Meeting Documents

On 4 October 2018, the HDN TT convened an expanded all-day meeting to specifically focus on the workplan activities. Against the backdrop of the end of the TT’s lifespan (December 2018), this meeting provided a timely opportunity for TT members to take stock of achievements to date, pending actions enabling a conclusion of the ToRs, and the means for ensuring relevant handover. As a contribution to current discussions regarding the restructuring of the IASC subsidiary bodies, this meeting provided the necessary space to discuss possible recommendations to the future body tasked to continue work related to Humanitarian-Development Collaboration. To this end, this document is not a note for the record. Rather it contains brief updates on key TT activities and outlines pending actions necessary to close out those activities. Lastly, this document aims to capture – as suggested thus far – draft recommendations stemming from the substantive discussions related to workplan activities.

The concept of Collective Outcomes is often cited as the core transformational aspect that sets aside current policy discussions on the Nexus from past attempts to link relief to development, or bridge the humanitarian-development divide.

The implementation, understanding, and even expectations for what and how collective outcomes should be varies widely in their interpretation and has resulted in COs that are pitched at different levels of specificity, granularity (national/sub-national), and timeframes.

A major influencing factor on the nature of Collective Outcomes is the type of joint-analysis and joint-assessment processes that underpin them. There are no established standards for joint context analysis approaches: some country teams use HNOs as entry points, some other use CCA, or RPBA, or RSA, or refugee analysis (CRRF), nationally owned SDG implementation plans or a mix thereof – adapted to their context.

Despite these major advancements in the articulation of COs, challenges remain. These include: developing robust monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to assess impact against these Collective Outcomes; ensuring appropriate short, medium, and long-term financing; as well as clarifying/ agreeing on accountability frameworks to deliver the activities under each Outcome.

Data presented in this mapping stems from two practitioners’ workshops convened by the IASC Humanitarian Development Nexus Task Team; and from ongoing discussions among practitioners through the Community of Practice hosted by the HDN TT.

With the objective to provide policy coherence and consistency in programme support, in response to these requests, and in line with the HDN TT’s agreed workplan, this document is designed to offer a menu of support activities that members of the IASC Task Team, collectively or individually and in collaboration with other relevant bodies both within and outside of the IASC can undertake to support field-colleagues. These activities, stem from experience in providing such support in Sudan, current pending requests from Mali, as well as support activities identified through discussions with field-practitioners. It is important to note, however, that the following list of activities is non-exhaustive and must be adapted to context, adapted to the degree of understanding, buy-in, and capacity in-country.

Despite systemic, procedural and administrative challenges, actors at the country level are working to find solutions to the obstacles that perpetuate the humanitarian and development silos, including different programme cycles, tools and procedures; lack of uniformity in support and flexibility in funding; and inconsistent membership of actors in different planning processes. However, despite these strides at policy and field level, questions remain.