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NORCAP ANNUAL REPORT 2015
www.NORCAPweb.no
ANNUAL
REPORT
2015
GOOD
PEOPLE
OUR
GREATEST
RESOURCE
Photos: Lars Aune
FOREWORD
protection, have improved the situation for the thousands
displaced by the conflict. The Central African Republic
remains one of NORCAP’s largest operations, where expert personnel provide much needed support in the areas
of protection, camp management and logistics. In Iraq,
NORCAP’s shelter and engineering experts were among
the first respondents when the humanitarian situation
escalated in the second half of 2014. In addition, NORCAP provided critical support to the international Ebola
response. By the end of 2014, 30 experts were on the
ground in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, in the fields
of engineering, WASH, protection, communication and
education, to name a few.
In 2014, the world witnessed a higher number of large
scale crises than it has in decades. As a consequence,
the request for personnel to strengheten the humanitarian
response in crises has never been greater. In response,
NORCAP deployed experts to over 300 missions during
2014. The aim was to support and improve the international humanitarian community’s crisis response in close to 50
countries, including all the declared L3 crises.
In Syria, NORCAP continued its support to a broad range
of partners and deployed the first child protection coordinator inside Syria since the start of the conflict. In South
Sudan, experts within education, nutrition, health and
Over the past few years NORCAP has deployed more
experts to its partner organisations than any other
standby roster in the world. Through close dialogue and
cooperation with partners, NORCAP has been able to
track humanitarian trends in a way that has enabled us to
proactively recruit and deploy experts within areas of high
demand. In 2014, new partnerships have been developed
with the Norwegian Directorate of Health to support
the Norwegian Ebola efforts, as well as with the Global
Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) and the World
Meteorological Organization (WMO). Through GFCS and
WMO, NORCAP is increasing its efforts towards prevention and preparedness in countries affected by climate
changes and prone to natural hazards.
Norway’s policy and strategy for supporting the UN
system emphasises the need to strengthen the UN’s coordinated response to complex humanitarian crises. The
Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and NRC have been
working closely together towards this shared aim for over
20 years and NORCAP constitutes an important part of
NRC’s operational activities.
Our efforts are made possible thanks to the support of the
Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, partners and roster
members. We look forward to continued collaboration in 2015.
Jan Egeland
Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council
FOREWORD 1
THE
RIGHT
PERSON
IN THE
RIGHT
PLACE AT
THE RIGHT
TIME
FH beredskapstyrker
FH programland med FH beredskapstyrker
NORCAP’S INTERVENTIONS: PREVENTION/ EARLY WARNING
2
Q
RESPONSE
Q
MONITORING
NORCAP AT A GLANCE
Norwegian Capacity (NORCAP) is an important
instrument for civilian capacity building and United
Nations support. The standby roster is funded by the
Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and operated
by the Norwegian Refugee Council.
NORCAP’S MANDATE IS TO:
• Enhance the capacity of the international community
to prevent and respond to humanitarian challenges
• Support efforts to ensure that international operations assist those in need regardless of their religion,
race, nationality and political persuasion
NORCAP STATISTICS 2014
312 Deployments
114 Person-years of Work
90 Women and 167 Men
21 Organisations
• Support international organisations, and in particular
the United Nations, in all stages of a crisis, from
prevention/early warning and response to monitoring, reconstruction, conflict resolution, sustainable
development and democratic governance
• Ensure that people in emergencies receive protection
and assistance according to their needs and rights,
with particular emphasis on the protection of civilians and the implementation of relevant UN Security
Council resolutions
48 Countries of Deployments
Q
CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Q
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE
Q
3
1. INTRODUCTION
This annual report gives an overview of NORCAP’s activities and key achievements in 2014. The purpose is to describe the broad scope and volume of
NORCAP’s work, and to show how NORCAP roster experts are helping to
strengthen humanitarian responses worldwide, including through support to
transition phases bridging early recovery and humanitarian assistance. This is
done by providing support to various UN agencies, but also to national and
regional stakeholders.
NORCAP is a standby roster that provides experienced
and skilled personnel to the UN, regional institutions and
national stakeholders. Since its establishment in 1991,
NORCAP has deployed experts to more than 8,500 missions in response to humanitarian crises globally, and has
become the most used expert deployment capacity in the
world. By providing relevant expertise, NORCAP works to
strengthen the capacity of the UN, the international community and national stakeholders to prevent, manage and
respond to natural and man-made disasters. The deployed
experts provide support during all phases of a crisis, from
prevention and early warning, to monitoring, reconstruction,
conflict resolution, sustainable development and democratic governance.
NORCAP associates itself closely with Norway’s humanitarian policy. Parliamentary Report (White Paper) No. 33
(2011–2012) describes Norway’s policy and strategy for
supporting the UN system, and emphasises the need to
strengthen the UN’s coordinated response to complex
humanitarian crises. In this it reiterates Norway’s continued
support to the UN system, and strengthens Norway’s profile as a dedicated and loyal promoter of peacebuilding and
humanitarian principles.
The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (NMFA) and the
Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) have been working
closely together towards this shared goal for over 20 years.
During this time, additional rosters have been established,
the roster management system has been enhanced and
new partnerships have been developed. Today, the NRC is
4
the most used standby partner, with deployment agreements with 15 international organisations, as well as with
regional institutions and national stakeholders.
METHODOLOGY
The report builds on qualitative and quantitative information
collected by the Department of Expert Deployment/NORCAP throughout the year. Information about the specifics
of each deployment is logged continuously and used in the
statistical material presented in this report. Since deployments vary in length, the volume of NORCAP’s support is
measured in person-months of deployments, defined as
uninterrupted field assignments for one person at a single
organisation. Most of the photographs appearing throughout the report were taken by NORCAP roster members and
NORCAP staff in field settings where the deployed experts
were working in 2014.
CONTENTS
NORCAP DIRECTOR
Benedicte Giæver
norcap@nrc.no
NORCAP
Norwegian Refugee Council
Postboks 148 Sentrum
0102 Oslo
Norway
www.norcapweb.no
PROJECT MANAGER
Trude Bruun Thorstensen
PHOTOS
Ahmed Jallanzo
Andreas Stensland
Andrew Quilty
Annelies Ollieuz
Christian Jepsen
Christine Nesbitt
Eirik Christophersen
Emad Badwan
Ingrid Prestetun
Lars Aune
Laurie Wiseberg
Stanislaus Kamwaga
Tiril Skarstein
Trude Bruun Thorstensen
Vincent Tremeau
Øyvind Wistrøm
COVER PHOTO
A tenant of Al Nada Tower,
trying to salvage his belongings
after it was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes, North Gaza strip.
Photo: NRC/Emad Badwan
DESIGN & LAYOUT
CREODA AS
PRINT
Gamlebyen Grafiske
1. INTRODUCTION
4
2. PRIORITIES IN 2014
2.1 GOAL AND OBJECTIVES
7
8
3. PARTNERSHIPS AND DEPLOYMENTS
3.1 NORCAP PARTNERS
3.2 DIVERSE DEPLOYMENTS
3.3 GEOGRAPHICAL PRIORITIES
11
12
18
19
4. FOCUS AREAS
4.1 STRENGTHENING THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS RESPONSE
4.2 DEVELOPING NATIONAL CAPACITY
4.3 DISASTER RISK REDUCTION AND CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION
4.4 PROMOTING CIVILIAN CAPACITY IN PEACE INITIATIVES
4.5 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE
21
22
38
39
5. OTHER STANDBY ROSTERS
5.1 PROCAP
5.2 GENCAP
5.3 ACAPS
5.4 STANDBY TEAM OF MEDIATION EXPERTS
5.5 CAMP COORDINATION AND CAMP MANAGEMENT
45
46
46
47
48
49
6. ROSTER DEVELOPMENT
6.1 RECRUITMENT
6.2 COMPETENCE DEVELOPMENT
6.3 STAFF CARE
6.4 COMMUNICATION AND REPORTING
51
52
53
54
55
LIST OF ACRONYMS57
41
42
5
2
People displaced from Bor are
arriving at Minkamman refugee
site by boat in South Sudan.
Photo: NRC/Christian Jepsen.
6
PRIORITIES
IN 2014
This chapter presents NORCAP’s main goal,
objectives and priorities in 2014
2. PRIORITIES IN 2014
NORCAP aims to enhance the capacity of the international community and
national stakeholders to prevent, manage and respond to humanitarian challenges through provision of relevant expertise at the right place and time. The
NORCAP roster has grown considerably since its establishment in 1991, and is
currently the most frequently used expert deployment capacity in the world.
With several large-scale crises, and a number of protracted
or new complex emergencies that receive less funding and
media attention but still need additional resources, requests
for NORCAP support have increased steadily in recent
years. Funding from the NMFA, through the regular framework agreement and additional support for large crises, has
enabled NORCAP to deploy experts to the UN, regional institutions and national stakeholders. NORCAP deployments
are also funded by other donors, as well as the UN itself.
NORCAP has to prioritise strictly and strategically where
to provide support, to keep within budgets and mandate. In
2014, NORCAP’s priorities were defined by several largescale emergencies in particular, leaving less support to smaller or protracted humanitarian crises. Priority was also given to
some strategic deployments at headquarter or field level, to
achieve the goals set out for the year, as outlined below.
2.1
IDPs from Mosul in a camp in Dohuk, Iraq.
Photo: NRC/Tiril Skarstein.
GOAL AND OBJECTIVES
With the overall goal of reinforcing the capacities of the international community
and national stakeholders to respond to natural disasters, conflicts and other
complex emergencies, NORCAP’s work in 2014 concentrated on two primary
objectives, with seven corresponding sub-objectives:
OBJECTIVE 1:
Strengthened UN, international community and national stakeholders in all stages of a crisis, from prevention/early warning
and response, to monitoring, reconstruction, conflict resolution,
sustainable development and democratic governance.
Sub-objective: A more effective and coordinated international crisis response. With several large crises in recent
years, the demand for personnel to enhance the humanitarian
response in crises has never been greater. While working on
crisis response, NORCAP experts continuously seek to ensure
that preparedness and preventive measures are being mainstreamed and implemented into crisis response operations,
8
to ensure long-term quality impact. As in previous years, the
greatest volume of support went to Sub-Saharan Africa and the
Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) region. Experts within
the category of coordination and leadership represented the
largest share, followed by experts in protection and information
management and technology. In 2014 there was increased support to logistics, camp management, and health and nutrition.
Sub-objective: Increased capacity of national governments in crisis-prone areas to develop effective and
enduring policies, systems and processes to build resilience. NORCAP’s project targeted at developing the capacity of national stakeholders went through a revision process
in 2014. Following strategy and mapping work, it was decided
to mainstream the national capacity-development activity as a
strategic approach in 2015 within three priority focus areas:
education, disaster risk reduction and crisis response. The
project process has had an important operational outcome: in
the future, NORCAP will use the deployment mechanism as
an instrument for developing national capacity in fragile states.
Sub-objective: Increased UN and national capacity
within disaster risk reduction and management. NORCAP has for many years deployed experts to build resilience
by strengthening the capacities of individuals, communities
and countries to prevent, manage and recover from crises
such as natural disasters and conflicts. Under the broad
umbrella of disaster risk reduction/management and climate
change adaptation, NORCAP has been experiencing a continuous demand for experts. Developing new partnerships with
relevant international, regional and national stakeholders is an
important component of this work.
Sub-objective: Improved mechanisms for provision of
civilian capacity in peace initiatives. In line with its annual
plan and expected strategic results, NORCAP continues to
OBJECTIVE 2:
support civilian peace stabilisation efforts in Hebron (Palestine)
and Mindanao (the Philippines). NORCAP also deploys personnel to the African Union (AU) Rapid Secondment Mechanism, implemented in partnership with the AU Peace Support
Operations Division 1. Since its inception, this mechanism has
led to greater awareness in the AU of the importance of civilian
capacity in peacebuilding and peace support operations.
Sub-objective: Strengthened UN efforts to ensure
sustainable development and democratic governance.
NORCAP seeks to contribute to sustainable development and
democratic governance through a strong focus on capacity
development, in particular of national institutions. The focus on
resilience is closely linked to sustainable development, as a resilient community is a prerequisite for sustainable development.
Through this work, NORCAP establishes linkages between humanitarian assistance and development. Various activities have
been initiated aimed at ensuring sustainable development and
democratic governance in crisis-affected countries – including
deployments to reinforce the UNESCO programme on journalist protection, and UN-Habitat’s housing, land and property
work in crises involving urban displacement. NORCAP also
provides support to the UNFPA programme on reproductive
health, as well as providing deployments in support of UNFPA’s
census and population estimation, and capacity building of UNFPA staff and offices, in collaboration with Statistics Norway. In
addition, NORCAP has deployed several experts to UNDP as
disaster risk reduction advisers.
Strengthened relations between the UN and the Norwegian
society, humanitarian community and government.
Sub-objective: Strengthened ability to respond to partner organisations’ needs for personnel. In recent years
NORCAP has deployed more experts to its partner organisations than any other standby roster in the world. To ensure that
roster members remain updated on practical and theoretical
skills, NORCAP has made competence development a key
priority. Through close dialogue and cooperation with existing
and new partners, NORCAP has been able to track humanitarian trends in a way that has enabled the department to recruit
experts proactively within areas of high demand. Through the
new partnership with the Norwegian Directorate of Health,
NORCAP has contributed by recruiting Norwegian health workers to assist Norway’s response to the Ebola crisis. On another
front, to support the Global Framework for Climate Services
and the World Meteorological Organisation, NORCAP has
also recruited meteorologists. These recruitments are within
thematic areas NORCAP had not recruited to previously, and
demonstrate how the NORCAP recruitment method is robust
and adaptable to suit recruitment needs.
Sub-objective: Enhanced awareness of NORCAP and
the UN in Norwegian government, humanitarian
community and society. NORCAP deployees are an invaluable source of information for the NRC. This information is
used to increase awareness and understanding in Norwegian
society and government, as well as donors and partners, of
the humanitarian work done by NORCAP experts. Information
is disseminated through media outreach, newsletters, social
media, reports, lectures and advocacy efforts, and contribute
to raising awareness about NORCAP – in addition to attracting
new experts to the roster. Greater systematic efforts were
made in 2014 to acquire information from deployees on
mission, as well as upon their return. Through its continuous monitoring, reporting and information dissemination,
NORCAP further raised the visibility and awareness of its
deployees’ support to the UN, regional institutions and
national stakeholders in 2014.
In 2014, the NORCAP Information Corps more than
doubled its activities, from 12 assignments in 2013, to
30 assignments. As of today, the Information Corps has
some 60 members nationwide, which makes it possible to
respond to requests from all over Norway.
(1) The deployments to TIPH, IMT, AU and IGAD are funded via addenda to NORCAP’s framework agreement with the NMFA. See List of Acronyms page 57.
PRIORITIES IN 2014 9
3
NORCAP expert James Omolo in
Monrovia, Liberia. James works as
a Logistics Officer for WFP for the
Ebola Response. Photo: NORCAP/
Trude Bruun Thorstensen.
10
PARTNERSHIPS
AND
DEPLOYMENTS
This chapter outlines NORCAP’s contribution to partner
organisations, and presents the diversity of deployments – both in terms of types of expertise and geographical distribution.
11
3. PARTNERSHIPS AND
DEPLOYMENTS
In 2014, the number of NMFA-supported NORCAP deployments decreased compared to previous years, in terms of number of deployments and person-months
in the field. However, as funding from other donors increased in 2014, overall
NORCAP support remained at levels similar to 2013. As the focus of this report is
deployments funded by the NMFA, deployments funded by other donors are not
included here. That said NORCAP’s contribution to global humanitarian operations has included support to a wide range of partners, across a broad spectrum
of countries, organisations and areas of expertise.
The decline in NMFA-funded deployments was primarily due to a shortage of financial resources in the last year
of NORCAP’s 2012-2014 framework agreement with the
NMFA. NORCAP provided extensive support to major crisis
operations in 2012 and 2013, with sizeable sums going to
large-scale crises in Syria in 2012 and the Philippines in
2013. During the same timeframe, income from other donors
has also increased.
Providing personnel to international operations is qualitatively
different from contributing money or in-kind relief supplies. At
the operational level, NORCAP experts can act as agents of
change: they have broad experience across institutions, cultures and countries, and can bring new perspectives to their
host organisations. This enables them to focus on the actual
needs and overall response rather than their organisational
mandate. Through their work, NORCAP experts improve
coordination and efficiency of operations and contribute
to building the internal capacity of their host organisations.
Moreover, NORCAP is unique in terms of providing human
capacity from the Global South, in addition to expertise from
Norway. This means it can play a key role in contributing to
strengthened South–South cooperation and capacity development, and thereby to more sustainable solutions.
3.1
Furthermore, by deploying experts within specific fields, like
education, through regular deployments to various different
UN partners, in addition to deployments directly to national
stakeholders, NORCAP creates synergies and added value,
with the different modes of deployment complementing each
other. By dispatching numerous experts to different parts of
one organisation – for example, both to headquarters and
field operations – NORCAP contributes to strengthening
the whole organisation, not merely one part. Moreover, by
supporting, for example, education deployments to UNICEF,
UNESCO and UNHCR, NORCAP can contribute to a more
balanced response in a given crisis.
In 2014, NORCAP provided support to 21 partner organisations and monitoring missions, in 48 countries. NORCAP
experts undertook 312 missions, amounting to a total of 1,371
person-months (or 114 person-years) of work. Of the 257
experts deployed in 2014, 33 per cent were Norwegian and
67 per cent of other nationalities; and 35 per cent were female.
During the first six months of the year, the focus of support
was on operations in the Philippines, Central African Republic
(CAR), Syria and South Sudan. Then the rising level of conflict
in Gaza and Iraq, as well as the devastating impacts of Ebola,
brought a shift of attention in the second half of the year.
NORCAP PARTNERS
NORCAP has memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with
15 international organisations2 and three national governments, in addition to deployment agreements with a
further six institutions and missions. 3
Figure 3.1 shows the volume of support to the various
NORCAP partners, in person-months. In 2014, NORCAP
provided support to 21 partner organisations, with the
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United
(2) AU, FAO, IOM, UN OCHA, UN WOMEN, UNDP, UNESCO, UNFPA, UN-Habitat, UNHCR, UNICEF, UNRWA, WFP, WHO and WMO.
(3) AFDEM, IGAD, IMT, LACS, SPREP and TIPH
12
FIGURE 3.1: NORCAP PERSON-MONTHS PER ORGANISATION IN 2014
UNICEF
UNHCR
TIPH
124
124
WFP
UNFPA
64
60
UN-HABITAT
AU
IOM
UNESCO
UNDP
NAT.GOVT.
OCHA
FAO
WHO
IMT
UNRWA
LACS
IGAD
REGIONAL
UN WOMEN
6
NRC
0
41
38
34
33
32
27
25
24
24
20
16
13
25
50
182
230
201
52
75
100
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) continuing as the two agencies receiving the largest share of
NORCAP deployments. Figure 3.2 shows NORCAP’s support to the UN from 2012-2014, illustrating the overall drop
in support in 2014, with the exception of the World Food
Programme (WFP) and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).
In 2014, UNICEF received the largest part of NORCAP
support, but this represents a decline of about 40 per
cent compared to the previous year. Reasons for this include UNICEF’s presence and role in the previous years’
emergencies, and the funding situation for NORCAP, but
there has also been a conscious choice to consolidate
and reduce the support to the agency to some extent. The
main focus of support to UNICEF in 2014 has been to
child protection and education, but significant attention
has also been given to engineering, information management and nutrition. Furthermore, in 2014, NORCAP has
provided support to the Rapid Response Teams (RRT)
for education and child protection. In line with NORCAP’s
UNICEF response plan, main support efforts have concerned the Syria crisis, including neighbouring countries,
as well as South Sudan, Liberia and the Central African
Republic. Support in the first half of 2014 also went to
ongoing responses in the Philippines, Mali and Myanmar.
125
150
175
200
225
250
At the planning meeting in November 2014, UNICEF confirmed its view of NORCAP’s greatest strength as being
the ability to provide a wide variety of profiles, including
personnel in niche areas. One example of niche support is
NORCAP’s nutrition expertise that can be utilised both in
emergency programming and in cluster work. The meeting
confirmed the need to include child protection, water,
sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and communication, as
well as the more generic profiles of logistics, information
and communications technology (ICT) and reporting in
the future partnership. Education will, in line with Norwegian foreign policy priorities, be at the heart of the partnership. A NORCAP/UNICEF action plan for 2015–2017 is
currently under development.
In total, NORCAP’s partnership with UNHCR in 2014
experienced a 20 per cent reduction from the previous
year. However, 25 per cent of the support to UNHCR has
come from other funding sources than NMFA and is thus
not included in graph 3.1. UNHCR remains NORCAP’s
second-largest recipient of deployments. In line with the
response plan and mutually agreed goals, the focus has
been on protection and camp management, as well as
information management, community services, ICT and
resettlement, but also areas like cash and vouchers, and
PARTNERSHIPS AND DEPLOYMENTS 13
FIGURE 3.2: NORCAP CONTRIBUTIONS TO UN AGENCIES, 2012 - 2014
500
2012
2013
2014
450
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
UNICEF UNHCR
WFP
UNFPA UN-HABITAT IOM
UNESCO UNDP
housing, land and property (HLP) have been prioritised.
A large proportion of NORCAP deployments to UNHCR
went to the Syria crisis as well as the situation in CAR, but
operations in other countries, like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Myanmar, also received support.
UNHCR came under great pressure in 2014, with several
large-scale emergencies in addition to ongoing humanitarian
crises such as Syria and Iraq. The planning meeting held in
November 2014, prior to a larger bilateral planning meeting
to be held in early 2015, indicated the need to revisit some
of the profiles frequently used during the mass displacement responses of the late 1990s and early 2000s, which
include more personnel working on protection and community services. Further priorities for the next three-year period
will be decided in the first quarter of 2015, with priority to a
broad partnership on protection, as well as camp coordination and camp management (CCCM) and shelter.
UNFPA is one of two organisations that experienced an
14
OCHA
FAO
UNRWA UN WOMEN OHCHR
increase in NORCAP support in 2014, compared to 2013.
About half of the NORCAP deployees were working on
protection and logistics linked to reproductive health, but
support was also provided to coordination and leadership.
Reproductive health and gender based violence (GBV) remain core components of NORCAP’s support to UNFPA.
The main share has gone to operations in Somalia, CAR,
Iraq and Nigeria, but NORCAP support has also been
provided to South Sudan and the Philippines.
The collaboration with UNFPA is likely to continue to focus
on thematic areas such as reproductive health, gender
based violence, and more generic matters of logistics and
coordination. NORCAP further aims to continue its collaboration between Statistics Norway (SSB) and UNFPA,
in addition to working with capacity development of national
statistics agencies in relevant settings. Through the cooperation involving the NRC, SSB and UN agencies such
as UNHCR/JIPS, UNFPA and WFP, NORCAP deployed
personnel to various operations and countries in 2014, in-
Palestinian families from Beit Hanoun return to their homes to
collect some of their belongings during a humanitarian ceasefire.
Photo: NRC/Emad Badwan.
PARTNERSHIPS AND DEPLOYMENTS 15
Young boys attend class in temporary tents in Gulan refugee camp, Afghanistan. Photo: NRC/Andrew Quilty.
cluding the DRC, Kosovo, Myanmar, Somalia and Thailand.
WFP also experienced an increase in support from NORCAP in 2014, and continues to be an important partner.
Key areas of expertise remain logistics, information and
communication technology and food security, as well as
support to air-borne movement in major natural disasters,
as in the Philippines. In 2014 NORCAP provided significant support to the WFP Ebola Response, with deployments to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Lessons learned in 2014 from the Ebola response showed
the need to ensure a broader portfolio of civilian engineers.
In Iraq, WFP had struggled to find port captains to enable
operations, but NORCAP was able to provide the right
experts. In the future, NORCAP will prioritise support to the
common services hosted by WFP, like the logistics cluster
and the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS),
16
as well as support to the work of the UN Humanitarian Response Depot in large-scale, rapid-onset emergencies.
In meetings with the emergency telecommunication cluster, signals from WFP indicate that the agency has begun
to focus on less complex profiles, instead of following the
general trend of adding tasks to the terms of reference as
the situation becomes more complex. NORCAP welcomes
this initiative. Another area of key importance to NORCAP
is logistics. Possible modalities for expanding and working
even more closely with WFP will be explored in the first
quarter of 2015. A relatively small but crucial area of support will concern child protection in targeted operations,
as well as greater focus on cash-based interventions.
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has, like most other UN agencies,
received a smaller volume of NORCAP support in 2014.
Deployments have generally been to education, with a
focus on curriculum development and planning. In addition, five experts were deployed to the ‘safety and freedom
of journalists’ initiative that NORCAP agreed to work on at
the last annual consultation. Targeted countries here have
been South Sudan, Pakistan and Myanmar, and NORCAP
anticipates an expansion of this important collaboration in
2015. In line with the recommendations of the Parliamentary Report (White Paper) No. 25 (2013–2014), UNESCO
and NORCAP identified several areas for further collaboration and strengthened partnership at their 2014 annual
consultation. Key areas include teacher training, technical
and vocational training, and school safety.
Overall support to the International Organization for
Migration (IOM) from NORCAP has increased by 20
per cent since 2013, the main increase in deployments being within the ECHO-funded camp coordination and camp
management (CCCM) project (This support is not reflected in graphs 3.1 and 3.2). This is a project run by the NRC
in collaboration with UNHCR and IOM, with emphasis on
deployments to camp management in the broadest sense.
NMFA funding has been used strategically to strengthen
CCCM as well as to attract new donors. Using NORCAP
NMFA funds, NORCAP has supported IOM with logistics
and WASH, in addition to livelihoods.
Support to the UN Development Programme (UNDP)
has also decreased. According to plan it now consists
primarily of disaster risk reduction (DRR), an area where
NORCAP has strong collaboration with UNDP on the
operational and strategic levels. Support in 2014 included
a monitoring and evaluation specialist for IGAD in South
Sudan, and a special assistant to the UN resident coordinator in Liberia. UNDP is also a relevant partner in NORCAP’s new initiative to support the Global Framework
for Climate Services (GFCS) in strengthening climate
services in Africa. Through ProCap4, UNDP has received
support to its work on durable solutions, and NORCAP
has been involved in dialogue with the Sustainable Development Division in New York regarding further involvement
in this project.
Support to the Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) has decreased the most among NORCAP partners, for various reasons. There have been major changes
within the organisation over the past two years, which
have also affected staffing and surge requests. NORCAP
has experienced a reduction in the number of requests.
Once the reorganisation of FAO is complete and has been
implemented, NORCAP will again review the partnership
and key areas of support. In 2014, deployments went
primarily to communication, monitoring and evaluation, and
food security. NORCAP’s increased strategic focus on
building resilience by ensuring agricultural development,
including climate-smart agriculture, and sustainable livelihoods, makes FAO a highly relevant partner in 2015.
NORCAP support to the Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in 2014 concerned the
areas of coordination and leadership, information management, as well as reporting and public information. The
largest share went to the Syria response, where NORCAP supported OCHA in the implementation of the UN
Security Council Resolution 2165 on cross-border and
cross-line humanitarian access.
NORCAP support to the UN Human Settlements
Programme (UN-Habitat) has decreased slightly, but a
core focus remains on shelter and HLP, and crises involving urban displacements. NORCAP provided support to
operations in the Philippines, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Pakistan, among others. In 2014 NORCAP
also supported a headquarters deployment to consolidate
the surge support UN-Habitat is receiving and ensure
maximisation of this effort.
In 2014, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) received
one quarter of the support it got in 2013. The focus has
been on Palestinian refugees inside Syria, where the
needs are dire. In addition, NORCAP supported the
agency in their work in Jordan on information management
and education. NORCAP further supported the response
to the Gaza emergency during the summer of 2014, focusing on shelter and collective centres, as well as WASH.
NORCAP’s most recent partner, the World Health
Organization (WHO), received 16 deployments 2014, in
the areas of public health, logistics, WASH and information management. The organisation has been a main
recipient of NORCAP support in response to the Ebola
crisis in West Africa since October 2014. NORCAP aims
to become a key partner in areas like health and reproductive health, and maintains continuous dialogue with the
Norwegian Institute of Public Health to source relevant
experts for WHO deployments.
The UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) received four deployees in 2014, with a focus on gender experts and gender
protection. The agency has specified that use of NORCAP
experts is an important part of their Humanitarian Strategy
(2014-2017) to ensure the ‘integration of gender equality and women’s empowerment considerations in the
development and implementation of normative, policy and
procedures in humanitarian action’.
In 2014, NORCAP also continued to provide support to the
Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), the African Union (AU), national stakeholders, the International Monitoring Team (IMT) in the Philippines, the Intergovernmental
Authority on Development (IGAD) and Local Aid Coordination Secretariat (LACS), at levels similar to those of 2013.
(4) ProCap is a NRC operated roster. For more information, see page 46.
PARTNERSHIPS AND DEPLOYMENTS 17
3.2
DIVERSE DEPLOYMENTS
Every crisis and situation is different, and requires a
unique combination of persons with a range of skills and
languages to respond in the best possible way. A central
element noted in feedback from NORCAP’s UN partners
is NORCAP’s ability to respond in a broad manner as
well as with niche capacity. It is important to be able to
complement the UN with experts in areas where the world
organisation itself finds it difficult to obtain personnel.
Experts on the NORCAP roster have a broad range of
qualifications, ranging from logistics, civil engineering and
information management, to protection, shelter, WASH
and education, to name a few. Figure 3.3 shows NORCAP
deployments in 2014 by category of expertise in percentages. As in previous years, the largest percentage of
support went to coordination and leadership, followed by
protection and information management and technology.
In 2014 there was increased support to logistics, camp
management and health and nutrition.
FIGURE 3.3: DEPLOYMENTS PER CATEGORY OF EXPERTISE IN PERCENTAGES
Rule of Law and Legal Affairs 1
Civil Affairs and Democratisation 2
Administration and Finance 2
Media/Communication/Info 3
Social Affairs and Livelihood 3
Coordination and
Leadership 17
Health and Nutrition 4
Engineering 6
Protection 16
Peacekeeping 6
Education 7
Information
Management and
Technology 13
Camp
Management 7
Logistics and
Supply 13
18
3.3
GEOGRAPHICAL PRIORITIES
In 2014, NORCAP provided support to 48 countries,
which is relatively similar to 2013. As in previous years,
NORCAP continues to provide most of its support (in
terms of person-months and number of deployments)
to Sub-Saharan Africa, followed by the Middle East and
North Africa (MENA) region and Asia. However, compared
to 2013, Africa in particular but also MENA and Asia have
experienced cuts in person-months and deployments.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, the largest support has been to
South Sudan, CAR and Somalia, with a steady increase of
deployments to the Ebola response in Liberia, Guinea and
Sierra Leone during the last quarter of 2014. This support
will continue in 2015. NORCAP’s responses to MENA
concentrated on the Syria response, but with support also
going to Iraq, Palestine and Yemen.
In Asia, support continued to the Philippines in early 2014.
Experts were also deployed to operations in Pakistan,
Afghanistan, Myanmar and Thailand in the course of 2014.
As in previous years, a small proportion of the deploy-
ments went to UN headquarters (HQ), for work on policy
development and documentation of best practices from
the field. Although based at UN HQ in New York, most
of these experts worked either on food security statistics
within the WFP or with UNHCR/Joint IDP Profiling Service (JIPS) in Geneva in support of various field operations, including DRC and Kosovo. One deployee worked
on guidelines for community stabilisation projects for the
IOM, based in Washington DC, with project implementation in Niger and Afghanistan.
In 2014, NORCAP continued its support to child protection Rapid Response Teams (RRT), as this model had
proven a success in previous years. This global support
mechanism provides high-quality, rapidly deployable child
protection coordination and technical capacity in humanitarian situations. Deployments are made to UNICEF, as
the sub-cluster lead agency for child protection, at the
country level, to support interagency coordination of child
protection responses.
FIGURE 3.4: PERSON-MONTHS AND DEPLOYMENTS BY REGION
Sub-Saharan
Africa
543
140
MENA
484
92
Asia
196
49
UN HQs
91
19
Americas
6
48
PERSON-MONTHS
DEPLOYMENTS
9
6
Europe
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
PARTNERSHIPS AND DEPLOYMENTS 19
Distribution of posters with
information on the symptoms of
the Ebola virus disease (EVD) in
Liberia. Photo: Ahmed Jallanzo/
UNICEF.
4
FOCUS AREAS
This chapter details NORCAP’s operational focus areas in 2014.
4. FOCUS AREAS
NORCAP’s operational work focused on five areas in 2014; crisis response,
national capacity building, disaster risk reduction and management, provision
of civilian capacity in peace initiatives and sustainable development and democratic governance. This chapter provides an overview of activities in each of
these prioritised areas and gives an outline of how NORCAP experts contributed towards reaching the related objectives.
4.1
STRENGTHENING THE INTERNATIONAL
CRISIS RESPONSE
With an increased number of large-scale crises over the past few years, the request for personnel to enhance the humanitarian response in crises has never
been greater. Strengthening the humanitarian response, or managing crises,
was NORCAP’s core activity in 2014, and still constitutes the bulk of NORCAP
deployments.
While working on crisis response, NORCAP experts
continuously focus on mainstreaming preparedness and
preventive measures into crisis response to ensure long-
term quality impact, and not just immediate quick-fixes.
Some key countries where NORCAP provided support in
2014 will be presented in the coming sections.
Hired porters in Turkei village transport WASH Non-food items to a distribution site, located 1.5 km from the storage facility,
South Sudan. Photo: NORCAP/Stanislaus Kamwaga.
22
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
SOUTH SUDAN
On 11 February 2014, OCHA declared a ‘level three’
humanitarian system-wide emergency response for South
Sudan, reflecting the scale, complexity and urgency of the
humanitarian crisis the country was experiencing. Since
then, the number of persons internally displaced by political
violence has doubled to 1.5 million people – over 20 per
cent of the population – with more than half of them children. Widespread famine was narrowly avoided by massive
direct relief efforts from the international humanitarian community led by WFP. By the end of the year, some 235,000
children remained at risk of severe acute malnutrition, and
food shortages and access to clean water remained critical
problems for over three million South Sudanese.
FIGURE 3.5: PERSON-MONTHS PER COUNTRY AND ORGANISATION, SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
120
WHO
WFP
UN WOMEN
UNICEF
100
UNHCR
UN-HABITAT
UNFPA
80
UNESCO
FAO
UNDP
OCHA
60
NAT.GOVT.
IOM
IGAD
40
AU
So
da
uth
Su
0
n
CA
So R
ma
Eth lia
iop
i
Nig a
eri
a
Ch
ad
Ma
li
DR
Lib C
eri
a
Gu
ine
a
Gh
an
a
N
Ma iger
u
Sie rita
rra nia
Le
o
Se ne
ne
Ca gal
me
ro
Ug on
an
da
Ke
n
R ya
Bu wan
rki da
na
Fa
so
Su
da
Bu n
run
di
20
FOCUS AREAS 23
A looted tent with Education in Emergencies supplies in Bentiu, South Sudan. Photo: NORCAP/Annelies Ollieuz.
NORCAP’s rapid provision of highly experienced experts
was critical to the international response. Due to the
complexity of the crisis, the UN system struggled to recruit
and retain sufficient numbers of staff with the necessary
experience from complex humanitarian crises – a point
confirmed during NORCAP’s field visits to South Sudan. In
total, NORCAP supported UN agencies with 29 experts in
2014. The largest group worked on protection, followed by
coordination and leadership, health and nutrition and camp
management. Expertise was also provided in the fields
of information management, WASH, logistics, education,
administration and engineering.
One NORCAP expert was deployed through the rapid response mechanism to strengthen the education cluster (see
insight story page 25). Another critical sector was WASH,
with massive needs for experienced personnel in 2014,
due to the escalation of conflict and limited access to water
sources. NORCAP deployees have worked hard to improve
coordination in the cluster and have led the WASH emergency response intervention, in addition to representing
WASH in the Rapid Response Team (RRT). Furthermore,
NORCAP has deployed one person to UNESCO in South
Sudan tasked with coordinating country implementation of
the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the
Issue of Impunity, including supporting actions to strengthen UN mechanisms, raise awareness and foster safety
24
initiatives in cooperation with other organisations and institutions, journalists, media owners, policy-makers and state
institutions. This expert also leads the overall design and
implementation of the freedom of expression programme.
In the efforts to avoid famine, in the critical phase during
summer 2014, NORCAP provided four roving nutrition
experts and a nutrition cluster coordinator to the joint
emergency missions led by WFP and UNICEF. Their work
included delivering food assistance and nutrition supplements, health support, and teaching materials, in addition to
water, sanitation and hygiene supplies in the most remote
and conflict hit areas of South Sudan. More than half a
million people, including 100,000 children under the age of
five, received support.
With respect to NORCAP’s longer-term deployments, in
2014 a senior disaster risk management (DRM) expert
deployed to South Sudan drafted the national DRM policy,
with input from national and local government stakeholders,
UN organisations and NGOs. The policy is expected to be
passed by the Parliament in 2015, and NORCAP will then
continue to provide support for its implementation.
INSIGHT
FROM SOUTH
SUDAN
The ongoing conflict in South Sudan
has led to the disruption of education in the most conflict affected
states in the country. At least 1.7 million school-aged children and adolescents are in need of emergency
education. In response NORCAP
deployed an experienced education
cluster coordinator, Annelies Ollieuz,
through UNICEF’s rapid response
mechanism to strengthen the education cluster. Earlier in 2014, she was
deployed as roving coordinator to
build the capacity of the sub-national
clusters of Greater Upper Nile covering three states Upper Nile, Unity
and Jonglei.
reporting of attacks on education, and initiatives with the
nutrition cluster on early childhood development. The L3
crisis in South Sudan underscores the necessity of continuing to deploy NORCAP education deployees to UNICEF,
to enable the agency to lead the education cluster in an
independent and competent manner, and aid the Ministry
of Education in honouring its responsibility to ensure the
delivery of education, particularly in an emergency.
During this deployment, Annelies put in place systems that
will give the cluster a stronger foundation in the future, independent of who the cluster coordinators are. “Still, she
says, “recruitment of a longer term coordinator has so far
been unsuccessful. This is too often the case with cluster
coordinator deployments, and points to a wider problem.
Innovative methods will be required to expand the pool of
trained, experienced and deployable cluster coordinators
at the global level, which currently is too small.”
Annelies provided much needed technical support, guidance and advice to the new and relatively inexperienced
coordination team. The education cluster has suffered this
past year from a serious funding shortfall and what has
been criticised as short term thinking by the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) favouring – and consequently
deprioritising – certain sectors, quoting lifesaving criteria,
rather than focusing on interventions that contribute to
the objectives of the overall response. This highlights the
importance of continued advocacy for the wide-reaching
benefits that education brings to a community, and particularly for the fact that affected communities themselves
prioritise education. In addition, schools serve as platforms for other interventions within child protection, health,
nutrition and WASH.
Annelies has focused on strengthening a transparent and
sustainable decision making structure within the education
cluster through the establishment of a Strategic Advisory
Group. She further led the development of the 2015
Strategic Response Plan for the education cluster, which
should increase the quality of the education response and
help gain donor support and funding for education. Lastly,
she facilitated the collaboration with the child protection
sub-cluster on psycho-social support, monitoring and
Annelies Ollieuz, Education in Emergencies (EiE) expert in
South Sudan, 2014. Photo: NORCAP.
FOCUS AREAS 25
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
From December 2013 onwards, the situation in the Central
African Republic (CAR) deteriorated significantly, moving
from a protracted crisis to a complex emergency. Insecurity
and conflict, including violence against civilians, have led to
major population displacements within the country, as well
as spilling over into neighbouring countries. Access is a
recurrent problem in such L3 crises, and due to the security
situation, it is difficult to get humanitarian personnel and
assistance to rural areas. NORCAP deployed only highly
experienced personnel, the majority as first responders or
as roving staff. This feature is found in other humanitarian
emergencies, linked to NORCAP’s ability to recruit and
deploy personnel with the right cultural background and
regional knowledge.
The CAR violence has been marked by its scale and
ferocity. In addition, a new development – attacks based
on religion – has been tearing apart the social fabric of the
country. To address this social disruption, particular attention has been paid to local-level participation and inclusion
when addressing the issue of reconciliation. The Standby
Team of Mediation Experts5 has been requested to support
the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization
Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) and
the national authorities in their work at achieving reconciliation through dialogue. Recognising the challenges of establishing a trustworthy process for the road to reconciliation,
the Standby Team has placed considerable emphasis on
creating local reconciliation committees that include all
levels of society. Inclusion efforts on the local level will,
it is hoped, lead to a national dialogue process that can
continue to pay specific attention to local-level participation
in addition to truth and justice, peace and security, and the
return of refugees and IDPs. Citizenship and nationality are
important components to include in the process, as many
people in CAR face challenges of belonging. Governance,
democratic participation and decentralisation also need to
be dealt with.
CAR has remained one of NORCAPs largest operations,
with 12 deployments in 2014, supporting UNHCR, UNFPA,
UNICEF and OCHA. Deployed personnel work in areas
ranging from protection and information management,
to camp management, coordination and leadership and
logistics. A key concern in CAR is gender-based violence
(GBV), with impunity for perpetrators and lack of security
and judiciary measures for the victims. In addition, since
December 2013 the CCCM cluster has been represented
by two Rapid Response Teams and two cluster coordinators. Expert personnel have provided extensive trainings
and work on community mobilisation.
In relation to cross-border activities, a NORCAP expert
deployed to Chad as emergency shelter and camp coordinator runs a national training program dealing with mass
displacement and humanitarian responses targeted at
national stakeholders, NGOs and other partners.
MINUSCA troops protecting people going to church in the Central African Republic. Photo: NRC/Vincent Tremeau.
(5) The Standby Team of Mediation Experts is a NRC operated roster. For more information see page 48.
26
NIGERIA
Boko Haram insurgency and counter-insurgency operations
by the government in the north-eastern parts of the country
have created a major humanitarian challenge. The conflict,
which started in 2009, has severely affected three states
in north-east Nigeria – Borno, Yobe and Adamawa – home
to around 15 million people. According to feedback from
UN agencies when NORCAP staff visited their offices in
November 2014, the international community had been
unprepared for the consequences of the heightened levels
of violence in 2014, and many UN agencies found it challenging to shift their operations from development work to
humanitarian response.
In 2014, NORCAP provided expertise within the fields of
logistics, coordination and leadership and civil affairs and
democratisation, to UNFPA, UNICEF and the Economic
Community Of West African States (ECOWAS).
NORCAP deployed a Humanitarian Programme Officer
to coordinate UNFPA interventions for humanitarian relief
and early recovery and to respond to the needs of the affected populations, whether due to Boko Haram insurgency
or to flooding. The humanitarian programme officer was
instrumental in realising the UNFPA goal of reaching at
least one million people. The response focused primarily on
restoring access to essential reproductive health services,
dealing with the victims of sexual violence and the treatment
of sexually transmitted infections. In a context like Nigeria,
it is important to find innovative ways of working to reach
the affected population, as several UN agencies now are
starting to realise. WHO, for example, has considerable
coverage across the country because they operate through
the national Red Cross and local communities. UNFPA is
also using some of the same mechanisms to gain access to
the north-eastern parts of the country.
Another expert was deployed to ECOWAS to provide support in the fields of civilian affairs and democratisation. As
of late 2014, NORCAP was in close dialogue with its UN
partners to examine ways of stepping up support to Nigeria,
given the worsening humanitarian situation in the country.
SOMALIA
The situation for IDPs, refugees, and returnees in Somalia is
today among the worst in the world. Chronic insecurity and
humanitarian emergencies have led to massive displacements. By 2014, the number of IDPs in Somalia had soared,
from the 400,000 existing prior to 2007, to more than one
million, according to the UNHCR.
Decades of conflict and political instability coupled with
drought followed by floods have led to the deterioration of
the protection environment in Somalia. In addition, the country is facing challenges related to the territorial divisions
in several self-declared regions. Each of these regions has
its own volatile political system and security situation with a
Children who had been in direct contact with patients suffering from EVD at an interim care centre in Monrovia, Liberia.
There they are cared for by workers trained to monitor the
children closely for signs of EVD. In parallel, active tracing of
children’s’ extended family is undertaken, with the ultimate
goal of reuniting them with relatives immediately after the
conclusion of the quarantine period.
Photo: Christine Nesbitt/UNICEF.
FOCUS AREAS 27
complex clan structure deeply rooted in Somalian society.
Humanitarian actors must be flexible and adaptive, and this
in an environment with major access constraints.
In 2014, NORCAP deployed 15 experts to Somalia. The
largest group worked in information management and
protection. Other important support was provided within
the areas of social affairs and livelihood, education, camp
management, coordination and leadership and health.
Since February 2013, a shelter cluster coordinator has
been deployed to UNHCR to act as focal point for the
cluster with donors and provide information on the cluster’s
strategy, gaps and current resourcing. The NORCAP expert
has been able to implement in total six different sheltermapping exercises that will provide a useful overview of the
living conditions of IDPs. The shelter cluster aims to map
all IDP settlements in Mogadishu, Bosaso, Gaalkacyo, Hargeysa, Berbera, Burao, amongst others, by the end of first
quarter 2015. It has become a highly visible cluster in the
Somalia operation, with the provision of capacity building,
the use of mobile technology and a standard approach to
baseline data on IDP settlements across Somalia.
A WASH expert has been deployed to IOM Somalia for a
two-year period to provide programmatic oversight, strategic
guidance and technical advice for the WASH project in Somalia. In the course of the assignment this NORCAP deployee has contributed to the WASH strategy and emergency
response intervention and the design of WASH projects.
The IOM intervention has brought improved access to safe,
clean water supplies to more than 50,000 internally displaced persons and host communities in the project areas,
reducing the incidence of acute water-borne diarrhoea.
EBOLA
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is unprecedented in size,
geographic spread and number of lives lost. Consequently,
the Ebola response became NORCAP’s main priority
during the last months of 2014. NORCAP started working
on the response in early September, deploying the first
expert in early October. Continuous upscaling since then
resulted in 30 NMFA-funded experts working on the Ebola
response by the end of the year. The largest number of
deployments has been to Liberia, followed by Guinea and
Sierra Leone. NORCAP provided support for backstopping
and bolstering the health response as well as dealing with
the humanitarian consequences of Ebola. The former was
done by deploying experts on engineering (see insight story
page 29), logistics and WASH, while the latter entailed the
provision of personnel within food security, education and
child protection.
Moving forward, it will be important to decentralise the
Ebola responses to reach affected people in remote
areas, and to improve the surveillance systems to better
understand the chain of infection. In addition, it is vital to
28
Children in Liberia washing their hands as an Ebola
precaution. Photo: NRC/Eirik Christophersen.
restore and strengthen essential health services, because
weak health infrastructures were one reason for the rapid
spread of the disease.
The Ebola outbreak resulted in the closure of schools
in Liberia: UNICEF reported that over 4,500 schools
were closed in March 2014. NORCAP has provided an
education-in-emergencies specialist to UNICEF, to support
the Ministry of Education and partners in implementing
national, decentralised, and school-level education response
plans, and to accelerate the sector response to the Ebola
emergency. The expert has been working with Save the
Children to assess the possibilities of re-opening schools
and to provide distance-learning assistance in the meantime.
Schools are expected to re-open in early 2015. Since its activation in early December, the education cluster has benefitted from the support of a Rapid Response Team member
to provide leadership and facilitate processes for ensuring
well-coordinated, strategic, adequate, coherent and effective
responses from participants in the education cluster.
NORCAP is also supporting UNICEF and other UN agencies in the important work of communication with the affected
populations. The government and the humanitarian community have made known the need for support and assistance
here, as the rapid spread of infection is attributed partly to
traditional practices, as well as fear and mistrust between
the affected communities and their governments. Effective
communication is vital to reduce further transmission.
Furthermore, NORCAP, in cooperation with the WHO and
UNICEF, has recruited five experts to a pilot project on communication capacity building in Sierra Leone. To ensure coordination across various UN agencies and NGOs, the project
operates through the community mobilisation sub-cluster
headed by WHO. The recruited experts have backgrounds
in community mobilisation, curriculum development, teacher
training, and monitoring and evaluation. NORCAP sees this
as an innovative approach aimed at addressing one of the
most difficult challenges in combating Ebola, to ensure that
frontline workers can communicate effectively so as to bring
about behavioural change.
INSIGHT
FROM THE
EBOLA
RESPONSE
WFP has expressed its appreciation
for NORCAP’s valuable support to
WFP’s Ebola emergency response
through the deployment of 13 experts, to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra
Leone. The experts deployed by
NORCAP have been deployed in the
following areas: telecommunications/ICT, logistics, civil engineering, public health and emergency
preparedness.
Chrispine Ojiambo, 39, was deployed to WFP in Guinea
as one of three NORCAP civil engineers providing support to WFP’s Ebola Emergency response. Chrispine has
since his first NORCAP deployment 2.5 years ago been
deployed to large and complex emergency operations
such as the Syria Response and the Philippines.
Although an experienced humanitarian worker, he was
nervous before being deployed to the Ebola affected areas in West Africa. Facing an invisible and deadly disease
that had claimed over thousands of lives was naturally a
new challenge for Chrispine.
He has since his arrival in Guinea been working alongside WFP’s technical team and local contractors to set
up essential constructional structures such as Ebola
treatment units in Wonkifong, a town in the Kindia region
of western Guinea. Rub halls are set up to be used as
wards and tents for different medical purposes that will
ultimately be handed over to the government. This work
done by the civil engineers is crucial for the overall Ebola
response. He has also been participating in similar constructional works in Macenta – a town in south-western
Guinea – for MSF and in Guéckédou, a nearby town in
the same region. Moreover, Chrispine has also supported
the WFP technical team in managing ground preparations
works, and setting up storage rub halls at the humanitarian logistic base for NGOs and UN agencies, at Conakry
airport for cluster support. In spite of the risk and the fear
of catching the disease and limited social movements,
Chrispine is clear in his message on the way forward in
the fight against Ebola: “All humanitarian partners should
double their efforts to eliminate the Ebola Virus Disease
to restore normal life in impacted communities”.
Chrispine Ojiambo and his team setting up rub halls for the Ebola response in Guinea. Photo: NORCAP.
FOCUS AREAS 29
MIDDLE EAST
IRAQ
The rapidly developing humanitarian crisis in northern
Iraq, caused by the Syrian conflict and the advances of
the Islamic State (IS), has led to a significant number of
deployment requests from UN partners. It is estimated
that there are some 1.5 million IDPs and refugees in the
Kurdish Region of Iraq (KR-I), housed in camps, unfinished
buildings and school premises, putting vulnerable families
and children at risk of abuse and attack. The situation is
aggravated by longstanding territorial and political tensions
between the KR-I and Iraq and the overall geopolitical situation. According to feedback from the UN during the NORCAP field visit in November 2014, the UN and international
community was taken by surprise and overwhelmed by the
crisis sparked by the IS advance.
NORCAP provided support in 2014, with a total of 10
deployments. NORCAP experts are making significant
contributions towards strengthening the UN and mitigating
human suffering, in their assigned roles within the fields of
camp management, logistics, protection and coordination
and leadership, working for WFP, UNFPA, UN-Habitat,
UNHCR and UNICEF (see insight story page 32).
Given the high levels of violence and conflict, protection and
child protection were defined as important life-saving activities in northern Iraq by the humanitarian community, and issues
that should be at the centre of the humanitarian response.
NORCAP provided support through a child protection officer
to UNICEF, originally deployed to support the Syria response.
However, after the escalation of violence during the summer
of 2014, this expert was moved to support the Dohuk field
office to take full responsibility for the child protection sector
covering the refugee and IDP response mechanism.
Two NORCAP experts are working as supervisors of the
construction of prefabricated houses for IDPs currently
living in tents, unfinished buildings and schools. The aim is
to construct some 1,200 pre-fabricated houses in Dohuk,
Erbil and Sulaymanyah. The Dohuk camp is now completed,
and 300 families have moved in. Over an approximately
three-year time-frame, prefabricated units are expected to
be more cost-effective than traditional tented camps and
provide dignity, better protection against winter weather
and good sanitary conditions to the users.
One deployee has been working as port captain in the
city of Basra, responsible for assisting in the facilitation of
transportation of goods from the main port to beneficiaries
throughout the country. The security situation is a challenge, and NORCAP is following the situation closely.
FIGURE
250 3.6: PERSON-MONTHS PER COUNTRY AND ORGANISATION, MENA
UNICEF
200
UN WOMEN
UNRWA
UN-HABITAT
TIPH
OCHA
150
NRC
LACS
UNHCR
IOM
100
FAO
WFP
UNFPA
UNESCO
50
0 Palestine
30
WHO
NAT.GOVT.
Jordan
Lebanon
Iraq
Syria
Turkey
Libya
Yemen
Israel
Khalaf and his family fled Sinjar and are now living in
Kandala camp, Northern Iraq. Photo: NRC/Tiril Skarstein.
FOCUS AREAS 31
INSIGHT
FROM IRAQ
The rise of IS and their subsequent
progress in the areas of Syria and
Iraq are posing another humanitarian and political challenge to the already fragile region. The large influx
of people in need of assistance has
created a desperate humanitarian
situation and the Kurdistan Regional
Government have called on the international community for support.
NORCAP expert, Niaz Muhammad Awan, is currently
working in the Kurdish Region of Iraq to assist the UNFPA
country office in the establishment of a field reporting
system, both internally for the organisation but also to
government stakeholders and partners. Furthermore, he
is in the process of developing qualitative and quantitative monitoring tools to establish and strengthen UNFPA’s
M&E systems. An important part of his job is to strengthen
the coordination efforts with the health and protection
clusters with a special focus on GBV and reproductive
health, as well as capacity building of colleagues, NGO
staff and government partners.
As women and girls of reproductive age constitutes one
third of the population, work within GBV and reproductive
health is urgently needed. Currently the response is aiming to cover reproductive health and GBV needs
of 840,000 IDPs, host communities and refugees in 12
governorates across Iraq. Lack of professional staff and
limited capacity of existing staff of national organisations
and government agencies is one of the biggest challenges
for quality program delivery. The challenge is minimized
through the regular on-the-job capacity building and
coaching of staff and Niaz is working hard to create an
understanding among staff and partners that M&E should
be an integral part of any programming.
Through Niaz’ monitoring system, UNFPA has adapted its
programmes in northern Iraq to reach the most vulnerable
in the country, ensuring that all 12 governorates get the
services they need. “In any program implemented in the
field, data plays a pivotal role to demonstrate the progress,
identify gaps and bottlenecks and to describe the trends”,
he says. “With the collected data, I have identified the
hotspots where we need to focus more. In Erbil Central
Maternity for example, data show that we have supported
796 assisted deliveries and 292 caesarean operations in
a week alone. This means an average of 1.7 operations
every hour and five deliveries in the same hour. With this
data I have assisted my program colleagues to give more
attention to this facility to ensure the women get the assistance they need, based on evidence provided”.
To improve the response in 2015, it is critical with the
integration of sophisticated modern technologies for response monitoring, reporting and quality control. UNFPA
will be working with NGO and government partners on the
establishment as well as operationalisation of a reporting database, to facilitate easier and improved reporting
systems. The reporting database will not only cover the
information gap but shall also contribute to increased
accountability and improved monitoring, in addition to
streamline services and avoid overlapping activities.
NORCAP deployee Niaz Awan and Dr. Suhair Qudsi at the reproductive health clinic in Baherke camp in Erbil, Iraq.
The camp is established for the Yazidi minority in Sinjar area. Photo: NORCAP.
32
New arrivals of refugees from Syria to Iraq. Photo: NRC/Ingrid Prestetun.
SYRIA RESPONSE
In 2014, the Syrian crisis entered its third year. More than
12.2 million people inside Syria were in need of humanitarian assistance regarding shelter, food, water and medical
services, many of them receiving only sporadic support or
none at all. Continued support from NORCAP was urgently
needed. A total of 41 experts have been supporting the
response, working from Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Syria.
Deployments have been to UNHCR, UNICEF, UNFPA,
WHO, WFP, UN Women and OCHA, with child protection,
GBV, information management, WASH, education and
CCCM as the main areas of support.
A total of four experts have been working within Syria, in the
areas of protection, information management and logistics.
To make possible a humanitarian corridor of goods and supplies to the affected population inside Syria, the UN Security
Council adopted Resolution 2165. The immediate staffing of
the mission mandated to implement this resolution was to be
done partly through expert deployments, such as NORCAP.
Based on available funding, NORCAP deployed experts
who were instrumental in setting up this mission.
Towards the end of 2014, one expert started working with
the child protection Rapid Response Team (RRT), based
in Damascus, as the first child protection coordinator to be
deployed inside Syria after almost three and a half years of
conflict. The RRT has recently finalised the Humanitarian
Needs Overview and the Syria Strategic Response Plan
for 2015. This process brings together, for the first time,
humanitarian actors working from inside Syria and across
borders, jointly planning for 2015 under the Whole of Syria
strategy. Given the complexity of the context, the process is
driven by coordination efforts aimed at bridging the gap in
communication and achieving a better-coordinated response,
as well as building trust and confidence among the various
humanitarian actors working from inside Syria and across
borders. With the support of the protection sector and the
sub-working group, this NORCAP expert has managed to
enhance the visibility of child protection needs and priorities
in the Syria Humanitarian Needs Overview and the Strategic
Response Plan for 2015, reflecting a robust analysis of the
situation and having, for the first time, a specific objective
focused on child protection.
In 2014, NORCAP also supported an expert to UNFPA
in Damascus to run the GBV sub-cluster in Syria to
address, in inter-agency manner, the GBV response and
prevention inside Syria.
FOCUS AREAS 33
ASIA
THE PHILIPPINES
Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda hit central parts of the Philippines
on 8 November 2013, causing huge damage to lives, livelihoods and infrastructure. Government estimates indicated
that approximately 13 million people were affected, including over 4.4 million displaced. The international community
answered by setting up a massive emergency programme
and NRC responded to this by deploying many experts to
support the UN. In the early days of the crisis, deployees
provided much-needed logistical support, like warehouse
management and air operations for WFP, but later the support expanded into many other areas, including protection,
health, nutrition, water and sanitation, shelter, education,
gender issues, information management and coordination.
The Philippines have a history of long-term development
programmes. However, when the disaster hit, it became
evident that it would be difficult to merge existing development programmes with the humanitarian intervention.
Furthermore, as this is a country frequently hit by natural
disasters, it is important to strengthen preparedness and
disaster risk reduction work on all levels. One obstacle
during the first phase of the response was the large influx of
UN staff staying for only short periods, creating disruptions
in programme delivery.
In 2014, 24 NORCAP experts were deployed to the Philippines for OCHA, UNFPA, UNDP, UN-Habitat, UNHCR,
UNICEF, WFP and WHO. Many deployees provided
logistical support, but expertise was also provided within
the areas of health, education, communications, protection,
coordination and leadership and information management.
More than six months after the typhoon, UN agencies reported that needs were still great, and the focus should be on
longer-term assistance to support self-recovery.
NORCAP deployed a senior public information officer
who took the lead in strategy, planning, development and
implementation of the large and complex communications
campaign. Another NORCAP expert was deployed to the
Western Leyte district as a senior protection officer. Due to
his work in the area, a group of IDPs from Mindanao were
given a plot of land to rebuild their village, instead of being
relocated against their will.
FIGURE 3.7: PERSON-MONTHS PER COUNTRY AND ORGANISATION, ASIA
100
WFP
UNICEF
UNHCR
UN-HABITAT
80
UNFPA
UNESCO
UNDP
60
REGIONAL
OCHA
NAT.GOVT.
40
IMT
FAO
WHO
20
0
34
Philippines Pakistan Afghanistan Myanmar Thailand
Samoa
Sri Lanka
Nepal
«
It is a real added value to WFP to be able to count upon NORCAP for the right expertise at the right
time and place – the experts are able to hit the ground running, they come fully prepared and are flexible.
WFP is not able to have these types of experts on full time contracts, but need them when situations like
Yolanda occur. It reduces the transaction costs for an organisation like us to have this capacity at hand
all the time, and bring them on at times when required. It enables WFP to scale up and back down as
needed. It also keeps the experts motivated 100 % - they do that one task that they are asked to do.
They also bring invaluable support and skills that WFP needs. The support is timely, very much to the
point and they are self-sufficient. They have a high degree of professionalism; it empowers the people
they work with. They bring with them business norms from outside that benefit WFP and they leave
behind knowledge, lessons learned and business knowledge, that WFP adheres to.
»
PRAVEEN AGRAWAL
WFP Representative, Philippines
MYANMAR
Myanmar is vulnerable to a wide range of natural disasters
and is among the most-at-risk countries in the Asia-Pacific
region. In addition to the exposure to natural hazards
and high levels of poverty in the country, there are areas
in Myanmar facing conflict and civil unrest, resulting in
hundreds of thousands of people displaced. Access has
remained a challenge.
In 2014, NORCAP deployed nine experts in the fields of
protection, WASH, camp management, communications and statistics, to UNICEF, UNHCR and UNESCO.
NORCAP is committed to supporting UNESCO with communication specialists working on coordination of country
implementation of the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of
Journalists. In addition to Pakistan and South Sudan,
NORCAP deployed three experts to UNESCO in Myanmar
for this purpose. These experts have contributed to the
improvement of democratisation processes that respect
freedom of expression and freedom of information as
important pillars; capacity-building through lectures; and
building an ethnic media network to strengthen ethnic
voices. Other experts have provided support in information
management, protection, engineering, and coordination and
leadership.
Furthermore, 2014 saw an increase in overall humanitarian
needs in Rakhine, Kachin and northern Shan states in
Myanmar, where a series of renewed conflicts resulted in
new displacements. NORCAP has deployed cluster coordinators to the UNHCR in these states to run the Shelter/
NFI and CCCM cluster, working with the authorities and the
host community, and liaising with the humanitarian community regarding camp needs. The coordinators have worked
to implement international standards and to ensure effective
distribution, protection in camp settings, durable solutions,
community participation and capacity development of all
stakeholders. This NORCAP assistance is a continuation of
the strong support provided to ensure effective clusters in
the Myanmar response.
FOCUS AREAS 35
EUROPE
UKRAINE
Since February 2014, an ongoing conflict between Ukraine
and Russian separatists has affected around five million
people in the two eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
There has been a gradual deterioration in the humanitarian
situation, exacerbating the vulnerability and the needs of
the affected population. Basic life-supporting services have
been disrupted; electricity, housing, infrastructure and water
supply services have been damaged. The affected population
urgently need support within the areas of shelter, health care
and protection. The volatile security situation poses challenges to the delivery of humanitarian assistance as well as
efficient coordination, given the fragmented political setting.
A total of four experts were deployed to Ukraine in 2014,
in the fields of engineering, education, WASH and social
affairs and livelihood (see insight story page 37). One
education-in-emergencies specialist has been working
Bombed house in Ukraine. Photo: NORCAP/Øyvind Wistrøm.
36
for UNICEF to support the implementation of an effective
education response to the current crisis, including setting
up education facilities for the more than 200,000 internally
displaced children and youth in Ukraine. Many of the 203
school buildings within the government-controlled areas
of northern Donetsk and Luhansk regions that were destroyed during the course of the conflict remain damaged
and in urgent need of winterisation.
In addition, one roster member was deployed to WFP
as food security sector coordinator. WFP, as one of the
global food security cluster co-leads, is the lead agency
for the food security sector in Ukraine. The deployed roster
member contributed to ensuring transparent, well-informed
and coordinated implementation of food security related
interventions for those affected by the ongoing humanitarian
emergency in eastern Ukraine.
INSIGHT FROM
UKRAINE
As a result of the ongoing hostilities
between armed groups and government forces, hundreds of thousands
of Ukrainians have been forced to
flee from their homes. The violence in
the eastern part of the country, in the
Donetsk and Luhansk regions, has increased in scale from May to September 2014, leading to 840,000 people
being registered as IDPs by the Ministry of Social Policy by the end of the
year. The armed conflict has led to the
destruction of water, sanitation and
power infrastructure in certain parts
of the country, which is a serious
threat to the health and wellbeing of
the people served by the centralized
water supply system in and around
Donetsk and Luhansk.
he has worked tirelessly to mobilise resources for WASH
needs, in addition to building the capacity of WASH
cluster partners. With his support, the WASH cluster has
developed a response plan for 500,000 people in eastern
Ukraine, and as of end 2014, the WASH cluster has
reached around 60,000 people with safe drinking water,
sanitation and WASH facilities.
According to Noor, the main challenge has been to get access to the people in need due to the volatile security situation. In addition, many UN agencies have limited financial and
human resources and they work with national cluster partners
who do not have any previous emergency experience.
Still, he is pleased that UNICEF, with the involvement of
local authorities and the mobilisation of local NGOs, managed to reach the affected people in the non-government
controlled areas and at the frontline where fighting is continuing between the Ukrainian Army and the rebel groups.
When asked about the way forward, Noor stresses that
humanitarian space should be provided on both sides of the
conflict, including in Ukrainian government controlled areas
and in non-governmental controlled areas. For the UN agencies to reach the most vulnerable people, a lasting ceasefire
is vital. Without this, it is almost impossible for the UN to
deliver services to the people in greatest need. For 2015,
more deployed personnel are also required, in the fields of
WASH, education and nutrition, to name a few.
Due to the crisis, WASH support was urgently needed
to ensure sector coordination to provide an effective and
coherent response and to establish a more systematic
and long-term WASH approach that could respond to the
needs of the affected population.
NORCAP deployed a WASH manager, Prem Chan, in the
beginning of October 2014 to support the implementation
of an emergency WASH response as well as establishing a leadership in the WASH sector coordination. Prem
focused on planning and strategic support to the host
organisation with specific outcomes such as a Humanitarian Needs Overview document for the WASH sector in
Ukraine highlighting the needs and issues for strategic
response planning in 2015. Prem was later replaced by
another NORCAP expert, Noor Bakhsh, who has taken
over the implementing work and provided continuity to the
activities Prem started.
Noor has led the WASH cluster at country level, as well as
the WASH sector assessment, to ensure that a well-coordinated response plan was developed accordingly.
An important part of his work has been to coordinate with
government stakeholders, to ensure that the affected
population receive the support they need. Furthermore,
NORCAP WASH expert, Noor Bakhsh, leading a WASH cluster
meeting in Ukraine. Photo: NORCAP.
FOCUS AREAS 37
4.2
DEVELOPING NATIONAL CAPACITY
Through strategy and mapping work conducted in 2014, NORCAP’s national
capacity project has been redefined. It was determined that it was neither viable
nor desirable to continue with a standalone deployment project for developing national capacity independently from NORCAP’s existing capacity development activities. National capacity development activities are instead to be
mainstreamed as a strategic approach in 2015 within three priority focus areas:
education, disaster risk reduction and crisis response.
Building on pilot work carried out in 2013, NORCAP
continued its deployments to Lebanon, Pakistan and South
Sudan during 2014. Deployments to the Ministry of Social
Affairs in Lebanon were resumed after being suspended
in late 2013, and one expert has been supporting the Lebanese government with the Syria refugee response.
The 2014 NORCAP Annual Plan highlighted a new
two-year project (2014–15) for achieving a more strategically led and longer-term approach to developing national
capacities via the NORCAP mechanism. The project was
set up as a standalone initiative aimed at supporting the
authorities in fragile states through various capacity development initiatives in order to help them build peace and
strengthen resilience.
The first year of the project period was used to scope and
agree on a strategic approach to NORCAP’s work in developing national capacity. It was decided to focus on three
main thematic areas: education, disaster risk reduction and
crisis response, where national capacity development will be
mainstreamed as a strategic approach. Concretely, NORCAP will develop detailed operational plans on education
and DRR which specify national capacity development as
their objective. Existing operational partnerships with mandated UN agencies will need to be further developed to take
this objective into account and ensure that future NORCAP
direct deployments to governments support their largerscale programming on national capacity development.
In formal terms the target in the 2014 Annual Plan for deployments to six countries under this project proved overambitious, and the project has now been redefined. The
project process has had an important operational outcome:
NORCAP will take a more strategic approach to using the
deployment mechanism as an instrument for developing
national capacity in fragile states. This new approach, with
national capacity development at its core, will be operationalised from 2015 onwards.
A school in the Behsud District of Nangarhar province, just outside the provincial capital, Jalalabad. The school caters for internally
displaced children, most of whom have returned from Pakistan after years as refugees. The majority are from families originally from Kunar
province but due to ongoing conflict there are unable to return. Photo: NRC/Andrew Quilty.
38
4.3
DISASTER RISK REDUCTION AND CLIMATE
CHANGE ADAPTATION
NORCAP has for many years deployed experts to build resilience by strengthening the capacities of individuals, communities and countries to prevent, manage
and recover from crises such as natural disasters and conflicts. Under the broad
umbrella of disaster risk reduction/management (DRR/M) and climate change
adaptation, NORCAP has been experiencing a continuous demand for experts.
Developing new partnerships with relevant international, regional and national
stakeholders is an important component of this work.
The UN High-Level Committee on Programmes developed
a UN Action Plan on Disaster Risk Reduction for Resilience
in 2013. All UN organisations now have a DRR strategy, but
there is a need to speed up the implementation process,
and also to ensure collaboration with national authorities in
disaster-prone countries.
During 2014, NORCAP contributed to accelerating this work
through the deployment of 14 DRR/M experts to various UN
organisations and national stakeholders. In Nepal, Chad, Jordan and the Philippines, experts have worked to mainstream
DRR and provide system-wide substantive leadership for effective coordination of resilience-building efforts. When Chile
was hit by an earthquake on 1 April, the NORCAP member
deployed as DRR and education expert to UNESCO immediately carried out a rapid survey to assess possible damage,
in collaboration with the local authorities. With support from
NORCAP, UNESCO has undertaken significant work on
Education for Tsunami Preparedness, and post-earthquake
reports indicate that disaster preparedness and mitigation
strategies have significantly improved since the 2010 tsunami.
NORCAP has also been deploying expertise to governments
in support of policy development for DRR/M and resilience
building in Pakistan, Kenya, South Sudan and Thailand.
Strengthening national and regional climate services is
essential to reduce the risks and impacts of droughts and
other hazardous weather events for farmers, pastoralists
and other vulnerable groups. During 2014, NORCAP
developed a new initiative to contribute to strengthening
climate services in order to make disaster-prone countries
more resilient to hydro-meteorological hazards. A new
partnership has been initiated with the Global Framework
for Climate Services (GFCS) and the World Meteorological
Organization (WMO) to support capacity-building efforts
in climate services and the roll-out of the GFCS through
expert deployments to countries with identified needs.
One senior DRR/CCA specialist has been deployed as subregional coordinator in the Sahel to assisting in implementing
GFCS, with an initial focus on Niger and Burkina Faso (see
insight story page 40). Meteorologists have been recruited to
NORCAP and plans are being made for recruitment of additional expertise, including in hydrology, in early 2015. A partnership has also been initiated with the Norwegian Meteorological
Institute and the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy
Directorate for the provision of needed technical expertise
through the NORCAP roster. NORCAP has also entered into
collaboration with the Nansen Initiative for the deployment of
DRR expertise into institutions tasked with following up the
recommendations of the regional consultations of the Nansen
Initiative. In 2014 NORCAP supported the Nansen Initiative
with deployments to Samoa, Costa Rica and the Philippines.
NORCAP has organised one high-level, inter-agency meeting
in the DRMCAP 6 Consultative Forum hosted by the Special
Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, to provide input to
the overall strategic direction.
The Global Framework for Climate Services
(GFCS) is a UN-led initiative established by the
World Climate Conference-3 in 2009 and managed
by an office based at WMO headquarters in Geneva. The GFCS vision is to enable societies to better manage the risks and opportunities arising from
climate variability and change, especially those most
vulnerable to such risks. This will be done through
the development and incorporation of science-based
climate information and prediction into planning,
policy and practice. GFCS has four initial focus sectors: Disaster Risk Reduction, agriculture and food
security, water management, and health.
Source: www.wmo.int
(6) The Disaster Risk Management Standing Capacity (DRMCAP) is a project managed by NORCAP at the Norwegian Refugee Council. Through this project, DRM experts are deployed to support
the efforts of national disaster management authorities and UN Country Teams to implement comprehensive, multi-stakeholder disaster risk management programmes. The project is
being guided by an inter-agency Consultative Forum comprised of NRC, UNISDR, FAO, UNICEF, UNDP, OCHA, UNHCR, UNESCO, UN-HABITAT, MSB, DFID and SDC. This Forum convenes
twice a year and provides oversight of the project, in addition to being a unique arena for important DRM actors to discuss global priorities.
FOCUS AREAS 39
INSIGHT
FROM THE
SAHEL REGION
- SAVING LIVES
WITH CLIMATE
AND WEATHER
SERVICES
Youcef Ait Chellouche is NORCAP’s
first climate risk management specialist, who is now deployed to the Food
and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)
in Dakar, Senegal where he acts as
programme coordinator for the Global Framework for Climate Services
(GFCS) in the Sahel Region.
“In many cases, we have the information about climate
and weather, but we are not able to disseminate this to
communities in a way that is useful for them. Even if they
understand what will happen and what to do, they do not
have the resources to take early action to avoid disaster
impacts or failed crops.” As an example, Youcef mentions the last wet season in Senegal where the first rains
were followed by 20 days of drought. Farmers, who had
hurried to plant their crops, now saw the seeds rotting
in the ground. Many of them did not have resources to
plant again when the rains finally came.” The information
about the false start of the rainy season could have been
provided by the meteorological services, but there was
no functional system to disseminate the information to the
people who needed it,” he says.
vulnerability of people and communities in the Sahel. But
today, we are still more or less at the same level. One of
the reasons is that every time we develop a new project,
external consultants are taken on-board because the
capacity of the authorities is too weak. When the project
ends, the consultants take their knowledge with them
and leave the governments almost as weak as they were
before. This cycle is repeated for project two and three,
and so forth.” The five governments in the Sahel, including
Senegal, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Mauretania, have
now created a group (G5) and a Permanent Ministerial
Council with whom Youcef will work closely through UN
regional mechanisms.
Weather and climate services have for a long time been
dominated by the needs of civil aviation and defence.
Youcef wants to develop new partnerships that will benefit
other parts of society, such as agriculture, water resource
management, health, transport and communication.
Youcef also sees an important role for women in these new
initiatives. In Sahel, 96 per cent of farmed land is rain-fed,
meaning that they are absolutely reliant on the climatic
conditions. These are mostly family agriculture, where 78
per cent of the work is done by women. Improving climate
services thus has a strong gender component, contributing to give women more free time and status. “By providing
farmers with correct and useable information about weather
and climate we can help women do their job more effectively and increase the value of their work,” says Youcef.
Youcef has worked at the community level on risk reduction and improvement of livelihood production. He provided
support to regional institutions and government on DRM
policies and strategies. With the current deployment, he
also realised that there was a need to empower governments and make them responsible and capable of providing
solutions. Time has come to make things happen:
“For 40 years, the international community and humanitarian organisations have been involved in improving the
40
NORCAP’s climate risk specialist, Youcef Ait Chellouche.
Photo: NORCAP/Andreas Stensland.
4.4
PROMOTING CIVILIAN CAPACITY IN PEACE
INITIATIVES
In line with NORCAP’s annual plan and expected strategic results, NORCAP
continues to support civilian peace stabilisation efforts in Hebron (Palestine)
and Mindanao (Philippines), in addition to providing support to the AU Rapid
Secondment Mechanism.
At the request of the NMFA, the Norwegian Standby Roster
for Civilian Observers (NOROBS), a NORCAP sub-roster,
deploys personnel to 15 positions in the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH). The purpose of TIPH is
to promote stability in the city of Hebron. Relations between
the parties to the conflict have deteriorated in many parts of
the West Bank, including Hebron. However, according to
NORCAP observers, the presence of TIPH has had a stabilising effect on the crisis in the observer mission’s area of
operation, and the mandate has been renewed. NOROBS
is also deploying personnel for two posts in the International
Monitoring Team in Mindanao (IMT).
In addition, three experts have been deployed to the
IGAD Transitional Support Unit, which provides technical support to the negotiations between Sudan and
South Sudan, in addition to the national negotiations in
South Sudan. At the request of the NMFA, NORCAP is
planning to deploy two staff to the IGAD Monitoring and
Verification Mission – a monitoring mechanism agreed
in the South–South ceasefire agreement, and based in
Juba, South Sudan.
NORCAP is also providing support to the AU Rapid
Secondment Mechanism, implemented in partnership with
the AU Peace Support Operations Division. Nine experts
were on mission during 2014, while recruitment is underway for one more expert, the last of the ten AU requests to
date. Since its inception, the mechanism has led to greater
awareness in the AU of the importance of civilian personnel. in peacebuilding and peace support operations.
Efforts are made to ensure that impact is achieved not only
through personal presence, but through the establishment
of systems, procedures and partnerships. These have been
designed to develop the organisation and ensure sustainability beyond the individual deployment or staff member.
In addition, through mobilisation of resources, the establishment of staffing partnerships, and the recruitment of
personnel at the level of the AU and the regions, the civilian
capacities agenda has now become relatively institutionalised on the African continent. This includes multi-dimensional
planning and management processes, deployment of civilian
personnel to AU field operations (Somalia, Mali and CAR).
In relation to the protection of civilians (PoC), an AU PoC
agenda has been established, policy frameworks developed
and operational guidelines issued. At the end of 2014, all AU
operations (except for African Union Mission to Somalia) had
PoC as an explicit part of their mandate and all operations
had approved mission-wide PoC strategies.
To further develop the NOROBS concept and roster to
meet future needs for a broader range of civilian expertise
based on past experience and anticipated future needs, a
review of NOROBS has been underway since late 2013,
and a concept note has been shared with the NMFA. The
concept note has been well received, and a full project
proposal will be submitted in early 2015.
FOCUS AREAS 41
4.5
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND
DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE
In an effort to contribute to bridging the gap between humanitarian response
and long-term recovery and development, NRC is constantly working to improve its work in the transition phase, through early recovery, working towards
sustainable development.
Early recovery is defined as recovery that begins early in
a humanitarian setting. It is a multi-dimensional process,
guided by development principles, and aims to generate
self-sustaining, nationally owned and resilient processes for
post-crisis recovery. Early recovery encompasses the restoration of basic services, livelihoods, shelter, governance,
security and the rule of law, environment and social dimensions, including the reintegration of displaced populations.
It stabilises human security and addresses underlying risks
that contributed to the crisis.7
In 2014, NORCAP strived to increase its support to
UNESCO, UNFPA, FAO, UN-Habitat and IOM under the
broad early recovery and sustainable development agenda.
This includes deployments to reinforce UNESCO’s efforts to
strengthen its programme on journalist protection. Five experts
have been deployed to Myanmar, Pakistan and South Sudan,
countries where freedom of speech is limited, and journalist
protection lacking. Important work has been done on educating journalists, as well as developing policies and legislation to
improve journalists’ working environment and safety.
Furthermore, NORCAP supported UN-Habitat’s housing, land
and property (HLP) work, with two NORCAP experts to the
Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan. Protection
is the backbone of NRC’s work, and the organisation is con-
Displaced children at an United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) base in Juba. Many people were displaced following
the internal conflict in South Sudan that began in December 2013. Photo credit: NRC/Christian Jepsen.
(7) From www.humanitarianresponse.info.
42
stantly striving to strengthen partners’ protection capacity to
ensure that partners and populations have increased access
to protection in selected areas. The aim of the HLP work is to
strengthen durable solutions for displaced populations and for
states, to enable recovery from a crisis. This important work
will continue in 2015.
In addition, NORCAP is providing support in the area of
sexual and reproductive health (SRH), through UNFPA in an
inter-agency approach. Late 2014, NORCAP deployed SRH
experts to Liberia for the Ebola response, as one saw that the
effects of the viral disease had reversed positive developments
in maternal health in the war torn country.
When UN partners seek standby partners’ help to strengthen
these kinds of development and governance programmes,
NORCAP regards its ability to recruit and deploy experts with
relevant competencies a considerable asset. While varied in
nature, the deployment projects represent important initiatives
aimed at fulfilling the breadth of NORCAP’s mandate.
NORCAP has for years worked on livelihood support, as
this is vital to ensure sustainable development for a country
coming out of a crisis or natural disaster. With improvements
in the security and food security situation in south-central
Somalia, IOM is shifting its focus from life-saving, humanitarian
assistance to transitional livelihood assistance. The livelihood
programme targets IDPs who are returning to villages of origin
and reintegrating into host communities, drought affected pastoral and agro-pastoral communities, returning refugees from
neighbouring countries and migrants returning from abroad,
in addition to capacity building of the government on service
delivery and DRR.
Many of the education experts that NORCAP deploys to both
conflict and rapid onset natural disasters, work on the longer
term planning and delivery. Ensuring quality education and system building at the very onset of the humanitarian response,
focusing on capacity development of local teachers and
government counterparts is vital for a sustainable approach.
One NORCAP expert deployed to UNDP Somalia in 2014
worked on youth programming, targeting youth at risk and
youth involved in armed conflict through provision of social
rehabilitation skills to move towards economic integration and
improved opportunities for livelihood. The expert will continue
the work with conflict education and peace building by providing support to the safe schools initiative by UNICEF in the
Boko Harem controlled areas in Nigeria (Borno).
MAKING EACH PERSON COUNT
– COOPERATION WITH STATISTICS
NORWAY (SSB)
In collaboration with the NRC, SSB and UN
agencies such as UNHCR/JIPS, UNFPA and
WFP, NORCAP deployed personnel to various
operations and countries in 2014.
NORCAP deployed a number of experts to assist UNHCR with profiling exercises. The main
objective of these exercises is to analyse baseline
data underlying advocacy and programmatic
responses. Identifying, measuring and profiling
persons and groups of concern – such as IDPs,
refugees, asylum-seekers and stateless people
– has become a pressing and increasing need,
for governments as well as for humanitarian and
development actors. The lack of reliable and
updated demographic information is an obstacle
to the planning, implementation and monitoring
of assistance, strategies and policies required
to support these groups. UNHCR recognises
that determining, in an evidence-based manner,
the ‘end of displacement’ or progress towards
achieving durable solutions in many contexts of
internal displacement is challenging. NORCAP, in
cooperation with SSB, has deployed personnel
to UNHCR and the Joint IDP Profiling Service
(JIPS), in DRC, Kosovo and Myanmar.
The civil war in Somalia left the statistical capacities of the various government authorities in disarray. A Population Estimation Survey for Somalia
project was set up to provide acceptable nationwide estimates of the population. Through the
deployment of NORCAP experts to UNFPA, in
collaboration with the SSB, a population estimate
has been produced for the first time since the last
survey in 1975.
Furthermore, NORCAP has deployed experts to
WFP regionally in Rome and in Bangkok, working
on food security analysis, supporting 60 countries globally.
FOCUS AREAS 43
5
IDP settlement in Hamdard, near
Maazar, in the north of Afghanistan.
Photo: Laurie Wiseberg.
OTHER STANDBY
ROSTERS
This chapter presents five specialised NRC Expert Deployment
projects that supplement NORCAP’s activities.
5. OTHER STANDBY ROSTERS
In collaboration with UN and other partners, the Expert Deployment Department of
the NRC manages five additional rosters. These rosters provide high-level support
to the UN through specialised expertise in the areas of protection, gender issues,
needs assessment, mediation and camp management and camp coordination.
5.1
PROCAP
The Protection Standby Capacity Project (ProCap) was created in 2005 to build the capacity of relevant actors to enhance the humanitarian protection response. This is an inter-agency UN project
with an inter-agency steering committee and a support unit in OCHA, while NRC is responsible for
expert recruitment, training and deployment.
ProCap seeks to deploy senior protection experts to
countries and offices where the needs are greatest. An
increasing number of deployments provide policy support
to national governments. At the core of the experts’ work is
mainstreaming initiatives on the ground to improve the quality of the humanitarian protection response.
In 2014, ProCap experts went on 15 missions in 11 countries, amounting to a total of 104 person-months for the traditional deployments. Out of these, 84 person-months were
in the field, while 20 were Geneva-based with frequent
travels to the field. Most support has gone to L3 crises in
the Philippines and the Middle East. ProCap deployees
have provided expertise within the fields of international
humanitarian law, human rights, durable solutions and child
protection; they work in all phases of emergencies, includ-
5.2
ing contexts of protracted crises. In 2014, ProCap established coordination mechanisms for protection in Turkey for
the Syrian cross-border response, and has been a key actor
in building protection capacities for local Syrian NGOs. In
Burundi, a ProCap expert has contributed to the integration
of displaced people into local communities, and established
partnerships with untraditional partners like the World Bank
to create livelihood revenues.
NRC arranged four ProCap trainings in 2014, in English
and in French. One of the trainings focused on the Syrian
context, providing an opportunity for experts to discuss
challenges, lessons learned and recommendations for
continued intervention in this complex and protracted
emergency setting.
GENCAP
The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Gender Standby Capacity Project (GenCap) was created in 2007 to facilitate and strengthen capacity and leadership of humanitarians to undertake and
promote gender equality programming. This was done to ensure that the distinct needs of human
beings – women, girls, boys and men – of all ages are taken into account in humanitarian action at
global, regional, and country levels.
Similar to ProCap, GenCap is a UN inter-agency project
with an inter-agency steering committee and a support
unit in OCHA, while NRC is the roster manager. GenCap experts are deployed to improve the gender aspects
of humanitarian work, and provide expertise on gender
46
mainstreaming and gender-based violence (GBV). In 2014,
a deployment to the Philippines served as the catalyst for
establishing a gender network to ensure enhanced collaboration between the UN and NGOs. In Yemen, the GenCap
expert has supported the roll-out of an IDP policy authored
by a ProCap expert in 2013, illustrating valuable synergies
between the two projects. An important aspect of GenCap
experts’ work involves using their field experience in outreach
and advocacy efforts. They have succeeded in raising the
awareness of gender, specifically by identifying gaps and
including context analysis in UN country strategies.
5.3
In 2014, GenCap experts carried out 36 missions in 14
countries, totalling 135 person-months. Out of these, 17 focused on GBV. Out of the total, 102 of the person-months
were in the field, while 33 person-months were based in
UN headquarters in Geneva, with regular travels to the field.
In addition, NRC piloted a training programme – Gender in
Humanitarian Action – focusing on the Middle East region.
ACAPS
The Assessment Capacities Project (ACAPS) was established in 2009 to strengthen coordinated humanitarian needs assessments before, during and after crises. This is done through
independent analysis of humanitarian crises to support evidence-based decision-making for
humanitarian operations; capacity development of humanitarian actors; development and provision of methodological tools; and deployment of experts to support assessments in crisis.
The ACAPS roster – consisting of 48 assessments experts
and senior analysts – is an essential element of ACAPS,
which has its operating headquarters in Geneva and is
administered by the NRC in Oslo. In the course of 2014,
ACAPS’ members engaged in a total of 18 deployments,
amounting to 61 person-months in 11 different contexts.
impacts of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. The Ebola
Needs Analysis Project aims to provide a comprehensive
and independent picture of the outbreak’s humanitarian
multi-sector impact on affected populations, with analysts
on the ground providing validated information to a team of
analysts in Geneva.
During the early part of 2014, ACAPS’ deployments were
geared towards the crises in CAR, South Sudan and the
Philippines. The second half of 2014 began with the rapid
deterioration of the situation in Iraq, where ACAPS quickly
established an in-country presence to provide data analysis
and assessment expertise, and produced several briefing notes on the Humanitarian Implications of Violence in
northern and central parts of Iraq. In September, ACAPS
launched a project for better analysis of the humanitarian
ACAPS continued its response to the Syria crisis through
the Syria Needs Analysis Project project. The project has
grown to include 13 full-time staff in Lebanon, Jordan and
Turkey, and continues to strengthen the shared situation
awareness among actors. Publications include several
thematic reports and scenarios in addition to the quarterly,
regional analysis for Syria reports and the monthly brief
supplements.
OTHER STANDY ROSTERS 47
5.4
STANDBY TEAM OF MEDIATION EXPERTS
The Standby Team of Mediation experts (SBT) is a specialised resource established in 2008, as a
service of the Mediation Support Unit (MSU) of the UN Department of Political Affairs. The team
can be rapidly deployed to the field on a temporary basis to provide technical advice to UN and
country officials and other partners involved in mediation and conflict-prevention efforts.
The SBT is managed jointly by the MSU and the NRC and
enables rapid deployment of high-level experts on powersharing, constitution drafting, security arrangements, gender and social inclusion, and natural resources to the UN
and UN-supported mediation processes worldwide. The
support is flexible and pragmatic and can be adapted to the
needs and demands of a particular situation. For example,
team members may provide advice and lead workshops
on procedural and agenda-setting issues in mediation
processes. They may also analyse the position of parties in
negotiations, draft peace agreements and provide overall
technical assistance.
In 2014, the SBT’s sixth year of operation, the team consisted of eight experts employed on a full-time basis. The
experts carried out 99 assignments in 26 countries. Among
the highlights from the year is the longstanding support to
the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and
the President of Yemen, where the SBT continues its support to the constitutional process. Another important longstanding commitment has been given to Somalia, where
the tensions between the President and the Prime Minister
continue to simmer. With the process of constitutional
review taking off in 2015, this will be an important area
for mediation. Further, two key reconciliation policies for
the Transitional Government of CAR have been designed
by two of the mediation experts: a national reconciliation
strategy, and an urgent action plan on reconciliation. Both
were officially adopted by the Ministry of Reconciliation and
Communication and remain the official policy of the Transitional Government of CAR in 2014.The SBT also provided
technical support to the Syria talks held in Geneva in January 2014; support has continued through participation in
the high-level meetings on Syria held in Geneva throughout
the year.
When not deployed in the field, SBT members are on
permanent standby, carrying out research and coordinating
reviews of best practices in their areas of expertise. The
team members are also responsible for producing operational guidance notes and training materials. The innovative support structure of the SBT has provided additional
visibility and recognition of the UN as a peacemaker, and
has sensitised and enriched the UN Department of Political Affairs with knowledge of mediation processes. In this
way, the SBT continues to challenge and support the UN’s
management of mediation processes.
Kabo in the northern part of the Central African Republic, close to the Chadian border. Photo: NRC/Vincent Tremeau.
48
5.5
CAMP COORDINATION AND CAMP
MANAGEMENT
The NRC partnership with the Global Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM)
Cluster, co-led by IOM and UNHCR, started in 2012 as a consequence of NRC’s programmatic
phase-out of camp management programmes in 2011. The CCCM Cap is funded by ECHO with
the Global CCCM Cluster 2013–2015, and managed and administrated by NRC.
CCCM Cap is a sub-roster of NORCAP, consisting of
150 CCCM experts. Roster profiles range from general
CCCM capacity experts to more specialised profiles such
as site planners, shelter experts, urban planners and cluster
coordinators. In 2014, CCCM Cap experts went on 71
missions, providing coordination expertise and technical
support to cluster operations, totalling 430 person-months.
In addition, the 95 registered trainers and capacity-development experts were deployed to more than 20 missions to
hold trainings and trainings of trainers.
The project consists of four main pillars: rapid response
teams, capacity-building, tools development, and technical
deployments. In 2014, a fifth pillar was added: urban displacement and out of camp. Broader global cooperation has
been established with more agencies and NGOs, including
OCHA, UNDP, ICRC, UN-Habitat and ALNAP, as well as
academic partners such as Oxford Brookes University, London School of Economics, the FAFO Research Foundation
and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.
Through the project ‘Enhancing coordination of camp management and camp coordination interventions in emergencies’, the CCCM cluster is working to strengthen coordination and response among its cluster partners, UNHCR,
IOM and NRC. The cluster has been actively engaged in
updating CCCM tools, information management systems,
training packages and improving cluster surge response capacity. The main activities of the ECHO-funded project will
lead to the development of new practices and approaches
to improve the understanding of and response to multiple
and preventable displacement situations.
The CCCM cluster is now the global body responsible for
defining and developing approaches to IDP camp management in this sector. The NRC plays an important coordination role here. Currently, CCCM is one of the most soughtafter rosters, and the work undertaken by CCCM experts
in camp management and camp coordination, also in urban
settings, has proven very successful.
Hans Christen Knævelsrud working on camp
management for UNHCR in Zaatari Camp in
Jordan. Photo: NRC/Christian Jepsen.
OTHER STANDY ROSTERS 49
6
NORCAP deployee WASH officer
Stanislaus Kamwaga supporting
and coordinating hand pump
rehabilitation activities in Tukei
village, Unity State, South Sudan.
Photo: NORCAP.
ROSTER
DEVELOPMENT
This chapter reports on developments within recruitment,
competence building, staff care and communication
6. ROSTER DEVELOPMENT
For NORCAP to maintain its position as a responsive and trustworthy strategic partner to key stakeholders, the recruitment of highly qualified and motivated roster
members is central. Through close dialogue and cooperation with partners, NORCAP
has been able to track humanitarian trends in a way that has enabled the department to proactively recruit experts within areas of high demand. In addition, competence development and staff care are important focal areas for NORCAP, to develop
roster members’ expertise and to ensure their well-being.
6.1
RECRUITMENT
In recent years, the number of recruited roster members
has declined, while the size of the roster has remained fairly
stable. This indicates that the roster members are becoming more loyal, retained by and committed to NORCAP
for longer periods. This trend correlates well with the
increased emphasis on staff care initiatives, including a
greater focus on recruiting the right person. Recruitment
rounds now target specific profiles, resulting in fewer but
highly qualified candidates. In 2014, NORCAP recruited a
total of 77 new roster members.
Gender balance is important for NORCAP; in 2014, 45 per
cent of new roster members were women. However, 59 per
cent of NORCAP’s female roster members come from Western
countries: of the total new recruitment from the Global South,
only 32 per cent were women. Despite having achieved a good
overall gender balance, NORCAP needs to continue to work
on attracting female candidates from the Global South.
The strategic partnerships NORCAP established with
Norwegian organisations in 2013 were further developed
and candidates from both Statistics Norway and the
Norwegian Institute of Public Health were admitted to the
roster in 2014. New partnerships initiated in 2014 include
the Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities network, the Norwegian Directorate of Health, the Norwegian
Meteorological Institute, the Norwegian Water Resources
and Energy Directorate, the World Meteorological Organisation and the Global Framework for Climate Services.
Through the new partnership with the Norwegian Directorate of Health, NORCAP has recruited Norwegian health
workers to assist Norway’s response to the Ebola crisis.
On another front, to support the Global Framework for
Climate Services and the World Meteorological Organisation, NORCAP has also recruited meteorologists. These
recruitments lie within thematic areas that NORCAP had
not recruited to previously, and show how the NORCAP
recruitment method is robust and adaptable for responding
to recruitment needs.
TABLE 6.1: NUMBER OF NEW MEMBERS BY REGION
52
Norway
Africa
America
Asia
Europe Middle East
Pacific
Total
Female13
12
4
0
4
1
1
35
Male9
18
3
8
1
1
2
42
Total22
30
7
8
5
2
3
77
6.2
COMPETENCE
DEVELOPMENT
TABLE 6.2 RECRUITMENT BY AREA OF EXPERTISE
Category of Expertise
Training and monitoring
No. of Recruits
12
Protection11
To ensure that roster members stay updated on practical and theoretical skills and new trends in humanitarian
response, NORCAP has made competence development a
key priority, following up with targeted selections to internal
and external training activities. In 2014, 118 NORCAP
members were accepted for participation in 24 trainings.
Information management
11
Health and nutrition
7
The four-day introduction training course is an important
component in familiarising roster members with NRC’s Expert Deployment/NORCAP Department and the roles and
responsibilities of deployees to the UN and other partners.
The evaluations from participating experts reveal that they
are highly satisfied with the course.
Gender/GBV Another NRC-driven training is HEAT, the Hostile Environment Awareness Training. Security preparedness is a major
concern for NORCAP, and 20 roster members were selected to participate in HEAT trainings in 2014. The selection
was made based on availability, probable high-risk future
deployments, gender, level of NORCAP experience and
number of previous trainings. Five days with a high level of
activity had an impact on all participants. NORCAP’s security plan, in cooperation with the NRC Security Department, is under revision. This is part of a strategic objective
to improve security arrangements for deployees.
The selection criteria used for HEAT are also relevant when
screening members for trainings provided by UN partners
or others. The majority of NORCAP experts participated in
trainings in areas such as induction, security, protection,
education in emergencies, health and coordination. Of the
118 experts who were trained in 2014, 31 per cent were
Norwegians, whereas 69 per cent came from other parts
of the world. Furthermore, 50 per cent of the Norwegians
trained were women, while 35 per cent of the experts
trained came from the Global South.
NORCAP had aimed at training a total of 140 experts in
2014. However, because the HEAT training has a higher
cost per person than other external trainings, the total number of trained members was below target (118).
Coordination6
Communication5
Peacekeeping4
4
Meteorology3
Disaster risk reduction
3
Camp management
2
Education cluster coordination
2
Shelter2
WASH1
Social affairs and livelihoods
1
Monitoring and evaluation
1
Human resources
1
Logistics and supply
1
Total77
«
I learned a lot and I wished I could have
had this training before! All Rapid Response
Team members should go through a
HEAT training as part of their induction.
We travel from one crisis to another and
it is important to have done more security
training than the basic and advanced UN
online courses.
»
NORCAP EXPERT PARTICIPATING IN THE
HEAT TRAINING
ROSTER DEVELOPMENT 53
6.3
STAFF CARE
NORCAP continues to professionalise and systematise its
staff care system, placing strong emphasis on psycho-social follow-up during and after assignments. One important
element in this is the professional and personal debriefing
all deployees receive from NORCAP on returning from
their assignments. NORCAP has increased the number of
deployees participating in the debriefing seminars, with a
total of 84 participants in 2014, compared to 66 in 2013.
Four seminars were arranged, one in Amman and the others in Oslo. At these seminars, all participants are offered
individual debriefing on professional as well as personal
issues, and during the seminar the participants debrief in
groups. Participants are also trained in stress management
tools and given relaxation exercises. Feedback indicates
that participants find these seminars useful. NORCAP has
also seen a steady increase in the number of deployees
who opt to see a counsellor during or in-between assignments. This is seen as a positive change in the culture
of being a deployee, and can also be viewed as a way
INSIGHT
STAFF CARE
- RESILIENT
ROSTER
MEMBERS
54
of building resilience for future assignments. A feedback
mechanism has been implemented whereby deployees’
comments and input are summarised and analysed for
trends and tendencies, which are then reported to the
management after each debriefing seminar. This reduces
the gap between the ‘world of the deployee in the field’ and
the management of NORCAP.
In 2014, NORCAP responded to the Ebola outbreak
in West Africa by deploying a high number of experts.
To ensure that deployees are prepared for dealing with
the difficult working conditions in these areas NORCAP
developed a specific staff care plan for these deployees.
The plan consists of an information package, briefings and
trainings before deployment and individual follow-up during
and after deployment. The staff care plan covers procedures in case of evacuation due to sickness or accident;
support from the staff counsellor can also be given to
experts’ families if needed.
briefing and preparation before deployment, follow-up in
the field and post-assignment debriefing.
In addition, NORCAP holds four optional two-day debrief
seminars every year to allow roster members to evaluate their
experiences more thoroughly and provide them with tools to
better address the challenges they meet in the field.
In close cooperation with roster members, NORCAP has
put considerable effort into developing and fine-tuning the
format of the seminar-
Stress, harsh working conditions,
security threats and cultural shocks
may negatively affect NORCAP’s experts on mission. NORCAP’s debrief
seminar aims to build resilience on a
personal level.
Feedback from two NORCAP experts at a debrief seminar:
‘I enjoyed meeting people who were of a somewhat similar
orientation and lifestyle to me and could relate to some of
the pressures in our work. It was also very comforting to
know that some of the challenges I experience on a daily
basis are not at all unique, but are challenges that come
with the territory. You just have to be deliberate about
managing the peculiarities and stress.’
NORCAP places strong emphasis on the welfare of its
experts. Close engagement with staff before, during and
after their deployment is critical. The staff-welfare scheme
is built around personal contact between assignments,
‘Previously, I have regarded NORCAP as mainly a place
where I go for contracts and salary, but through this seminar I saw how I can approach the welfare team with my
concerns and that they are there to support me. I left the
seminar in a really light-hearted mood.’
6.4
COMMUNICATION AND REPORTING
NORCAP deployees are an invaluable source of information
for the NRC. What they witness, experience, do and achieve
is of great interest to the NORCAP Secretariat. Information about the work done by NORCAP experts is used to
increase awareness and understanding in Norwegian society
and government, as well as among donors an partners. Information is disseminated through media outreach, newsletters,
social media, reports, lectures and advocacy efforts. It contributes to raising awareness about NORCAP – in addition to
attracting new experts to the roster.
Increased and systematic efforts were made in 2014 to
acquire information from experts on mission as well as upon
their return. To improve the information flow, media and
advocacy guidance was included in the pre-deployment
brief to experts departing from Oslo. Social media guidelines
were distributed to all experts on mission; the NORCAP
Secretariat also developed a networking facility, to enhance
cooperation among experts by creating a platform where they
can share lessons learned. A gender study was conducted
in 2014, to increase awareness of how NORCAP deployees
work with gender mainstreaming, what the challenges are,
and recommendations for improving his work. This report will
be shared with relevant audiences in early 2015.
Through continuous monitoring, reporting and information
dissemination, NORCAP further increased the visibility and
awareness of its support to the UN, regional institutions
and national stakeholders in 2014. The quarterly newsletter
from NORCAP is distributed to an increasing number of
recipients, and the outreach through social media channels
such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter has also expanded.
The NORCAP webpage, as well as that of the NRC, have
a truly global audience, not least amongst job-seekers
wishing to join the NORCAP roster. A weekly update
from selected countries was also developed in 2014, and
NORCAP was included in NRC’s advocacy strategy for
2014–2016. Traditional media outreach continues to be an
important part of NORCAP’s communication efforts.
The NORCAP Information Corps – consisting of Norwegian
NORCAP members and former NRC employees – more than
doubled its activities, from 12 assignments in 2013, to 30 in
2014. The Information Corps now has some 60 members
nationwide, which makes it possible to respond to requests
all over Norway. Five new members were recruited in 2014;
all of them bring fresh field experience into the force, which
contributes to making NORCAP’s information presentations
highly relevant.
Offloading UNICEF supplies for a temporary Ebola Treatment Unit as part of the rapid response strategy.
Photo: NORCAP/Helene Sandbu Ryeng.
ROSTER DEVELOPMENT 55
An IDP child living in an IDP site located in a church compound in Carnot, the Central African Republic.
Photo: NRC/Vincent Tremeau.
LIST OF ACRONYMS
ACAPS
AU
CAR
CCA
CCCM
DFID
DRC
DRM
DRMCAP
DRR
ECHO
EVD FAO
GBV
GenCap
GFCS
HLCP
HLP
IGAD
IMT
IOM
JIPS
LACS
MDG MENA
MoU
NMFA
MSU NORCAP
NOROBS
NRC
OCHA
PoC ProCap
SBT TIPH
UN
UNDP
UNESCO
UNFPA
UN-HABITAT
UNHCR
UNICEF
UNISDR
UNRWA
UN WOMEN
WASH
WFP
WHO
WMO
Assessment Capacities Project
African Union
Central African Republic
Climate Change Adaptation
Camp Coordination and Camp Management
Department for International Development
Democratic Republic of Congo
Disaster Risk Management
Standing Capacity for Disaster Risk Management
Disaster Risk Reduction
European Community Humanitarian Aid Office
Ebola Virus Disease
Food and Agriculture Organization (UN)
Gender Based Violence
Gender Standby Capacity Project
Global Framework for Climate Services
High Level Committee on Programmes
Housing, Land and Property
Intergovernmental Authority on Development
International Monitoring Team
International Organization for Migration
Joint IDP Profiling Service
Local Aid Coordination Secretariat
Millennium Development Goals
Middle East and North Africa
Memorandum of Understanding
Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Mediation Support Unit
Norwegian Capacity
Norwegian Standby Roster for Civilian Observers
Norwegian Refugee Council
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN)
Protection of Civilians
Protection Standby Capacity Project
Standby Team of Mediation experts
Temporary International Presence in the City of Hebron
United Nations
United Nations Development Programme
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
United Nations Population Fund
United Nations Human Settlements Programme
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
United Nations Children’s Fund
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
World Food Programme (UN)
World Health Organization
World Meteorological Organization
LIST OF ACRONYMS 57
NORCAP ANNUAL REPORT 2015
www.NORCAPweb.no
ANNUAL
REPORT
2015