James Shepherd-Barron
Latest posts by James Shepherd-Barron (see all)
- HOT FROGS and the monetization of money - 3rd March 2021
- CoVid Lessons Un-Learned - 29th January 2021
- HOLE IN THE WALL (Book Extract) - 18th January 2021
THE CHALLENGE
Efforts to improve humanitarian performance through enhanced coordination are being compromised by a widespread misperception of what effective disaster management entails.
| “Cluster coordination is a specific and challenging role for which even the most experienced programme manager will need to develop new skills.” (Global WASH Cluster, 2010) |
Coordination is a management discipline for professional disaster managers. As with any other profession, the 137 skills involved have to be learned.
THE SOLUTION
Current strategies for building capacity foresee a widening of ‘cluster awareness and coordination trainings’ at the national and sub-national level. This is a good thing. At the same time, this paper (researched and written in 2011 but still valid nearly ten years later) argues that the basic skills already learned by ‘middle managers’ in the humanitarian system be up-graded to selected high quality candidates – those Cluster Coordinators that would be the Inter-Cluster and Humanitarian Coordinators of tomorrow.
BACKGROUND
In the twelve years since roll-out of the cluster approach, efforts by Global Cluster Leads to enhance the skills of coordinators and information managers have yet to pay off. Yet, with all this effort, humanitarian coordinators, HCT members[1], OCHA staff, cluster coordinators and coordination team members have only had the basic skills of coordination and disaster management imparted to them, and have not been able to study the required disciplines to the depth of understanding required.
This, the author believes, is the inevitable consequence of a general misunderstanding of how important the function is to improved humanitarian outcomes, and therefore the misappreciation of the skills and consequent misallocation of time and resources required to meet that goal.
JUSTIFICATION, RISKS AND ASSUMPTIONS
Those engaged in coordination of humanitarian action at all levels know that coordination is a blend of art and science, and that success all too frequently relies on the personality of the person doing the coordinating. Experience suggests, however, that ‘personality’, ‘experience’, and ‘technical’ knowledge of the sector alone is not enough, and that there are many more ‘scientific’ or ‘technical’ aspects of their jobs that members of coordination teams find themselves doing, but about which they have either never been taught or for which an in-depth ‘refresher’ would be useful.
Coordination as a management discipline is under-valued and under-invested by the ‘humanitarian system’. As a reflection of this reality, cluster coordinator trainings conducted since 2006 have, through no fault of their own, been too short to do anything other than impart the bare minimum of what the disciple requires.
Cluster trainings are, furthermore, fragmented and duplicated. Training modules have been developed by Global Cluster Leads in isolation of one another resulting in different people learning different approaches to achieving the same end. This has led to confused interpretations of how to apply the Cluster Approach in the field and sub-optimal performance.
This situation has been exacerbated by a failure to realise that most courses are covering the same generic material. Most, if not all, of the principles and practices of Cluster coordination are common to all Clusters. Learning events for Cluster Coordinators can therefore use a harmonised curriculum to which specialist technical sections can be added.
| “The benefits of coordination exceed the costs.” (ALNAP, January 2010) |
Training curricula have tended to focus more on theoretical aspects of coordination management – aspects such as leadership, negotiation, principles of partnership etc – than the technical aspects of what the job actually entails. This is because trainings have been designed by working groups with limited exposure to field coordination realities.
A lack of minimum standards and field experience to be eligible for training has allowed people with inadequate experience, inappropriate leadership personalities, and insufficient technical competence to be rostered as coordinators.
Coordination is a management science. It requires the same blend of skill-sets and experience as any other management discipline … the sort of knowledge that is learned while earning an MBA, for example.
The advent of the Cluster Approach as one of the principal pillars of humanitarian reform in 2005 recognised that enhanced coordination underpinned drives to improving humanitarian performance on the ground. Over $100 million has been spent since then improving the capacity of the ‘humanitarian system’ – both governmental and non-governmental. Unfortunately, three major constraints are preventing the overall approach reaping the benefits it so clearly could:
The first is that Heads of Cluster Lead Agencies in the field are yet to be held accountable to any set of explicit performance standards or expectations[2].
The second is that these same Heads of Agencies, together with the UN and non-governmental counterparts that support them at global level, have either failed to recognise the importance of coordination, or feel threatened by it[3].
And the third is that too many Humanitarian Coordinators lack sufficient knowledge of the humanitarian system to coordinate and advocate effectively[4].
ANALYSIS OF CURRENT TRAINING CONTENT
In 2010, the Education, Nutrition, WASH and Shelter[5] Cluster advisers in UNICEF’s Asia-Pacific Office ‘rated’ an exhaustive yet notional list of 137 proposed principles and practices of coordination management[6] according to whether the topic was either not covered or was included in sufficient or insufficient detail in current trainings. While acknowledging strong recall and observer bias, and understanding that like-for-like comparison between Cluster groups is not possible, the following table provides an insight into the variability of what is currently on offer.
| n=137 | Included in sufficient detail (+%) | Included but superficially (+%) | Total topics covered (+%) | Total insufficient or not included topics (+%) | Ratio of Sufficient:Insufficient (%) |
| WASH | 19 (14%) | 54 (39%) | 73 (53%) | 118 (86%) | 35% |
| Shelter | 11 (8%) | 9 (7%) | 20 (15%) | 126 (92%) | 82% |
| Nutrition | 17 (12%) | 32 (23%) | 49 (36%) | 120 (88%) | 53% |
| Education | 13 (9%) | 13 (9%) | 26 (19%) | 124 (91%) | 100% |
| Total % average | 11% | 20% | 31% | 89% | 68% |
Nearly 90% of topics are either not covered or covered in insufficient detail for effective humanitarian coordination. This means that only a little over 10% of topics are covered to the depth required.
WAY AHEAD
The analytic framework attached outlines 132 core components of a ‘second phase’ or ‘advanced’ curriculum to complement the trainings already received. There are three complementary components.
The first comprises ‘soft’ skills and refers to the background theory pertinent to humanitarian affairs and the management sciences.
The second component comprises those core ‘hard’ skills for which simulation exercises and practice can be introduced. These would include practical ‘how to’ guidance.
The third involves those theoretical aspects of management that relate only to the ‘cluster approach’.
“Coordination costs. Poor coordination costs lives.”
[1] Country representatives of Cluster Lead Agencies are woefully unaware of their responsibilities under the protocols of the IASC’s ‘transformative agenda’ (IASC Operational Peer Review, Philippines, February 2014)
[2] See unpublished paper on ‘Accountabilities of Cluster Lead Agencies’ by the author et al, 2010 at www.clustercoordination.org/essential reading/articles
[3] Growth of aid and the decline of humanitarianism; The Lancet; Vol 375, 23 January 2010
[4] The State of the Humanitarian System; ALNAP; January 2010
[5] APSSC has an Inter-Cluster adviser with significant experience of the Emergency Shelter Cluster
[6] As defined by the APSSC Emergency Group