The Global Protection Cluster is pleased to be hosting the second of a new series of public events, entitled the ‘Protection Conversation Series’, aimed at advancing shared discussions and reflection with protection allies on key trends and priorities, innovative approaches, and scalable solutions to some of the most pressing protection risks facing crisis-affected communities around the world.
This second Protection Conversation will focus on ‘Responsive Information Services in Emergencies’ and will take place virtually on 22 August from 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM CET. The session is organized by the International Rescue Committee and will introduce the Responsive Information Services in Emergencies (RISE) Toolkit – a consolidated, comprehensive toolkit for use in emergency settings, that centers affected populations as drivers of information production. With clarity in a programming model and operational tools and guidance throughout, it is aimed at frontline responders and would be particularly suitable for protection practitioners. It offers a collaborative approach to meeting information needs between sectors and agencies, responsive to IASC recommendations regarding the Centrality of Protection for clear collective approaches and concrete programming to address collectively identified protection priorities.
The Protection Conversation aims to foster discussion and consultation with key GPC stakeholders around the role of protection partners in implementing lifesaving information as aid, identify the right stakeholders and areas of collaboration, and strategize next steps.
Key questions for discussion include:
- How can protection partners and country level protection clusters coordinate to cement information services within the humanitarian infrastructure and as a standard part of the response?
- Information is a cross-cutting foundation for protection work, how can more responsive approaches to empowerment through information be implemented in various contexts?
- Cross-cutting by design, how can protection clusters leverage responsive information to strengthen coordination with health, AAP, telecommunications, and other sectors?
The session will describe the Responsive Information Services program model and its applications as a protection intervention, the demand for and process of developing the RISE Toolkit, and feature interventions implemented under the RISE pilots in Nigeria and Myanmar.
The Protection Conversation Series is an important space for inter-agency dialogue and sharing on key protection issues, approaches and learnings. The Protection Conversations are led by different partners and do not necessarily reflect the positions, definitions or guidance of the GPC.
*French, Spanish and Arabic interpretation available
Session Background
Access to quality information is enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goals, is considered fundamental to the achievement of all human rights and is recognized in international human rights treaties and is a norm of customary international law.
Over the last ten years, the humanitarian community and donor governments have increasingly embraced the importance of dedicated information services as key to effective crisis response as well as essential for affected populations on the path to dignified, empowered, meaningful recovery and as an enabler of other fundamental rights, including access to healthcare and education, gender equality, GBV prevention and response and accountability in governance.
This is reflected in GPC’s 2020-2024 Strategic Framework - Priority 4: We will champion and advance durable solutions that meet protection standards through a nexus of humanitarian, peace and development action – as well as the Grand Bargain, the IASC Commitments to Accountability to Affected Populations, and in guidance related to Humanitarian Needs Overviews and Humanitarian Response Plans.
Despite this increasing recognition, collective, responsive approaches to information services and community engagement still struggle to take hold in humanitarian responses generally and considerably more so in emergency settings. While many quality tools exist to support effective information services, communications and community engagement strategies, existing guidance mainly seeks to improve the efficacy of aid, including through increased participation of affected communities, or it focuses on specific thematics, such as outbreak contexts through RCCE.
Challenges include three primary gap areas:
- lack of a comprehensive set of tools fit for use in emergencies that support teams to choose the methods appropriate for their context, lay out key elements of responsive information design and delivery, support organization of operational needs, provide M&E approaches and other critical elements of successful response design;
- tools to effectively operationalize meaningful participation of affected populations and community/local networks from the start of a crisis, and
- tools to support humanitarian actors to implement meaningful inclusion through an intersectional, analysis-driven approach that examines and addresses the drivers and impacts of exclusion in specific operational contexts from the design phase.
The Responsive Information Services in Emergencies Toolkit thus seeks to address critical gaps in the space of responsive information and its alignment with communication and community engagement strategies: a harmonized toolkit that brings together best practice and operational resources in responsive on and offline information services with RCCE for application in emergency settings, while additionally developing and piloting approaches to meaningful inclusion in responsive information as well as facilitation of leadership by community networks and actors.
