Synthesis of：合成的.docx

2011-2-14 Lessons Learned Debrief on Pakistan Response PD-HATIS/EMOPS-HPSSynthesis of Cluster Lessons from UNICEFs response to the Pakistan FloodsJuly December 2010February 2011INTRODUCTIONThe text that follows is a synthesis of key cluster lessons, emerging in the first 4-5 months of the 2010 UNICEF floods response in Pakistan. This draft is a partial view on lessons learned thus far, focusing on the perspectives of HQ surge staff to Pakistan. See limitations below. ObjectiveThe objective was to document some major cluster lessons learned on institutional and inter-agency issues from a HQ surge staff perspective, as part of a light and time-sensitive process, to quickly provide material that could feed into on-going CO learning, as well as the global internal/external cluster approach review process.MethodologyThe synthesis draws primarily from a series of debriefings in person or by phone with all 9 UNICEF HQ surge support staff who had been deployed to Pakistan as cluster support and completed their missions by 31 December 2010, as well as a review of four hand-over notes from the same. The staff members debriefed cover a range of sector/section perspectives (see Annex for a breakdown on functional areas of those debriefed). This document was validated through circulation for comment to all staff members debriefed as well as a small HQ reference group familiar with lessons learned initiatives.This exercise focuses on lessons learned relating to the strengths and weaknesses of UNICEF and Inter-Agency systems and practices, rather than on individual actions or performance. Given that this document is intended as a preliminary synthesis but also contributing to further learning and evaluation, lessons included here have a certain level of convergence in terms of the number of sources similarly citing a lesson learned or an element thereof. Convergence has been defined as material drawn from at least 2 of the 10 sources; there are, however, a very few specific instances where lessons drawn from one debriefing alone are judged to be particularly important, therefore these have also been included. Some lessons may be selected for further probing in later processes. LimitationsThis is an HQ-perspective document only. Given the time-specific nature of this exercise, this learning initiative was targeted at HQ surge staff that worked on cluster issues to gain their viewpoints on the Pakistan response and the lessons arising. The synthesis was envisioned as a very light, quick process, obtaining a degree of substantive validation. Debriefings cover selected HQ staff and are few in number (9), and this document therefore presents a limited perspective of the response. All staff debriefed were based in the Islamabad office at federal level, though most did undertake missions to the field offices during the course of their deployment. The process did not include any inputs from UNICEF partners or from Pakistan CO staff. A more complete picture of the key lessons would come from a synthesis drawing from both CO level lessons learned work (planned), any additional RO level review as well as this document. ContextThe lessons learned from the Pakistan floods response must be seen appropriately: the unprecedented scale and the complexity of the disaster made this context exceptional. Pakistan experienced the worst floods in its recorded history in 2010 and the resulting disaster was one of the largest experienced ever. The Disaster Needs Assessment put the damages at US$9.7 billion. Out of the 18+ million affected, approximately 9 million people were severely affected, including 4.5 million children. The situation in the four main affected provinces Sindh, Punjab, Khyber Pakhthunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan essentially comprised 4 major humanitarian emergencies. In Punjab and Sindh, over 6 million people were affected in each. This was a diverse and complex emergency: even five months in, tens of thousands of people remained totally cut off from assistance and hundreds of thousands were displaced in camps in Sindh Province, while at least ten million IDPs across the country had already returned or moved closer to their homes. The massive number and geographic spread of the people affected, the continuing population movements, and the limited number and technical capacity of partners in some areas were huge obstacles to reaching all of the women and children in need. The pre-flood IDP crisis, the long term development challenges in some sectors (e.g. Nutrition and Child Protection) and the lack of updated baseline data were additional challenges. Despite the low level of international attention, which negatively influenced funding (early on), UNICEF mounted a massive organizational response, rapidly scaling up human resources and operational capacity to reach huge numbers of women and children, far surpassing other recent crises. UNICEF was Cluster Lead Agency (CLA) for WASH and Nutrition, and Child Protection, and co-lead for Education Cluster and although slow to mobilize staff, at the peak had deployed over 60 dedicated Cluster Coordinators and information management staff, to work in all affected provinces and at federal level. In January, a cluster flexi team was established (by the acting Representative),to work on priorities and challenges. The TOR is to: a) identify the main challenges - both internal and external;b) identify support needed from UNICEF;c) suggest action points with timeline;and d) record action pointand regular follow-up.EXECUTIVE SUMMARY1. Further clarity on Cluster/CLA/Partner accountabilities is critical. It is also essential to communicate the role of the cluster approach coordination. There seems to be a growing expectation that 1) the cluster (especially if government is absent) as an entity itself is the duty bearer of the response; 2) any shortcoming is a result of poor coordination; and 3) that the CLA is ultimately responsible for the overall response of the partners, which has serious implications for UNICEFs reputation. Cluster performance is a collective responsibility of all partners (and a better definition of partner accountabilities is evidently needed). Good coordination makes efficient use of the capacity available, it does not create capacity, and may not elicit sufficient response (especially when the scale of the challenge is beyond international community capacity). This must be conveyed strongly.2. Weak communication with donors on performance and progress, and poor management of expectations can result in the undermining of donor, partners and government confidence in UNICEFs commitment to Cluster Leadership and can negatively impact resource mobilization efforts. A major requirement for the CLA and Cluster Coordinator is to manage perceptions and expectations by producing communications/public relations material on what the cluster is doing, as well as putting results into context. Publicising the clusters work on a website and the production of weekly updates helped relieve pressure on UNICEF by “telling the story”. Contextualising the targets and reporting figures was also critical for illuminating the true scale of the clusters response and UNICEFs role within it. 3. There is a tendency to underestimate the staffing required to carry out effective Cluster coordination. Delays in recruiting of cluster staff negatively impact coordination of needs assessments, development of collective response plan and its delivery, etc. In a major emergency, multiple functions are required and a cluster team is needed for example, a senior Cluster Coordinator and a Deputy, additional information management staff (for data management, GIS mapping, and analysis), and administrative support. The same is required, to a lesser extent, at sub-national levels. 4. Especially at the onset Cluster Coordinators are expected by their Cluster partners to have the inter-personal skills, technical competence, experience, and seniority to lead their Clusters. Issues can arise (including with donors) where the CC is perceived to be inadequately experienced, or is mismatched in seniority with counterparts within the cluster particularly the UNICEF Section Chief. A balance of coordination competencies and leadership style is required between being a neutral facilitator, consensus builder, a directive leader (also having some technical knowledge), though the balance may shift over time.5. Inadequate appreciation and support for IM (especially at provincial level) causes delays in the compilation of and sharing of information, maps, etc. to enable effective coordination. Setting up standardised systems from the outset is labour-intensive but critical to collecting and analysing data, which can have serious ramifications for managing donor/partner expectations also. Without viable data to hand, there can be severe donor pressure. In a major disaster with a wide geographical spread, having IM staff at sub-national levels is critical for supporting standardisation of formats, information flow and partner reporting. It is also noted that further work is required on adequately defining an IMO profile and the range of skills needed.6. Separate fully cluster coordination functions from programme implementation. There is no common consensus within UNICEF on the exact line between Cluster Coordinators (CC) and UNICEF programme staff roles and responsibilities. Part of the issue that the specific tasks of CCs as compared to UNICEF programme managers overlap in areas: e.g. in promoting standards, capacity development and assessment and monitoring. Excessive closeness and overlap of roles cause problems in terms of external perceptions of UNICEFs partiality (UNICEF directing the cluster), and can result in partner disengagement. Excessive separation risks losing the added value of UNICEF as CLA, increases the risk that the CC acts on UNICEFs behalf and invites the assumption that that the Clusters position is UNICEFs position. Yet, the division of labour between the two may be dictated also by differing capacities between the cluster team and UNICEF programmes and may vary across clusters due to UNICEFs relative strength within a sector and partner expectations; therefore strong cluster/programme staff communication is critical.7. The co-locating of elements of the coordination teams has proved effective for coordination through generation of economies of scale but greater emphasis is required on creating common cross-cluster services. However, care must be taken not to disconnect from the competencies and comparative advantages of the parent CLA.ACCOUNTABILITIESClusterFurther clarification on cluster accountabilities, role and responsibilities is needed; this was especially illuminated in the Pakistan context where situational limitations were many and donor/partner pressure was significant. There seems to be a donor growing expectation that “the cluster” is the duty bearer of the response especially where the government is absent or under-resourced. In terms of being seen as the duty bearer, a particular problem for the WASH Cluster in Pakistan was that the response was taking place at provincial level, so there was no national counterpart, thus the cluster was often blamed for response short comings. Weak capacity on the ground in many sectors revealed a response gap, with expectations that the cluster could and should fill these. It was important to be very clear about what the cluster is (coordination mechanism) and more clarity is required around what cluster accountabilities are and what the cluster can and cannot do given the capacity in place and resources available.Cluster PartnersA challenge for humanitarian reform is the lack of clarity and definition around partners accountabilities to engage in the cluster approach. A big issue in Pakistan was the under-engagement of traditionally strong cluster partners. In the nutrition sector, it was quickly determined that the floods had exacerbated what was a chronic underlying problem. As the extent of this challenge emerged, UNICEF attempted to mobilize its major cluster partners at the global level to become engaged, but met with reservation - the rationale being the security situation and competing global priorities for many NGOs strongly engaged in other responses (Niger, Haiti etc) - taking on a response of this scale was too much for the strong nutrition NGOs which were not equipped to staff full emergency nutrition teams in such a context. This was couple with the extremely limited government health department capacity at federal and provincial level to establish any type of nutrition response. UNICEF was left without support from major sectoral actors to be the main responder in this sector. Across all of the various clusters, there were challenges: 1) there was weak engagement with the cluster by some organisations (including some that are globally very active cluster partners) including for reporting and information sharing; 2) there was often little sense of collective partner support for coordination and it was difficult to motivate cluster partners to take this up - for example by taking on co-lead or subnational coordination roles; 3) some major global cluster partners who were present in Pakistan did not engage in the response for Nutrition, placing significant burden on UNICEF for fulfilling the response. The fact that major cluster partners opted out, or were only weakly engaged in the clusters undermined predictable response; however, this was not clearly articulated by UNICEF to donors as a major challenge for cluster response, despite UNICEF receiving donor criticism. Cluster Lead Agency (CLA)Related to the above, as expectations of the clusters evolve and expand, so too by implication do those of the CLA. The overall capacity on the ground in Pakistan was insufficient for the magnitude of the problem. The Nutrition Cluster and Child Protection sub-Cluster came under heavy donor/partner pressure for the response being slow, despite there being in Pakistan very little nutrition and CP infrastructure, government or otherwise, which impacted the nutrition response and limited what could be achieved through the clusters. Yet there were perceptions that any shortcoming in a response is a result of poor coordination. As the clusters were criticised for the failure of the response and this was equated to the failure of the Cluster Lead Agency (UNICEF) to actively lead/coordinate. This has serious implications, in particular for resource mobilization. Some of this criticism was due to the delays in getting cluster staffing on the ground to perform coordination, and many staff (especially IM staff) did not arrive until month three. Nevertheless, by this stage in the response, UNICEF was fulfilling many of its CLA TOR in terms of establishing the cluster and carrying out the coordination functions at federal and provincial levels, as indicated by a PCO exercise on cluster coordination process monitoring. This initiative revealed that some of UNICEFs cluster accountabilities ensuring monitoring and reporting - are contingent upon collective partner agreement - e.g. on defining sectoral indicators. Good coordination makes efficient use of the capacity available, it does not create capacity. Cluster failure/success is not solely UNICEFs responsibility and even if UNICEF meets its coordination accountabilities, this does not necessarily result in a sufficient response. The Pakistan context further illuminated the continuing ambiguity around the POLR concept and the accompanying expectations: to what extent the CLA can fulfil this when the overall capacity of the international community (even if at full strength) is inadequate for the challenge and all the more so when partner engagement in the clusters is weak. Especially illuminated by the Pakistan context, UNICEF often sees cluster coordination as a negative cost detracting from programming, instead of its institutional commitment and an opportunity to lead. Cluster coordination required a significant commitment in Pakistan at the peak requiring over 60 staff through the country, costing US$0.5 million per month at the peak. Yet in relation to the scale of the disaster 20+ million people affected across 5 Provinces, between 4 clusters (WASH, Nutrition, Education and Child Protection) at federal and provincial levels, and against the size of UNICEFs appeal (US$ 251 million) - this cost should be seen as reasonable and proportional (2.4% of appeal total). Cluster coordination is part of UNICEFs CCCs and is an inter-agency commitment and therefore requires adequate investment not doing so can create a serious reputational risk. At the same time, leading the clusters can provide a reputational opportunity, as once capacity was in place and there was adequate communication of what the clusters were doing, UNICEF emerged as a vital actor in the whole response.UNICEF as CLA vs UNICEF ProgrammeFurther clarity is required around defining the division of labour between UNICEF as CLA and as a cluster partner, where areas of intervention and responsibility overlap. This may also vary by sector and context. The area of assessment is particularly problematic: as part of the CCCs, UNICEF commits to ensuring assessment of the affected areas if not otherwise covered. Yet this is also part of cluster coordination and the collective responsibility of the cluster, with the CLA being responsible for filling assessment gaps. Therefore UNICEF both as an agency (in the CCCs) and as CLA is responsible for assessment; practically, however, because the cluster teams in Pakistan had assessment capacity (e.g. Nutrition, CP, WASH) it was unclear whether the UNICEF programme or the c