WASH ROAD MAP
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    • Capacity and profesionnalisation >
      • 2.1 Training courses offerings WASH learning portal
      • 2.2 Competency framework-based certification mechanism
      • 2.3 Scaling up and localization for learning systems in humanitarian WASH
    • Coordination and partnership >
      • 3.2 Specialized expertise for the WASH sector
      • 3.3 Integration and coordination of WASH into public health issues
      • 3.4 Multi-sectoral integration and coordination of WASH
      • 3.5 Humanitarian Development Peace Nexus Framework
      • 3.6 Field Support Team
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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.
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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?
The ultimate objective is thus to ensure that the right expertise is made available when it does not exist within the humanitarian organizations implementing a program/project.
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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...

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Provisional total budget:

150 000 USD

Synergies with:
Initiatives 2.2, 2.3, 3.4 and 3.5
Initiative's progress graph

Work in progress, will be uploaded soon.

LED BY:
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 

DO YOU WISH TO CONTRIBUTE TO THIS INITIATIVE?
Click here!
  • The collective
    • Historic
    • Strategy
    • Internal organisation >
      • Committees and Collective
      • Engaged actors
      • The Secretariat
    • Join us!
  • The initiatives
    • Information and knowledge >
      • 1.1 ''WASH Hub'' online platform
      • 1.2 Core data repository and tools
      • 1.3 WASH Severity Classification
      • 1.4 Accountability and Quality Approach
      • 1.5 Research and Innovation
    • Capacity and profesionnalisation >
      • 2.1 Training courses offerings WASH learning portal
      • 2.2 Competency framework-based certification mechanism
      • 2.3 Scaling up and localization for learning systems in humanitarian WASH
    • Coordination and partnership >
      • 3.2 Specialized expertise for the WASH sector
      • 3.3 Integration and coordination of WASH into public health issues
      • 3.4 Multi-sectoral integration and coordination of WASH
      • 3.5 Humanitarian Development Peace Nexus Framework
      • 3.6 Field Support Team
    • Funding and advocacy >
      • 4.1 Secretariat of the WASH Road Map
      • 4.2 Sector Development and Strenghtening
      • 4.3 Advocacy for sector strengthening
  • Call To Action
  • Sector News
    • External events and publications >
      • 2021 World Water Week
      • 2022 World Water Forum
      • UN 2023 Water Conference
    • Actors events and publications
    • Internal events >
      • Advocacy Virtual Coffee & Workshop
      • Funding Virtual Coffee
      • Groundwater&humanitarian aid panel discussion
      • Research Virtual Coffee
      • UN2023WC and GWS Virtual Coffee
  • Resources
    • Public documentation
    • Internal documentation