3.2 Specialized WASH expertise
Engage with the private sector to ensure the best WASH expertise
The past decade saw an unprecedented frequency and density of major emergencies responses. Since 2005, the number of humanitarian crises requiring an internationally-led response has nearly doubled: from 16 crises in 2005 to 30 crises in 2017. The average length of time that support is required almost doubled too, from four to seven years. Crises situations have also become much more complex –humanitarian organizations have to face a wide range of emergencies, from those triggered by environmental and climatic factors to complex and protracted conflict-related crises, along with compounding factors such as migration, urbanization and climate change.
This evolution has significant effects on how the humanitarian system operates and is magnified by the need to balance the complexities presented by long-running crises while addressing immediate humanitarian needs. These new trends require a paradigm shift in the way the humanitarian sector works, making it necessary to be able to call on a wide range of expertise, from anthropology to collective sanitation, from new technologies to the design and management of urban water utilities, simply and rapidly.
However, today, still too much expertise is hardly available in the humanitarian sector. Moreover, local expertise is not sufficiently mobilized. Examples include hydrogeologists, solid waste treatment experts, surface water treatment experts, renewable energy specialists, consulting engineers, urbanists, institutional experts etc. Access to experts with high levels of competence in these fields appears to be a prerequisite for qualitative and appropriate WASH interventions. For these reasons, it has become essential to develop tools to engage with the private sector.
This evolution has significant effects on how the humanitarian system operates and is magnified by the need to balance the complexities presented by long-running crises while addressing immediate humanitarian needs. These new trends require a paradigm shift in the way the humanitarian sector works, making it necessary to be able to call on a wide range of expertise, from anthropology to collective sanitation, from new technologies to the design and management of urban water utilities, simply and rapidly.
However, today, still too much expertise is hardly available in the humanitarian sector. Moreover, local expertise is not sufficiently mobilized. Examples include hydrogeologists, solid waste treatment experts, surface water treatment experts, renewable energy specialists, consulting engineers, urbanists, institutional experts etc. Access to experts with high levels of competence in these fields appears to be a prerequisite for qualitative and appropriate WASH interventions. For these reasons, it has become essential to develop tools to engage with the private sector.
This initiative aims to develop tools to facilitate the use of various pools of competent and skilled WASH professionals with specific technical expertise that can be predictably and rapidly mobilized to respond in emergencies, both at a global and local levels (whenever the local options are feasible, they should be favored). For this purpose, mechanisms to effectively engage with non-traditional actors in the humanitarian space -such as the private sector and academic field – have to be developed. The real challenge is therefore to build a legal architecture that allows effective and sustainable engagement with the private and academic sectors to benefit from the expertise of their members while respecting humanitarian principles and maximizing the use of local expertise. Indeed, engaging with private sector firms is opening the floor to multiple questions to which this initiative has set itself the task of responding. It includes:
- How to balance humanitarian principles and profit driven activities?
- What role for firms in advising on best approaches during emergencies?
- What role for the firms in post emergency context?
- How to balance international versus local expertise?
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The main output will embodied in a comprehensive list of pools of experts that outlines common “Standard Operating Procedures” (SOPs) for their engagement, templates of memorandum of understanding (MoUs), competency frameworks and best practices related to HR recruitment and management, advocacy campaigns, duty of care etc...
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LED BY:
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PARTICIPANTS:
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International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, Norwegian Refugee Committee, Oxfam, Register of Egineers for Disaster Relief, UN International Children Emergency Fund
CONTRIBUTORS: Global WASH Cluster, International Medical Corps, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Solidarités International |
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