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22. Staying First to Fight: Reaffirming the Marine Corps’ Role in Foreign Humanitarian Assistance Missions
- Author:
- Eric S. Hovey
- Publication Date:
- 03-2022
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Advanced Military Studies
- Institution:
- Marine Corps University Press, National Defense University
- Abstract:
- The U.S. Marine Corps’ 2019 Commandant’s Planning Guidance placed a dominant focus on modernizing the force to contest China within the Indo-Pacific region but deemphasized support to foreign humanitarian assistance missions. This article challenges the current framing of the Marine Corps’ role in disaster response missions, specifically the notion that they are not a part of the organization’s identity and that they detract from warfighting readiness. The case is made that U.S. military support to foreign humanitarian assistance missions will only grow, that the Marine Corps has and will have a role to play in these missions, and that participation in disaster relief operations improves their warfighting readiness.
- Topic:
- Disaster Relief, Humanitarian Aid, Natural Disasters, Armed Forces, Foreign Assistance, and Marine Corps
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus and Indo-Pacific
23. Policy Papers by Women of Color: Decolonizing International Development
- Author:
- Tamara White, Aisha White, Gabrielle B. Gueye, Daniet Moges, and Eliza Gueye
- Publication Date:
- 02-2022
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security and Conflict Transformation (WCAPS)
- Abstract:
- This series explores a handful of scenarios where colonial legacies surface in international development and humanitarian aid work, from staffing and institution building to food aid and global tourism. Exploring these topics and seeking to deconstruct the systems and structures that impede success in development and humanitarian efforts is critically important in ensuring that we ultimately meet global goals and restore integrity to our sector. Many believe international development and humanitarian aid are irreconcilable and that this work is an extension of colonialism, but our constituency believes that there is hope in transforming the sector and shifting power to those who should rightfully own this work and reap the benefits of development.
- Topic:
- Development, Humanitarian Aid, Tourism, Culture, Neoliberalism, Decolonization, Institutions, COVID-19, and Food Assistance
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus and United States of America
24. Learning where it matters: Piloting action learning with frontline humanitarian staff
- Author:
- Jennifer Doherty
- Publication Date:
- 04-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- ALNAP: Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance
- Abstract:
- The knowledge of frontline staff – those directly involved in programme implementation and monitoring – is fundamental to good humanitarian action. These individuals make decisions and solve problems every day in their work with crisis-affected populations. The interactions they have with communities produce important information on how to implement projects most effectively to meet local needs. Despite the central importance of this knowledge to effective programming, frontline learning has consistently lacked support. ALNAP created an action learning resource pack and supported training on action learning with 26 frontline staff from local, national and international humanitarian NGOs between December 2020 and October 2021. This study explores the learning and reflections from that pilot on using action learning with frontline staff in humanitarian contexts.
- Topic:
- Humanitarian Aid, Community, Project Management, and Implementation
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
25. Systems Thinking Handbook for Humanitarians
- Author:
- Leah Campbell
- Publication Date:
- 08-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- ALNAP: Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance
- Abstract:
- This handbook introduces the ‘how’ of systems thinking for humanitarians – specifically the particular skills that systems thinkers need to practice and seven basic tools for systems thinking. You can also find a helpful glossary of terms at the end. If you’re new to systems thinking, you may like to take a look at the accompanying ALNAP paper, Systems thinking for humanitarians: An introduction for the complete beginner, which provides further background on what systems thinking is and why it is relevant to and useful for the sorts of complex problems that humanitarians face.
- Topic:
- Humanitarian Aid, Handbook, and Systems Thinking
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
26. Communicating humanitarian learning: What do we know?
- Author:
- Jo-Hannah Lavey
- Publication Date:
- 08-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- ALNAP: Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance
- Abstract:
- Effective communication of critical lessons is essential to improve response to crises. This paper identifies what we know about how the sector communicates what it has learned to improve policy and practice. Humanitarians produce a wealth of research and knowledge. There is, however, little evidence on how to best communicate this knowledge to maximise its impact. This scoping paper is aimed at producers and communicators of humanitarian knowledge. It provides a brief overview of core concepts and existing literature related to communicating humanitarian learning. It identifies five useful findings: Change is complex: it takes time and often does not succeed. Documented evidence is a small contributor to change. Humanitarians prefer tacit, networked knowledge over documentation. Humanitarians access knowledge that is immediately relevant. National actors are not sufficiently included. The paper also outlines what the literature tells us about humanitarian preferences for how to communicate learning. It concludes by finding that those aiming to share documented learning to improve policy and practice are operating without a solid evidence base to guide them, and proposes a future research agenda to fill these evidence gaps.
- Topic:
- Humanitarian Aid, Communications, and Organizational Learning
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
27. Lessons of lessons: A window into the evolution of the humanitarian sector
- Author:
- Jessica Alexander and Emmeline Kerkvliet
- Publication Date:
- 09-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- ALNAP: Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance
- Abstract:
- Monitoring and evaluation is critical for assessing performance and maintaining accountability in the humanitarian sector. For 25 years, ALNAP Lessons Papers have brought together findings and recommendations from a range of different contexts and disaster types, laying out lessons from previous responses in concise and readable ways. This paper looks at a selection of ALNAP Lessons papers across 20 years, aiming to identify where and how the humanitarian system has evolved over time, as well as the areas where progress has been weaker and stronger attention is still needed. It identifies four interesting trends: Structural, system-wide themes appear more frequently in the Lessons Papers. Lessons related to technical learning showed the most change from ‘observational’ to ‘instructional’ over time. Lessons related to structural and system-wide issues don’t change has much over time, staying more ‘observational’. Lessons related to localisation and community engagement and accountability (CEA) show least progress over time.
- Topic:
- Humanitarian Aid, Community Engagement, Planning, Monitoring, and and Evaluation (PME)
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
28. Action Learning for Frontline Humanitarians: a resource pack
- Author:
- Jennifer Doherty, Amelie Sundberg, and Alice Obrecht
- Publication Date:
- 11-2022
- Content Type:
- Course Pack
- Institution:
- ALNAP: Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance
- Abstract:
- The knowledge of frontline staff – those directly involved in programme implementation and monitoring – is fundamental to good humanitarian action. These individuals make decisions and solve problems every day in their work with crisis-affected populations. The interactions they have with communities produce important information on how to implement projects most effectively to meet local needs. Decisions stemming from this experiential knowledge can be as valuable as decisions reached through more formal, explicit evidence. The pack is for programme staff who are implementing projects, staff in monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL) roles who are collecting data and evaluating projects, and for team leaders or managers who work with them. Individuals, project teams or cross-organisational and inter-agency groups can all use this approach.
- Topic:
- Humanitarian Aid, Decision-Making, and Organizational Learning
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
29. Learning to change: The case for systemic learning strategies in the humanitarian sector
- Author:
- John Mitchell and Ben Ramalingam
- Publication Date:
- 12-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- ALNAP: Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance
- Abstract:
- This paper presents the case for systemic organisational change in the humanitarian system. The paper firstly shows that that organisational learning has tended to reinforce existing ways of working and has not been able to shift a culture that values action over reflection. As a result, the rest of the paper asks about the most significant changes in the humanitarian sector and the contribution of learning. The paper explores four case studies on learning using a systems lens, which enables a more dynamic and holistic view of how learning actually works in the sector. The findings show that learning has indeed played a critical role in many key change efforts but has often not been part of wider organisational learning efforts. The paper’s conclusion suggests that the humanitarian sector needs to rethink its rationale and approach to learning; and that the research and explorations in the paper can underpin this approach. A number of steps are then proposed for how this may be taken forward.
- Topic:
- Humanitarian Aid and Organizational Learning
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
30. Recognising diaspora humanitarianism: What we know and what we need to know more about
- Author:
- Mohamed Aden Hassan, Sahra Ahmed Koshin, Peter Albrecht, Mark Bradbury, Fatima Dahir Mohamed, Abdirahman Edle Ali, Karuti Kanyinga, Nauja Kleist, George Michuki, Ahmed Musa, Jethro Norman, and Obadia Okinda
- Publication Date:
- 02-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
- Abstract:
- Diaspora humanitarianism is characterised by rapid mobilisation and engagement that is built upon social networks, affective motivations, informal delivery and accountability mechanisms. This has implications for how it fits into the broader international humanitarian system. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ■ Diaspora humanitarianism grows out of transnational connections that link diaspora groups with their families and homelands. This relational and affective dimension enables rapid mobilisation and delivery to hard-to-reach areas. ■ Remittances to conflict-affected countries surpass official humanitarian aid six times, blurring boundaries between short-term emergency relief and long-term development. ■ Accountability practices tend to be informal and trust-based, structured around reputation. Overall coordination with formal political or humanitarian systems is usually absent.
- Topic:
- Development, Humanitarian Aid, Migration, Poverty, Diaspora, Inequality, Fragile States, Economy, and Conflict
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus