICEF, for the purpose of any payment to persons or entities, or for any import of goods, if such payment or import is prohibited by a decision of the United Nations Security Council taken under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations.”

There are possible implications to the above as copies of these implementing partner agreements will be shared with non-state regional authorities which closely monitor UNICEF activities in Central South Somalia in a highly in-secure environment. UNICEF and indeed the UNCT in countries of such environments (e.g. Somalia, parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.) will need to weigh up the risks for not highlighting this in partner agreements, which may include reduction in donor funding due to lack of due diligence, or reputational risk. This needs to be discussed with the ERM focal divisions in the various UN agencies or Humanitarian Country Teams, and include NGO partners in the discussions.

2. UNICEF Somalia is exploring ways to allow for joint programming or more coherence and integration across sectors in the PCAs, particularly for child survival but also applicable to other sectors. This is challenging given the structures and capacities of NGO partners; different pace of the various programmes, different needs for PCA amendments; and other operational issues. We need views from NGOs on how this can be applied.

3. Many NGOs work in the most disadvantaged areas. In view of UNICEF’s equity approach, it is even more critical we collaborate on Information Management; evidence gathering (e.g. localized immunization rates; malnutrition levels; livelihoods opportunities for nomadic communities, etc.) and appropriate programming. How can we best develop a joint action plan to help us move forward on this?

4. How can we move to a more coherent approach on managing risk in line with the application of humanitarian principles and ensure that agreed processes are more consistently applied?

OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES IN NGO CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT7

Manisha Thomas, ICVA

I - Background The principle of building on or developing local/national capacity is well accepted, but the reality is that international organisations often respond to humanitarian needs in a manner that overlooks local/national capacity. For several years now, humanitarian organisations have talked about the need for “a fundamental reorientation from supplying aid to supporting and facilitating communities’ own relief and recovery priorities.”8 In reality, however, that “fundamental reorientation” has yet to take place.

Given the changing nature of disasters that will require humanitarian responses – for example, disasters resulting from climate change or increasing food insecurity – the need to adequately build on local capacity takes on a greater urgency. The terms capacity development/ building might be more usefully referred to as “building our disaster response on local capacities.” When discussing issues related to capacity development, the Principles of Partnership (PoP) – equality, transparency, responsibility, results-oriented approach, and complementarity – can provide a helpful framework.

II - Critical issuesWhen discussing how to build our disaster response on local capacity and how we can support local and national NGOs in their role as “providers of first resort,” there are a number of issues that must be addressed.

Partnership It is important to pay more than lip service to the understanding that local organisations and local knowledge have capacities and enormous value. Actually applying the Principles of Partnership is sometimes challenging, particularly when it comes to human resources. Many local/national NGOs lose their staff to international NGOs and international NGOs lose their staff to UN agencies. The reality is that the levels of staff compensation cannot be competed with between these ‘levels’ of organisation.

How can the concept of equality between organisations be reinforced in the field, especially when it comes to more challenging issues like human resources? How can international organisations review their policies, procedures and structures to ensure that they are responsive to the needs of local/national NGOs?

Identifying Capacities There is little emphasis on identifying and ensuring that (unique) capacities or capabilities are assessed and recognised. International organisations often go into a humanitarian response with a “set menu,” which affects what they recognise as capacity.

How can we shift attitudes to ensure that assessments look at local capacities? How can local organisations support international organisations to ensure that local knowledge and expertise is integrated into a coordinated response plan?

7 Most of this paper is taken directly or heavily inspired from a previous draft paper entitled Draft Concept Note for Regional GHP Workshops on the Theme of Building and Sharing Capacity that was developed for the Global Humanitarian Platform in 2008 by Jamie McGoldrick (OCHA at the time), Robert Mister (IFRC at the time), and Manisha Thomas (ICVA) and from the UNHCR-NGO Consultations 2010 Rapporteur’s Report.8 Telford, John and John Cosgrove. Joint Evaluation of the International Response to the Indian Ocean Tsunami: Synthesis Report, TEC, 2006, p. 110.

What are the differences in building on capacity in the midst of an emergency and prior to an emergency? Can we build on capacity if it has not been identified and assessed and a relationship has not been built before a humanitarian response is required?

Building Real Capacity Capacity development that helps prepare organisations to respond to disaster should build on the capacity that exists. One of the key aspects of capacity development is about strengthening and sustaining local organisations and local staff. A practical way to build upon local capacity is to consider how to support national NGO participation in key decision-making forums, such as Humanitarian Country Teams.

How can we ensure that international organisations build on existing capacity in their partnerships? Should humanitarian organisations be building capacity or should development organisations be playing a role and, if so, how do we get them to play this role?

Resource Constraints In almost every discussion on capacity development and working with local capacity, the issue of funding is raised. For many local/national NGOs, developing fiduciary and financial management capacities requires funds in itself and without such capacities, they are often overlooked for funding.

Are there ways to address this issue of funding by, for example, ensuring that a percentage of funds spent on emergency response goes towards local organisations? Is there a mechanism by which assessed capacity and required funding of local organisations can be taken into account before funding needs of international organisations are addressed? Are there mechanisms that could be devised so that funds could flow to local/national NGOs without increasing the financial risk to donors, for example through intermediary organisations? How can international organisations explore possibilities for devolving decision-making power for resource allocation to local NGO consortia to increase local ownership, national coordination capacity, sustainability and adaptability to local situations?

Changing Who is in the Driver’s Seat By building on local capacity, many international organisations would feel that they have to “step out of the spotlight” and take a “backseat” or supporting role to local organisations.

Is this step back necessarily the case and, if so, are international organisations prepared to take a different, more challenging, and potentially crucial role where they support and facilitate other organisations’ work and, therefore, do less direct implementation?

III - Next StepsThe UNICEF-NGO consultations present an opportunity to tackle some of these persisting questions and challenges. Perhaps the most contentious issues are the last two as international organisations will be forced to take on more of a supporting role rather than a direct implementation role. By taking more of a back seat, international organisations may find that their “visibility” is potentially reduced: are international organisations (UN and NGOs) willing to accept this step back in a climate in which fundraising and communication departments call for ever higher levels of organisational visibility?

INITIAL ASSESSMENT OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE REVISED PCA GUIDELINES

Richard Morgan, UNICEF DPP

I - Background Revised guidance on UNICEF Programme Cooperation Agreements (PCA) and Small Scale Funding Agreements (SSFA) with Civil Society Organisations (CSO) was issued in December 2009. An initial assessment was conducted across 13 Country Offices (CO) in both humanitarian and development contexts on how the revised guidance has been implemented and to solicit their views on the effect of the guidance on partnership relations and doing business with UNICEF.

II - Critical issues / key highlights

Due to the broad range of programmatic and operational issues which must be addressed in applying the revised PCA guidelines, UNICEF Country Offices, especially those in humanitarian settings, were challenged to find the time to train staff, orient partners, and adapt practices and develop tools to fit local circumstances. COs in development settings were able, to a large extent, to implement the required changes resulting in better support for capacity development of CSOs and strengthened partnerships.

During the PCA preparation phase, UNICEF COs, especially in humanitarian settings, faced the dilemma of quickly identifying a large number of new partners (mainly national NGOs) and vetting them with respect to their integrity, and capacity for programme implementation and financial management. Variable interpretation by UNICEF and partners led to delays in concluding PCAs, especially with respect to the application of acceptable charges (especially staff salaries) for indirect programme support costs (IPSC) and indirect programme costs (IPC). In negotiations which ensued, UNICEF was seen as being too conservative while partners were seen to be making unreasonable demands. In a similar vein, tensions developed over the valuation of IPSC which could become quite high whenever supplies made up a significant proportion of the PCA, especially when it was perceived that there was no commensurate increase in the level of effort or responsibility by the partner.

Limited partner capacity (mainly national NGOs) to develop coherent and results-based programme documents with justifiable budgets for programme activities was also cited as a factor reducing the speed for finalising and quality of PCAs. However, many COs acknowledged that collaborative efforts in general to develop PCAs required significant investments of staff time – which was in short supply in humanitarian settings.

UNICEF internal management processes for reviewing PCAs have improved. Nevertheless, it was acknowledged that high value PCAs developed by Zone Offices still required review and approval by the main office.

During implementation of PCAs, some tensions arose when partners were either not fully informed of or failed to take into consideration the requirement to liquidate cash advances (known as HACT 9) within 6 months or face an end to additional payments. In development settings, HACT procedures were found to be helpful in promoting capacity development and fostering a ‘partnership perspective’ rather than a contractual one.

Questions from COs and partners around the interpretation of the revised PCA guidelines have been answered by UNICEF Headquarters via a global mailbox. However, a number of areas have been suggested for improvement including: a) making provisions for developing ‘umbrella agreements’, and, b) clarifying the

9 Harmonised approach to cash transfers to implementing partners

conditions to select the simpler PCA (generally valued at less than $100,000) versus the more complex form. To increase ease of use, several COs developed their own templates depending on the complexity and urgency of the interventions (setting out the expected results, strategies, activities, budget and workplan), while others developed Standard Operating Procedures and simple checklists.

With respect to Global Agreement (GA) between UNICEF and INGOs, some COs suggested that they might serve to reduce the time and effort required to vet INGOs (although the time required to complete a short checklist, as required by the revised guidance, is already minimal). One CO in a humanitarian setting, suggested that GAs could be useful to pre-determine specific thematic areas of engagement and the division of responsibility. Developing standard packages of intervention modalities based on global norms (e.g. CCCs, Sphere) might also reduce the time required to prepare the PCA programme document.

III - Recommended Next Steps

The first year has seen apparent progress in PCA partnerships overall, particularly in development contexts.

The overarching conclusion of this assessment is that to be effective, programme guidance must be matched by timely and parallel efforts to strengthen UNICEF staff (Regional and Country Office levels) and partner capacity (e.g. knowledge and skills for improved programme planning, financial management and coordination) in parallel with more efficient and effective internal systems (IT and management). More time and consistent effort will be required to increase these capacities.

Results from COs in development contexts suggest that the emphasis placed on forward looking partnerships and capacity development, as underscored in the revised guidelines, are strategies which will improve the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of our joint responses in humanitarian settings.

IV - Key questions to drive the discussion

1 - What additional resources and action are required to ensure a more effective implementation of PCAs in humanitarian settings?

INGO PERSPECTIVES ON THE REVISED PCA AND NEXT STEPSInterAction, OXFAM and NRC

I - Background The new Programme Cooperation Agreement (PCA) and attendant Guidelines which took effect in January 2010 mark an important step in the evolution of strengthened partnership between UNICEF and the NGO community. The product of almost two years of consultation and review, they aspire to not only simplify and clarify the administrative and financial components of UNICEF/NGO project based relationships, but to set forth a new vision and modalities for enhanced partnership at more strategic levels.

Over the course of the last 12 months NGO partners in the USA and Europe (i.e. Inter-Action members, NRC and OXFAM) have actively monitored the rollout of the new PCA and been in close contact with the managers of their field programmes to gauge the state of the relationship with UNICEF. Now that it has been almost one year since the introduction of the new PCA, it is both timely and appropriate that UNICEF and its NGO partners convene to jointly review progress on its global implementation and to identify areas in need of further deliberation or clarification.

II - Critical issues / key highlightsBased on the feedback from NGO partners in the field and their respective HQs, the following constitute the critical issues identified about the new PCA and its rollout:

In general the new PCAs and the underlying principles within the Guidelines were favorably received in the field and reinforce what are systematically very strong on-the-ground relationships

Coverage of indirect costs; a shift in the tenor of the relationship from contractor to strategic partner; the possibility for partners to more actively take part in joint strategic programme development; the possibility of longer time frames for agreements; and an emphasis on the importance of the capacity development of local organisations were among the areas most noted in this regard.

Utilisation of the new PCA format for concluding agreements in 2010 has been inconsistent across countries: some countries continued to use old versions

As an example, one of the NGOs surveyed noted that the new PCA had not been used in 41% of the countries where agreements were signed after January 1, 2010. The old PCA or a completely different template was used in 5 out of 12 countries where the NGO had agreements signed during the survey period.Delays persist in many countries with the conclusion of agreements, the receipt of funds, and the provision of agreed upon contributions-in-kind, and lengthy negotiation processes are taking place to ensure inclusion of indirect administration costs in line with the PCA rules and regulations

To some extent it remains unclear if and how further clarification of the new PCA guidelines may ameliorate these points, as they pertain to systems and processes outside of the PCA framework itself (i.e. supply and procurement, cash management, CAP funding success).Education of partners on the new PCA and Guidelines at all levels (HQ and field) was scant and remains a real need (on both the NGO and UNICEF sides)

There were positive and well received efforts made in several countries to provide inter-agency support on the new PCA; however, most often support was provided on a project by project basis in the course of agreement negotiations.

Further clarity is required for some PCA clauses and underlying business processes. Examples where improvement is needed include:

- Confusion around narrative and financial reporting timelines; - Lack of narrative application and reporting templates;- The requirement for submission (or retention for review) of original receipts when liquidating cash advances

create labour-intensive processes for partners and often lead to loss of receipts; - Confusion around which costs are allowable and belong in which cost category (Direct Programme Support

vs. Indirect Programme vs. Programme) results in lengthy negotiations with partners; - Lack of clarity on when and how the Harmonised approach to cash transfers to implementing partners

(HACT) may be applied in a given country.

Although the document outlining changes: “UNICEF Programme Cooperation Agreements and Small Scale Funding Agreements with Civil Society Organisations,” was issued by UNICEF in November 2009,  specific global guidelines for NGOs on the PCA and checklists on how to apply for UNICEF funding may be needed. This would help ensure consistency internally and externally for both NGOs and UNICEF at the country level.

The more strategic opportunities for strengthened partnership presented by the new PCA approach have yet to be seized

Despite the removal of the two year limit on duration of agreements, no agreements beyond two years are known to have been concluded in 2010. Little, if any, support from UNICEF to INGO partners went to directly fund local institutions. Strong communication and engagement around specific project proposals remains a hallmark of the field relationship, but little ground has been gained in developing joint strategies and programme plans in countries of operation.It remains difficult, especially in the case of multi-sectoral projects, to engage with UNICEF in the field as a single entity.

A clear channel for NGO communication into the UNICEF mission in-country is sometimes lacking, raising questions about who in the UNICEF office is ultimately responsible, and accountable, for NGO partnership in general and successful project delivery in particular.

III - Recommended Next Steps

Introduce the new PCA in all UNICEF country operations.

Ensure a dialogue at country level by establishing inter-agency forums in countries of operation to discuss and disseminate the PCA and Guidelines.

Clarify main PCA clauses and business process points that continue to impede smooth implementation and negotiation of agreements, and make that guidance available to both UNICEF and NGOs, including:o Providing clear indications of narrative and financial reporting deadlines in the PCA; o Establishing standard templates for applications and reports (in line with existing UN agency templates);o Organising visits of UNICEF staff to the partner offices to verify original receipts;o Developing clear regulations and guidelines for what UNICEF can cover in terms of overhead costs with amounts established to guide agencies.

Identify, standardise, and/or operationalise ancillary forms of partnership agreements which reflect the differing contexts in which we work: i.e. standby agreements for cooperation in emergencies and framework partnership agreements concluded at HQ-HQ levels.

Identify paths by which UNICEF/INGO partnership can be more effective in developing the capacity of local institutions.

In order to strengthen the strategic partnership under the PCA, establish clear mechanisms in countries of operation whereby NGO partners can participate more fully with UNICEF in needs assessment and joint, multi-year program development.

IV - Key questions to drive the discussion

What are the key hurdles to consistent application of the new PCA across all countries and how can they best be addressed?

What examples of best practice could be highlighted in the field of dissemination and education around the PCA at country level? How can they be brought to scale or replicated in other locations?

Which sections of the PCA remain in need of clarification or further guidance to enable consistent interpretation and enhanced working relations between UNICEF and NGOs?

How can UNICEF and NGOs work together better to contribute to a more timely conclusion of agreements, remittance of cash advances, and provision of in-kind supplies and equipment?

How can UNICEF and NGOs better engage around strategy and joint program development in-country as intended under the PCA?

What is the best way for UNICEF and NGOs to engage with one another around multi-sectoral projects? What examples from the field could demonstrate practical ways to enable this? How can accountability for project success best be ensured in this context?

PROSPECTS FOR UNICEF / INGO GLOBAL AGREEMENTS Liza Barrie, UNICEF PD

I - Background During the process of revising the PCA in 2009, UNICEF agreed to explore the possibility of global agreements with select NGO partners in 2010. This background paper will update partners on UNICEF’s discussions on global agreements and will highlight findings from a paper on the same subject, which was prepared by the Civil Society Partnerships Section (CSP) at UNICEF HQNY.

II - Critical issues / key highlights Calls for global agreements between UNICEF and NGOs are motivated by, among other things, concerns about operational problems affecting partnerships at country level and a desire for strategic partnerships at the global level. While the content and structure of the global agreements remain undefined at the moment, there is a strong sense that these agreements will focus on operational as well as strategic aspects of collaboration between UNICEF and participating NGOs. Any decision UNICEF makes in relation to global agreements should also build on the practices and experiences of other UN agencies. CSP prepared a background paper that outlines the recent history of the discussion on global partnership agreements between UNICEF and NGO partners, reviews UNICEF’s existing mechanisms for collaboration with civil society, and examines the mechanisms developed by other UN and bilateral agencies to manage operational partnerships with NGOs. Drawing on the experience of other UN agencies, the paper identifies several modalities that could be adapted and applied to UNICEF’s operational partnerships with NGOs. Within the UN system, there is no standard practice in relation to global partnership agreements with NGOs. UNICEF currently uses a number of formal and informal agreements to expedite operational partnerships at country level. These include: prequalification procedures (Haiti); contingency PCAs (Pakistan); letters of cooperation (Pakistan); letters of intent; stand-by arrangements; and long-term arrangements. Other agencies expedite the partnering process at country level through: prequalification procedures; institutional contracts; long-term agreements; fast-track policies and procedures; and letters of intent. The design and purpose of these agreements vary according to each agency’s mandate and organisational structure. Careful consideration will have to be given to the question of selection criteria for global agreements with UNICEF.

III - Recommended Next Steps

Specific recommendations for global agreements and next steps will be discussed during the UNICEF/NGO humanitarian consultation.

IV - Key questions to drive the discussion

What do NGOs perceive to be the goals and objectives for global agreements with UNICEF?

What has been the experience of NGOs that have worked with other agencies or global organisations under the framework of long-term agreements, fast track procedures, or similar types of partnership modalities?

What are the strengths or weaknesses associated with such arrangements?