STAIT Learning Review Preparedness for Response in Nepal

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Senior Transformative Agenda Implementation Team (STAIT)

January 2016

Contents

List of Abbreviations

Executive Summary

Background

Purpose and Objectives

Methodology

Nepal Preparedness Learning – Findings and Proposed Learning Actions

A.Leadership, Governance and Coordination

B.Strengthening the Humanitarian-Development Nexus

C.Localising Preparedness

D.Strategic Investment in Preparedness Capacity

E.Effective use of surge

Annex 1 Nepal Risk Reduction Consortium

Annex 2 Team Bios, STAIT Learning Review Team Preparedness for Response in Nepal

Annex 3 Documents Consulted

Annex 4 Chronology of Preparedness Actions and Events

Annex 5 Overview of Nepal Preparedness Learning Actions

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List of Abbreviations

Advanced Preparedness Actions (APAs)

Assessment Capacity Project (ACAPS)

Accountability to Affected People (AAP)

Association of International NGOs (AIN)

After Action Review (AAR)

Cash Learning Partnership (CaLP)

Cash Transfer Programming (CTP)

Cluster Lead Agency (CLA)

Community Service Organisation (CSO)

Communicating with Communities (CwC)

Common Feedback Project (CFP)

Disaster Preparedness ECHO (DIPECHO)

Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)

District Lead Support Agency (DLSA)

District Preparedness and Response Plan (DPRP)

Emergency Directors Group (EDG)

Emergency Response Preparedness (ERP)

Humanitarian Coordinator (HC)

Humanitarian Country Team (HCT)

Humanitarian Programme Cycle (HPC)

Humanitarian Staging Area (HSA)

IASC Task Team for Preparedness and Resilience (TTPR)

Index for Risk Management (INFORM)

Information Management (IM)

Inter- Agency Standing Committee (IASC)

Inter-Agency Rapid Response Mechanism (IARRM)

Inter-Cluster Coordination Group (ICCG)

International Development Partners Group (IDPG)

International NGOs (INGO)

International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG)

Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

Minimum Preparedness Actions (MPAs)

Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development (MoFALD)

Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA)

National Disaster Response Committee (NDRC)

National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC)

National NGO (NNGO)

Nepal Risk Reduction Consortium (NRRC)

Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO)

OCHA Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (ROAP)

Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

Operational Peer Review (OPR)

Resident Coordinator (RC)

Resident Coordinator’s Office (RCO)

Return on Investment (ROI)

Senior Transformative Agenda Implementation Team (STAIT)

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)

The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC)

Transformative Agenda (TA)

TrekkingAgencies Association of Nepal (TAAN)

UK Department of International Development (DFID)

United Nations (UN)

United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF)

United Nations Country Team (UNCT)

United Nations Development Group (UNDG)

United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC)

United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR)

Urban Search and Rescue (USAR)

World Humanitarian Summit (WHS)

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Executive Summary

Background

Nepalfaces a variety of life-threatening hazards. With itsdiverse landscape ranging from the Himalayas to the lowlands of the Teraiplains, it is a global ‘hotspot’ for natural disasters including earthquakes, floods, landslides, windstorms, hailstorms, fire, glacial lake outburst floods and avalanches.As a result, the country has been the focus of many preparedness activities for many years. Past and current political complexities have also brought an additional dimension to risk reduction, preparedness and disaster response.

The IASC TA includes two main protocols on preparedness: 1. The ERP Approachprimarily focusing on the preparedness of IASC actors and 2. The IASC/UNDG/UNISDR Common Framework for Preparedness,primarily developed for humanitarian action, to build national and local preparedness capacity. With thisin mind, the STAIT was keen to gather learning from a review of preparedness for response measures and how they contributed to the 2015 earthquake response. Collective preparedness of the international (IASC) community is coordinated through the HCT+, other national preparedness, supported in part by the international community, is coordinated through Flagship 2 of the NRRC (see Annex 1).

Purpose and Objectives

The overall purpose of the review was to gather lessons in relation to preparedness for responsethat could be shared in order to (i) inform decision-making on future response preparedness actions in Nepal; (ii) inform RCs/HCs/HCTs and other collective bodies at country and regional levels in their preparedness work; and (iii) provide feedback on global response preparedness guidance and policies, particularly the ERP approach.

The learning review is not an evaluation and whilst the earthquake response has been used to inform learning, the role of the review is not to make specific comment on the response itself, but to identify learning and provide proposed Learning Actions for a more effective future response.

Methodology

The method and itinerary were developed in close collaboration with the RCO, OCHA and Save the Children, for which the team is very grateful. The review team was made up of senior colleagues from both NGO (3) and UN (3) organisations (Annex 2).

Methodology included: a consultation of literature (Annex 3); a chronology of preparedness related actions (Annex 4); several remote interviews; a field mission to Nepal between 30 November and 8 December 2015 and subsequent analysis.In-country information collection included a series of facilitated and bilateral meetings with key stakeholders – UN, Red Cross Movement, INGOs, NNGOs, HCT, ICCG and key national government ministries.

The mission started on 30 November and concluded with debriefs of findings to the RC/HC and the HCT on 8 December, as well as to the Regional IASC Preparedness Group in Bangkok on 9 December.

The report on the Learning Review has been split into three distinct products, each informed by the Nepal Preparedness Learning Review:

1. Nepal Preparedness Learning – with learning and learning actions specifically for Nepal.

2. Global Preparedness Learning – directed at other RCs, HCs, HCTs, other leadership teams and global preparedness support.

3. Leadership Preparedness Checklist – a two-page checklist of tips and learning around preparedness for response.

The following table outlines the key transformational learning from the Nepal Preparedness Review and informs the Global Learning and Leadership Checklist, noting in which sections further details can be found.The learning is informed by good practice as well as identified gaps where preparedness may have supported a more effective response. A summary of learning actions to support future preparedness actions in Nepal can be found in Annex 5.Indication is givenif actions are substantial (S), light (L) or quick wins (Q) and if urgent (bold/italic.

Key Transformational Learning for Preparedness for Response

Collective Action – Working Better Together

Strategic Investment in Capacity Building / Learning from Nepal around preparedness strongly supports one of the key messages of the TA – that there is high potential for increased efficiency and effectiveness from working better collectively. The NRRC provides us with an example of collective action – a multi-stakeholder mechanism for planning and prioritising together. Whilst preparedness and capacity building under Flagship 2 has worked on core priorities, and addressed some potential duplication, there is a sense that greater efficiencies and effectiveness can be gained from a more collective, collaborative approach. This requires (going beyond the HCT) agreeing priorities and ensuring these are implemented and monitored within the framework of the collective plan, recognizing that specific investments in preparedness will largely be carried out by individual organisations. Information sharing and ‘communication’ are essential to move towards ‘alignment and collaboration’.

Mainstreaming a risk management approach

Strengthening Humanitarian -Development Nexus / In a high disaster risk environment such as Nepal, it is imperative that emergencypreparedness for response is integrated into the normal life cycle of all development programming, contributing to resilience by reducing exposure and vulnerability. It is essential to avoid disassociating the timelines of ‘humanitarian’ and ‘development’ where such terminology is not helpful in a holistic approach to sustainable development; they need to be seen as a continuum and Nepal has theopportunity to lead in good practice.

Investment in Dedicated Coordinating Capacity

Strategic Investment in Capacity Building / Preparedness requires dedicated investment and coordinatingcapacity. Thereis no shortage of calls for investment in preparedness, most recently in the Report of the High Level Panel on Humanitarian Financing, and many confirm that preparedness is an investment that results in a return[1]. In a resource-constrained environment, investment is unlikely to take place without funding to preparedness action as a distinct project.
Core to this investment is human resource capacity; sufficient to coordinate collective planning and action, to protect preparedness investments; to maintain preparedness gains, and ensure review and continuous development of preparedness, commensurate with the level of risk and baseline preparedness.
Experience shows that after a disaster, significant opportunities exist to increase resources and scale-up preparedness for response action. However, in order to capitalise on this, having enough human and financial resources is critical.
The HCT AAR cited many effective preparedness investments – rapid activation of clusters, individual agency contingency plans, coordination architecture,donor engagement before and during response, etc that appear to have been technically low-cost investments, however theyrequire time and staff, both of which are often hard to justify in fundraising.
It is important to note the difficulty RCOs have in ensuring sufficient resources to support the collective – there is a real challenge to meet the needs that a collective preparedness plan requires. Ensuring appropriate resources across RCOs in high risk environments requires a global review of need and capacity.

Increased Use of Evidence Base –Demonstrate Value to Increase Investment

Strategic Investment in Capacity Building / Although Nepal and many parts of Asia fare better for preparedness than other developing regions, risk reduction and preparedness remain undervalued and underinvested in. Mechanisms such as ROI[2] need to be more effectively used to provide evidence andincrease investment in preparedness. Other indicators of effectiveness, including ‘shelflife’ and ‘returnperiod’ as elements of sustainability, must also be integrated into the assessment of the added value of investment into a preparedness activity. Capacity building, long seen as a ‘free-for-all’ approach, must be brought under the same rigour of assessment and streamlining as other preparedness investments.

Preparing for Recovery - Recovery is the Overarching Challenge of Responding to Earthquakes, and not Disaster Relief

Strengthening Humanitarian -Development Nexus / A key lesson from previous earthquakes and other natural disasters[3]is that there is no gap between relief and recovery. Government recovery structures take time toset up so agencies need to focus on recovery right from the start of the operation (ideally carrying out recovery preparedness planning, including testing through recovery simulations). All involved need to recognize that recovery from a large disaster takes up to five years. This will facilitate setting realistic time frames, setting indicators for transition from response to recovery coordination (a challenge in Nepal), and effective management of communicationto affected populations and media. It is critical to accelerate strategies and activities in support of Preparedness for Recovery in order to make this a more robust and effective process for Nepal. Whilst the benefits of earlier recovery preparedness efforts have not been so evident (perhaps due to the shelf life of activities), regular reviews throughout the earthquake recovery period can inform future preparedness and recoverywork.

Timely
Investment in Transformational Response Mechanisms –Cash, Private Sector and AAP

Strategic Investment in Capacity Building / Increasing importance is being placed on a number of key mechanisms and modalities that support a more effective disaster response. These mechanisms can take a lot of time to set up if advanced levels of preparedness haven’t already taken place, with the result that the impact of the interventions will be significantly reduced. Greater investment is urgently needed to ensure benefits in future responses, capitalising on current gains, motivation and opportunities after the earthquake response.
Cash – CTP significantly increased in Nepal during the earthquake relief and recovery efforts and is only going to increase in its importance in future disaster responses. To be more ‘cash ready’, significant work is needed in the preparedness phase to: (i) increase government and responder buy-in and agreements of its application, particularly multipurpose cash in a sector-based humanitarian system (ii) understand the feasibility of cash programming and (iii)markets in and around Nepal (iv) ensure pre-agreements with financial service providers (some already done). Issues of inclusion, targeting and linkages to the existing government safety net programmeneed to be more comprehensively addressed. Given some of the challenges of larger distribution programmes, reflection should be made regarding other recent approaches to CTP, which were often made up of many much smaller distributions and agreed at the district level.
Private sector partnership and coordination – considerable opportunities exist to collaborate more effectively and take initial work through to conclusion. Both the private sector and national diaspora associations provide opportunities, not only for increasing the size and effectiveness of response, but also by tapping into their networks to advocate for changes in disaster risk management at both national and district level.It is critical that this work is done in a coordinated way to ensure that the international community is perceived as coherent by the business community.
Accountability, community engagement feedback mechanisms –
pre-agreements are needed with key national and international partners to enable rapid set-up of AAP mechanisms (such as the Inter-agency Common Feedback Project) to support the responding community in taking, giving and being held to account, ensuring greater clarity of how this feeds into strategic and operational decision-making in the response. Opportunities exist to increase awareness and understanding of AAP within potentially influential national organisations at national and district level, as well as more broadly among DDRC members through extending CFP activities into the reconstruction and recovery phase and into other (non-earthquake) high-risk DDRCs.
Cash, along with increasing partnerships with the Private Sector and Diaspora, has the potential to transform preparedness, including in pre-positioning of stocks. Cash, Private Sector and AAP mechanisms all made gains in the earthquake response which need to be maintained and built upon.

Sustaining Gains in National Risk Management Requires
Long-Term Commitment and Planning Horizons

Leadership, Governance, Coordination / There have been, and continue to be, positive developments from long-term engagement with government – comprehensive DRR and disaster response structures are being developed and capacity is being built – while the political environment presents considerable challenges for rapid and sustained outcomes. Efforts need to be maintained and seen as part of a long term-strategy, perhaps 10–20 years.

Leadership accountability for preparedness, not only for response

Leadership, Governance, Coordination / Part of increasing the value of preparedness comes from how performance is evaluated.Strong accountability mechanisms need to be developed in the same way that response has specific accountability systems, particularly for leadership.It is essential to value and measure leadership and effectiveness of the international community on the basis of what has been done to reduce risk, including capacity-building of national actors/government and emergency management structures and how well they are prepared to respond to Level 1-3 emergencies. There are opportunities for Nepal to lead the way in developing its own accountability mechanism and KPIs.
Accountability also includes ensuring that leadership positions (RC as well as across key organisations, cluster coordinators) in high risk environments like Nepal have emergency response experience. The future RC should also have an understanding of regional and global emergency response tools.

Investing in strategic engagement with national and local authorities and national NGOs

Strategic Investment in Capacity Building / Capacity-building efforts of key national actors can support a more effective disaster response and potentially offer some of the best returns on investment (ROI)[4]. Whilst there are over 40,000 registered NGOs/CSOs in Nepal, a collective strategic approach to engagement with national NGOs involved in disaster response seems somewhat limited and ad hoc, although there are notable exceptions such as the Nepal Red Cross and NSET. More effective coordination of the response of national NGOs requires a solid understanding of their networks and demand come from within. Several opportunities exist for AIN to play a bigger role in facilitating the development of national NGO coordination mechanisms; AIN also played an additional support role in getting new INGOs operational faster, and potentially play a further catalytic role in bringing a broader base of INGOs to the table in preparedness and broader risk management approaches in longer-term work.
Opportunities to increase awareness of humanitarian principles, vulnerability and accountability through members of DDRCs have also been highlighted. This offers greater openings for increasing national advocates within different fora to challenge issue around protection,gender equality and social inclusion, application of vulnerability criteria (versus often nationally supported blanket approaches) as well as integrating AAP mechanisms more locally.

Strengthening Linkages Between Emergency Response and Development Actors and Coordination Mechanisms

Strengthening Humanitarian -Development Nexus / Coordination architecture for emergencies exists and provides linkages between government and the international community, functioning to a greater or lesser degree. However, the coordination between disaster response and development would benefit from clearer and stronger linkages, and provides an opportunity to bring the life cycle of disaster response into development processes. The ERP planning processes and activities provide opportunities to reflect and improve on this by bringing in a broader base of organisations at national and district levels.

Effective Data PreparednessCan Reduce Needs Assessment Data Collection and Support Faster Appropriate Responses

Strategic Investment in Capacity Building / Having the right data and information ahead of any disaster enables a much clearer understanding of how communities and infrastructure will be affected and can therefore support a more rapid initial response and reduce data collection needs. A comprehensive approach to the District Profiles (incorporating vulnerability, protection, inclusion and SADD), provide exactly this opportunity.
Information management gains need to be continually maintained and oversight provided by senior management. Consistent deployment of IM capacity across clusters does not automatically translate into meeting IM expectations of decision-makers and therefore agreement on what questions need to be answered by data collection needs to be made clearer ahead of a disaster, not a problem unique to Nepal.
Assessment analysis provided through local social media provides opportunities for the future. However, effective needs assessment continues to present a challenge in Nepal (as other countries). An analysis of recent performance is needed – aftermuch investment offering few results.

Simulations Work

Strategic Investment in Capacity Building / Simulations for firstresponders clearly contribute to a more effective response. Despite attempts, multi-stakeholder simulations have proved allusive. Whilst work to integrate all actors together in simulations continues, it is essential tooffer lightertable-top simulationsannually at the very least (based on assessment of turnover), to ensure the international community has clarity of roles and responsibilities and an understanding of latest response guidance and support, ready to support a nationally led response. The great challenges of recovery should be simulated as well as first response.

Effective Use of Surge Capacity

Effective Use of Surge / IASC surge capacity risk eroding the goodwill of national governments as well as other key actors due to lack of understanding of existing systems, cultures and context. Existing pre-disaster government-international community coordination mechanisms risk withdrawal of government involvement and potentially access to affected populations in the response.
The political dynamics in Nepal mean that there are frequent changes in key government roles which reset many relationships and progress in DRM. Frequent staff changes in the international community also represent challenges for national partners.
Some existing good practices need to be recognized and replicated and stronger strategies to address the challenges of surge, experience, contract duration, briefing and standard contact would benefit future responses.

Working More Locally Can Reduce the Political Complexities of Engaging at Central Level

Leadership, Governance, Coordination / Whilst the complexities of interacting with national-level government bodies can often slow progress, opportunities do exist to engage more directly with local authorities, NGOs and the private sector through the DDRCs at an operational level. DLSAs provide an excellent opening to support capacity building for response and recovery but also in preparedness for new disasters.