GPC Protection Response Framework

Protection Clusters coordinate protection activities and support the identification of priority protection risks and related actions to prevent, address and mitigate them. There are four specialized areas – Child Protection (CP), Housing, Land and Property (HLP), Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and Mine Action (MA). These specialized areas are termed as the ‘Areas of Responsibility’ or AoRs.

Beyond above areas, a comprehensive protection response includes a wide range of other activities contributing to prevent and/or reduce protection risks of affected persons. The purpose of this note is to consolidate and frame these, noting that, in many situations, modalities and activities described hereafter are also implemented in the response to CP, HLP, GBV and MA. Protection Cluster coordinators have the dual responsibility of coordinating the Protection Cluster as whole and of ensuring the coordination of protection actors and activities described in this document.

A Protection Cluster coordinated response is intended to encompass and enable proactive efforts to address the impact of protection risks on affected people in humanitarian crises, through the implementation of a joined-up strategy. This includes both collective actions by Protection Clusters coordination teams and partners, and direct implementation of programming modalities and activities by protection actors.

Systematic protection analysis of the situation, aimed at identifying drivers and factors exposing individuals and communities to protection risks and related human rights violations, is foundational to the Protection Cluster response. Based on this analysis which must always benefit from a range of inputs (including from non-protection actors as well as affected people themselves), the protection cluster response brings together core programming modalities to address priority protection risks.