Founded in 2014, HERE-Geneva turns ten in November this year. The system and its internal dynamics have changed very little over the past decade. From the start, HERE focused precisely on this discrepancy between policy and practice, building evidence and putting forward constructive analyses of where the gaps are and where gains can be made for governments and agencies to fulfil their humanitarian responsibilities and commitments.

In the lead-up to our anniversary, join us as we look back on previous work, highlighting the lessons and recommendations that past pieces have brought up and exploring any outcomes, follow-up, or lack thereof. This episode is but one of many components of our retrospective. You can find the full series at: https://here-geneva.org/here10

In the wake of the latest inter-agency humanitarian evaluation, which found that the UN-led response in Northern Ethiopia amounted to system failure, Lewis Sida and Julia Steets join Ed Schenkenberg, HERE-Geneva’s Executive Director, to discuss such evaluations: their value and purpose, their follow-up, and their future. All three participants have experience with inter-agency humanitarian evaluations, also known as IAHEs.

One of few ways available to independently assess collective humanitarian action, IAHEs are automatically triggered when the global body for humanitarian coordination, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, decides to call on the humanitarian system to mobilise its operational capacity. An obligation of external evaluation follows from this decision. IAHEs are not an in-depth evaluation of any one sector or of the performance of a specific organisation, but they look at how humanitarian organisations, especially those of the UN family, worked together in achieving better results for people affected by crises.

Read the Ethiopia IAHE here: https://bit.ly/3V9jkwd

HERE is an independent, Geneva-based non-profit organisation. We contribute to closing the gap between policy and humanitarian practice.

https://twitter.com/HEREGeneva | https://here-geneva.org

This year, HERE turns ten! In a special episode of Hear, HERE! The Humanitarian Podcast, Executive Director Ed Schenkenberg, Research Director Marzia Montemurro, and Research and Comms Officer Val Hambye-Verbrugghen use the opportunity of this tenth anniversary to look at how the humanitarian sector has changed over time – or not. Building on HERE’s tagline and mission to bridge the gap between policy and humanitarian practice, they explore the following questions: if HERE were to be founded today, would the focus on the gap be the same? Why is the gap still there? Does HERE’s work actually have added value in addressing this gap?

This podcast kicks off a retrospective of the past decade, extrapolating the lessons and recommendations that past HERE pieces have brought up and exploring any outcomes, follow-up, or lack thereof. Messages highlighting the main points will be released on a regular basis, building up to a collective deep-dive of what change means (or should mean) for the sector, in the shape of an anniversary event in November this year.

The retrospective is available at: https://here-geneva.org/here10

HERE is an independent, Geneva-based non-profit organisation. We contribute to closing the gap between policy and humanitarian practice.

https://twitter.com/HEREGeneva | https://here-geneva.org

In episode #3 of Hear, HERE!, Balthasar Staehelin, then-Director of Digital Transformation and Data at ICRC, talks humanitarian data with HERE’s Val Hambye-Verbrugghen.

A cyberattack on ICRC systems in early 2022 led to half a million people’s data being breached, spotlighting the sector’s vulnerabilities. Risk management of similar incidents is not just a question of ramping up one’s cybersecurity by strengthening systems: there also needs to be discussion around international organisations’ data collection practices at large. The second of a two-parter, this episode specifically focuses on the role of data subjects within these processes. What is the difference between personal and biometric data, and how do organisations account for it? Do data subjects have the space to refuse collection of their information when it is being collected for aid purposes? How do you mitigate risk?

HERE is an independent, Geneva-based non-profit organization. We contribute to closing the gap between policy and humanitarian practice. https://twitter.com/HEREGeneva | https://here-geneva.org

In episode #3 of Hear, HERE!, Balthasar Staehelin, then-Director of Digital Transformation and Data at ICRC, talks humanitarian data with HERE’s Val Hambye-Verbrugghen.

A cyberattack on ICRC systems in early 2022 led to half a million people’s data being breached, spotlighting the sector’s vulnerabilities. Risk management of similar incidents is not just a question of ramping up one’s cybersecurity by strengthening systems: there also needs to be discussion around international organisations’ data collection practices at large. What data should be collected? How do you ensure it is collected, stored, and used in a principled manner? The first of a two-parter, this episode also looks at the influence of national authorities, of GDPR and other regulatory frameworks regarding data on the practices of humanitarian organisations.

The GPPi report referenced in this podcast, ‘Research on Specific Risks or Constraints Associated with Data Sharing with Donors for Reporting Purposes in Humanitarian Operations’, is available here.

HERE is an independent, Geneva-based non-profit organization. We contribute to closing the gap between policy and humanitarian practice. https://twitter.com/HEREGeneva | https://here-geneva.org

In episode #2 of Hear, HERE!, humanitarian professional and independent consultant Manisha Thomas joins Ed to discuss the history of the clusters.

When clusters were established in 2005, the idea was to make the international system more predictable and address the gap in IDP responses. At the time, both Ed and Manisha worked for the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA), one of three NGO consortia brought into the fold. You can read the special issue of ICVA’s newsletter on the topic, issued in October 2005.

Fifteen years down the road, go behind the scenes of the reform process in this episode of Hear, HERE! What questions were raised then, and what answers provided? What model was advertised, as opposed to what was effectively set up and continues to exist today? How were NGOs included? What limitations existed and how, if at all, were they taken into account?

HERE is an independent, Geneva-based non-profit organization. We contribute to closing the gap between policy and humanitarian practice. https://twitter.com/HEREGeneva | https://here-geneva.org.

In episode #1 of Hear, HERE!, Ed and Marzia sit down to take stock of the state of protection in humanitarian action.

Protection is a core pillar of humanitarian response. Without a proper focus on the rights of crisis-affected people, and the immediate threats that they may still face, humanitarian work risks becoming merely an act of service delivery or charity. Nonetheless, in our work as HERE-Geneva, we have often found protection to be poorly understood among humanitarians, hampering its implementation. As such, it is an ideal first topic for discussion in a podcast aiming to shed light on the gap between policy and humanitarian practice What does the term ‘protection’ in a humanitarian context precisely entail? Who has a protection mandate, and how does this matter?

Why should protection be prioritised in every humanitarian response – and why is it often not the case?

What can humanitarian actors do when repressive States fall short in respecting their obligations to protect people under their control?

Listen to Ed and Marzia exchanging thoughts on the current state of protection, raising questions, addressing dilemmas, and carefully formulating suggestions on how to improve its status and impact in humanitarian practice.