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News infoasaid: communication in emergencies When an emergency strikes, be it natural disaster or man-made, organisations working on the ground, together with the national authorities, rush to respond. Their actions are orientated towards getting in supplies, arranging logistics, and ensuring programmes such as Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Health, Shelter and Nutrition can deliver on their commitments. Two-way communication, i.e. the sharing and receiving of information, with disaster-affected communities should and can be a cross-cutting part of humanitarian response and in itself, a form of aid. Communication is essential to successful emergency programming in many ways. It can alert the population about the disaster and raise awareness on potential threats and thus mitigate risk. If it is two-way, it can improve programming by being more needs-based; if done well and effectively, it can improve coverage overall and at the same time, reach more vulnerable people. It can support the coordination effort by creating the space and the means for organisations and communities to work and talk together. It can also be an important and effective tool in addressing the psycho-social needs of a population who have experienced a disaster first hand. infoasaid is a 2 year, DFID-funded project that is being implemented by two media development organisations - Internews and the BBC World Service Trust. The overall goal of the Infoasaid Infoasaid project is to improve the quality of humanitarian responses by maximising the amount of accurate and timely information available to both humanitarian agencies and affected populations through enhanced information exchange between them in the critical first few days and weeks of an emergency. The project has two main objectives: • To strengthen the capacity and preparedness of aid agencies to respond to the information and communication needs of crisis affected populations. • To partner with a number of aid agencies to help inform and support their communications response in a variety of emergency contexts. In order to achieve objective one, infoasaid is developing a range of tools that will be available to the entire humanitarian community. These include: • Media and Telecoms Landscape Guides for 22 of the world's most disaster and conflictprone countries. These guides provide a comprehensive picture of the media and telecommunications landscape, information on media consumption patterns and a useful contact directory of media and telecoms operators. The guides are a practical tool for aid agencies to refer to when deciding which channels of communication to use in order to access different populations. • A library of generic messages and accompanying guide. This has been developed in collaboration with a number of different clusters/sectors in humanitarian response, including WASH, Health, Nutrition, Food Security Protection and Education. The messages aim to provide information to affected populations about the scale and nature of the emergency, risks and threats and how to mitigate them and information about programme interventions. The accompanying guide explains the importance of context, culture, and delivery methods in each emergency situation. The messages are designed to be used as a reference tool and ideally, should be translated, piloted and adapted to suit the local context and to ensure comprehension before an emergency has occurred. The message library will soon be available for use in the form of a web based tool. • Generic questions on information needs and access which need to be adapted and then integrated in agencies’ needs assessment frameworks. • An interactive e-learning course to raise awareness of, and provide basic skills on, communicating with disaster affected communities. The two hour module takes the learner through a number of different emergency scenarios. In order to achieve objective two, infoasaid is partnering with a number of aid agencies to help inform and support the integration of communications into their emergency programmes. Partnerships have been signed Infoasaid with Save the Children, Merlin, World Vision, ActionAid and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). infoasaid is currently piloting an intervention with Action Aid in Kenya around food security, using two new open source software platforms – Frontline sms and Freedom Fone. Scoping missions are also taking place in north east Kenya and Puntland with Save the Children to see how integrating communication interventions can improve their emergency response. infoasaid also provides additional support in the following areas: • Context analysis (analysis of the media land scape) • Undertaking information needs and access assessments • Development of communications plans and strategies • Development and dissemination of key messages to affected populations • Linking aid agencies with media development organisations, the tech-community and the local media • Piloting new technology innovations • Design and roll out of small scale pilot projects • Undertaking learning reviews post-response, in order to learn lessons and document good practice infoasaid informs its advocacy efforts through its field based experiences and the learning gleaned through the reviews undertaken post response. infoasaid hopes to consolidate its learning in the form of a Humanitarian Practice Network (HPN) Paper that it will develop and launch in collaboration with the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in mid-2012. infoasaid is also providing technical and financial support to the ‘Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities (CDAC) Network’ with the view to strengthen the Network and enable it to take forward the work that infoasaid is currently doing. For more information on infoasaid visit: www.infoasaid.org or contact Anita Shah, Head of Project, email: anita.shah@infoasaid.org 49
Experiences of the Nutrition in Emergencies Regional Training Initiative By Abigail Perry, Jessica Meeker, and Andrew Seal, UCL Centre for International Health and Development (UCL-CIHD) Abigail Perry is a nutritionist with extensive experience in development and emergency work. She worked as a Research Associate at UCL and was the coordinator and lead trainer for the Nutrition in Emergencies Regional Training Initiative (NIERTI) project between 2009 and 2011 Andrew Seal is a Lecturer in International Nutrition at UCL where he conducts research and training on various aspects of nutrition in emergencies. He was the project manager for the work described here and is continuing the work with NIERTI partners to take forward this initiative Jessica Meeker is a graduate of the LSHTM Public Health Nutrition course, coming from a previous career in IT consultancy management. Whilst working as a Research Assistant at UCL, she conducted much of the research on Nutrition in Emergencies competencies The NIERTI project started in the Autumn of 2009 and has just concluded. The project was funded by an OFDA award to the Emergency Nutrition Network (Agreement No. DFD-G-00-09-00289-00) and implemented by UCL-CIHD. Part of the field work in the Uganda training Part of the group work in the Uganda training A Perry/NIETN, Uganda, 2011 A Perry/NIETN, Uganda, 2011 The upward trend in the frequency and magnitude of humanitarian disasters is set to continue and ongoing economic instability, escalating food and fuel prices, climate change and urbanisation are predicted to amplify humanitarian needs 1 . This projection of increased vulnerability has implications for development; losses associated with humanitarian disasters are thwarting progress towards meeting development goals 2 . Central to efforts to protect communities and reduce vulnerability is the development of capacity to prepare for and respond to crises effectively 3 . The 2005 Humanitarian Response Review noted that the lack of capacity in the humanitarian sector hampers the quality and appropriateness of emergency response. The review provoked more detailed examination of humanitarian capacity, including a 2007 report focusing on ‘nutrition in emergencies’ (NIE) 4 . This review, completed on behalf of the IASC Global Nutrition Cluster (GNC), identified two key NIE capacity gaps: (i) inadequate ‘resident’ capacity and (ii) lack of nutritionists able to handle the demands of emergencies. A number of projects have since emerged that have attempted to address this gap. In 2008, a standard set of technical documents, known as the Harmonised Training Package (HTP) were developed 5 . More recently, the GNC has initiated a capacity development project for cluster coordinators. In addition, two projects have been developed with support from the Office for Disaster Assistance (OFDA) to the ENN 6 ; one focusing on in-service and pre-service training in NIE (implemented by NutritionWorks) and the other on the development of professional short courses. In this report we discuss the key findings from the second of these projects, the Nutrition in Emergencies Regional Training Initiative (NIERTI). NIERTI objectives The overall goal of the NIERTI was to increase the availability of regular, high quality training in emergency nutrition. Two principles underpinned the development of the training model. First, we viewed capacity development in the broadest sense and thus as a process that requires investment in three levels of capacity: (i) the individual, (ii) the organisation and (iii) the enabling environment 7 . Keeping this in mind, we elected to focus on strengthening the capacity of relatively senior national and international individual practitioners. This group represents the ‘tip’ of the human resource capacity pyramid. Although investment is needed in NIE capacity at every level, building this cadre will improve organisational capacity and create an enabling environment for effective capacity development among the other cadres. Second, the training would be implemented in partnership with academic institutions. Our aim was to develop a model that has News financial and market sustainability and that can be owned and maintained by partner institutions, rather than being dependent on (unpredictable) external funding. The three partner institutions were the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, the University of Makerere in Uganda and the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre in Thailand. All three institutions were already running nutrition courses as well as the Public Health in Complex Emergencies short course 8 . The NIERTI sought to work in partnership and strengthen and develop their training capacity in NIE. Development of the training model Cost Financial sustainability was identified from the outset as a key factor in the success of this initiative. As such, we worked closely with our partners to develop realistic budgets that ensured all the costs associated with running the courses would be covered by course fees alone. The fee level for each course was based on estimated cost and anticipated participant numbers. The budgets were reviewed and revised following each course to ensure that on one hand, course fees are kept at a minimum and access is maximised, and on the other, that the courses are financially sustainable. Content Three courses of varying duration (6, 10 and 12 days) were developed and pilot tested. This process enabled us to determine the optimal duration and balance of topics. A set of learning objectives was developed for each course module. This helped to shape the content and to select appropriate course exercises. The technical content was based on the HTP, supplemented where necessary with exercises developed specifically for the initiative. Each module consisted of a technical reference document (compiled in a course manual for participants), generic PowerPoint presentations and practical exercises. Previous reviews of NIE capacity development and interviews with NIE practitioners highlighted the importance of including activities that enable participants to apply knowledge. As a 1 UN General Assembly Economic and Social Council (2011) Strengthening the coordinaton of emergency humanitarian assistance of the United Nations. Report of the Secretary General, Geneva, July. 2 UNDP (2004). Reducing disaster risk: a challenge for development. UNDP, New York. 3 Capacity for Disaster Risk Reduction Initiative (2011) Basics of capacity development for disaster risk reduction. 4 Gostelow L (2007). Capacity development for nutrition in emergencies: beginning to synthesise experiences and insights. NutritionWorks / IASC Global Nutrition Cluster. 5 NutritionWorks, ENN, GNC (2011). Harmonised Training Package revised modules, v2. http://www.ennonline.net/htpversion2 6 See ENNs 5 year strategy that reflects capacity development on NiE as one of ENNs priority activities, http://www.ennonline.net/pool/files/ reports/enn-5-year-strategy-2010-to-2015-final.pdf 7 See footnotes 3 and 4 8 http://www.phcetraining.org/ 50
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