The IASC Humanitarian System-Wide Scale-Up Protocols are a set of internal measures designed to critically enhance the humanitarian response in view of drastically increasing humanitarian needs and to ensure that IASC member organizations and partners can rapidly mobilize the necessary operational capacities and resources to respond to critical humanitarian needs on the ground.
Large-scale disasters have led the IASC to reform the humanitarian response system. After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the IASC launched the Humanitarian Reform around coordination, leadership, humanitarian financing and partnership. Emergency capacity has been reinforced but challenges remained. Following the Haiti earthquake and Pakistan floods in 2010, the IASC launched the Transformative Agenda in December 2011, setting the parameters for improved collective response to major humanitarian crises.
On 4 April 2019, the Emergency Relief Coordinator circulated the IASC Protocol for scaling-up the humanitarian response to infectious disease events following the endorsement of the IASC principals. In addition to major humanitarian crises triggered by natural disasters or conflicts, infectious disease events, including outbreaks, can result in a Humanitarian System-wide Scale-Up activation (i.e. ‘Scale-Up activation’) to ensure a more effective response.
As of the 20th November, following circulation by the Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mr. Mark Lowcock, the IASC Humanitarian System-Wide Scale-Up protocols replace the 2012 IASC Humanitarian System-Wide Emergency Activation (“L3 Response”) with immediate effect.The key documents are:
