NGOs and Humanitarian Leadership

InterAction is launching a research initiative to examine the NGO role within the two chief leadership and coordination functions on the ground in a response: humanitarian country teams and clusters. These two entities, long considered by some as the solution to improving humanitarian response and equally challenged as the chief inhibitor or obstacle, have been the focus of much of the Inter Agency Standing Committee's (IASC) work on the humanitarian reform process, more recently referred to as the Transformative Agenda (TA).

Through this research initiative, InterAction seeks the perspectives of both NGO and non-NGO actors to get beyond anecdotes and develop a robust picture of the state of accountability and how beneficiary interests are represented within these coordination mechanisms, with an eye to replicable models or practices to be highlighted and potentially explored further. 

There are two main assumptions and expectations that underpin InterAction’s objectives for this research. First, that both the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) and cluster coordination systems, while not always as efficient as desired, are the priority solutions on the table to improve how humanitarian actors coordinate humanitarian response. Second, while the future of the Transformative Agenda is uncertain, InterAction’s expectation is that the work done under pillars one and two (leadership and coordination) will be followed through at the highest levels of the IASC to ensure that it is operationalized and institutionalized at the field level.

The first step in this process is a survey. It should take approximately 15 minutes to complete. Your perspective is critical to the success of this initiative. The survey will be open through February 11. If you find that you have additional perspectives on the NGO role in the HCT then at the conclusion of the survey you may opt to participate in a complementary interview. 

Click here to take the survey.

For a recent blog on the NGO voice in Humanitarian Leadership click here -  http://www.interaction.org/blog/improving-crisis-response-will-the-NGO-voice-be-heard