Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Weeks
HNPW 2024 (29 April - 10 May 2024)
          


 
Session title: Reframing Humanitarian Capacity Building: Are current approaches fit for purpose?
25 Apr 23 09:00-10:30   (Salle 16)
 
SessionAbstract

For decades now, capacity development has performed a crucial role providing a better infrastructure for disaster preparedness, response, and recovery efforts. However, the systems and models predominantly in use to build capacity, have not attached enough
significance to principles of local ownership and grass-roots approaches. Consequently, national and local humanitarian practitioners experience in-built disadvantage at many levels.

Calls to transform current practices have become more frequent and more powerful. This is seen to be a key element in efforts to better recognise and utilise national and local capacity and capabilities with the intention of ensuring that the overall sector can generate more equitable partnerships and better collaboration.

Pursuit of this crucial goal, means it is time to overhaul fundamentally the learning methodologies, technical content, and selection of training providers.

Hosted by RedR and H2H,our expert panel will create a welcome opportunity to examine the challenges faced by local and international actors in making this shift successfully. The session will:

  • provide a platform for exploring alternative approaches to traditional views of “capacity” such as community-led approaches, capacity sharing, and peer-to-peer learning; and
  • create space for robustly exchanging ideas about how to achieve innovative, inclusive and effective approaches to capacity development in the humanitarian sector – ones that ‘bake-in’ a more equitable way to share resources and power between all stakeholders.

Speakers

Host:

  • Angharad EvansLearning and Development Consultant

 

Panel Members:

  • Geneviève Cyvoct –Training Lead, CHS Aliance
  • Alaa Albakour–Shift Power Consultant, Save the Children
  • Simione BulaCBM Australia
  • Daria RybalchenkoChair, National Network of Local Philanthropy Development
  • Sarbjit Singh SahotaDisaster Risk Reduction Specialist, UNICEF
  • Steve Rhys Williams – Humanitarian Adviser, Localisation, AAP & Humanitarian Reform


Angharad EvansLearning and Development Consultant:


Angharad is an experienced humanitarian and development professional. Her academic background includes a Master in International Development and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Education. She has worked across a wide range of organisations and countries, initially in programme delivery before specialising in capacity building. Angharad has been designing and delivering learning solutions for almost a decade, giving her a broad and deep understanding of the sector’s needs. She is deeply committed to supporting access to quality learning opportunities for organisations and individuals in places which are hard to reach and experience protracted crises. Her focus is on experiential learning, in particular exploring opportunities to incorporate simulation exercises and embedding elements of Social Learning into her practice. She played a key role in the development of the HPass Humanitarian Learning Standards, designed to better support humanitarian professional development and to uphold best practice in learning provision.

 

Geneviève Cyvoct –Training Lead, CHS Aliance:


Geneviève Cyvoct has been working for 17 years in the humanitarian sector, with experience on project managements, quality and accountability standards, and trainings, with experience in Latin America, Caribbeans and West Africa. She holds a Master in International Relations and a Swiss Federal Diploma in Adult Training. She has been working for the past 8 years in promoting the Core Humanitarian Standards on Quality and Accountability, and is passionate about finding improved ways of supporting members organisations of the CHS Alliance, as well as their partners, in discussion with them. She is a member of various working groups in relation with learning and training in the humanitarian sector.


Alaa Albakour–Shift Power Consultant, Save the Children:


Alaa is a passionate community mobilization and capacity-strengthening expert, has over 8 years of experience in delivering capacity-strengthening, training, coaching and mentoring to organizations and staff based in fragile contexts through his work both as an employee and consultant in I/NGOs.

He has worked with teams of different backgrounds and has strong intercultural skills,He holds a degree in Business Administration and is currently pursuing his PhD. His priority in capacity strengthening is to enable local organizations to recognize their own powers and utilize their existing resources. He strives to strengthen national and local actors to create their own independent responses, and to simultaneously take the leadership in existing coordination bodies. Alaa served on the HPass Steering Committee to contribute to improved learning across the humanitarian sector.


Simione BulaCBM Australia:


I have worked for 17 years in the social sector working with different stakeholders promoting the protection of women’s, children’s, persons with disabilities’ human rights including working with the private sector to ensure respect and protection of consumer rights. In these years, my work focussed on capacity building and mentoring, technical and policy advisory, programme management, monitoring evaluation learning and knowledge management and advocating for realisation of rights. I worked across multiple thematic areas over my years of work including, Disability Inclusion, Inclusive Development, employment and livelihood, Child Protection, Social Protection, Education, Consumer Rights, Human Rights, Disaster Risk Reduction, Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls with Disabilities, ICT, Communication, and Advocacy. In my previous role I was deployed to the Samoa Disaster Management Office as Disaster Risk Management Specialist through the REDR Australia standby roster under the Australia Assists program. Prior to the role in Samoa, I worked at the Pacific Disability Forum for 6 years, 2 years at the Consumer Council of Fiji and 7 years as a schoolteacher in Fiji.


Daria RybalchenkoChair, National Network of Local Philanthropy Development:


Daria is an executive director of the National Network of Local Philanthropy Development. She has six years of experience in the nonprofit sector in Ukraine, trying to grow a healthy bureaucracy and find a balance between capacity development and statutory activities of local organizations.

Daria has a different background in engineering and the NGO sector. She is an alumnus of the Leadership Program from the German Marshall Fund of the United States and a current fellow of the Senior Fellows Program in the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society’s at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York (CUNY).

Daria believes that capacity building should be on time and according to the request of potential beneficiaries. Same as not only local actors should learn how to work, but INGOs coming to new territories/countries need to learn the local context.


Sarbjit Singh SahotaDisaster Risk Reduction Specialist, UNICEF:


Sarbjit works at UNICEF as a Disaster Risk Reduction Specialist. He is an Architect and Urban Planner with over 25 years of professional experience of steering development and humanitarian strategies and programmes within UNICEF and other frontline humanitarian agencies.  He has worked in the domain of ‘risk informed development planning’, ‘humanitarian response’, ‘Urban planning and Design’.  In recognition of his contribution to policy planning and implementation of ‘Disaster Risk Reduction’ and humanitarian programming, in 2005 he was included in the ‘International Visitor Leadership Programme’ by Department of State, Government of USA.


Steve Rhys Williams – Humanitarian Adviser, Localisation, AAP & Humanitarian Reform:


Steve is a humanitarian specialist with over 20 years experience. Has worked for Oxfam, Concern, Plan and the Start Network, for the UK Disaster Emergency Committee and Action Against Hunger responding to emergencies across four different continents. He is now part of the UK's Humanitarian Operations and Stabilisation Team (HSOT) providing technical advice to the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) on humanitarian reform, localisation and accountability to affected populations.


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