The [Good Enough Guide] training has improved my understanding of essential elements of accountability and precisely the need to involve the community at every stage of the project. It enabled me to plan effectively with other development partners especially in the IDP camps and also during the meetings."

Hanshi Jama
Senior Public Health Officer
Kenyan Ministry of Health

The Horn of Africa simulation exercise can be considered successful in that it met its objectives to test coordination and collaboration, identify capacity gaps and feed into national development planning, enhance teambuilding and trust, and  assess leadership / management styles during an emergency. The Horn of Africa Facilitation Team, April 2010.

Read more about the Staff Retention Workshop findings.

Horn of Africa

Led by World Vision, the Horn of Africa Consortium includes Oxfam GB, CARE, CRS, Save the Children, Concern Universal, Concern Worldwide, and UN HABITAT. Countries include Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Somalia. This regional Consortium is working together with the Inter-Agency Working Group on Disaster Preparedness (IAWG) to effectively coordinate the exchange of information and organize joint training initiatives with ECB agencies and the IAWG subgroups.

Many cross-border issues like conflict and refugee flows, trans-border pastoralist movements, and regional supply chains of food impact the level of risk in the Horn of Africa. Regional-level analysis and collaborative capacity building activities are therefore essential to support timely, appropriate and cost efficient emergency response programs. In recent months the Horn agencies have responded to slow-onset disasters such as widespread drought and food crises. A Joint Evaluation in August 2010 focused on evaluating the cash transfer program response to the drought in Kenya.

A simulation exercise held in Nairobi in March 2008 included participants from over 20 humanitarian agencies, many of whom are now ECB Consortium members. A second simulation and training of trainers workshop, in April 2010, furthered our understanding of where to focus future coordination and emergency capacity building efforts.

Working together with members of the Consortium of British Humanitarian Agencies (CBHA), inter-agency teams reviewed and contributed towards the development of a core humanitarian competencies framework and leadership behaviour framework. These frameworks will define the core requirements for a CBHA training curriculum program that will be implemented by the Horn of Africa consortium to respond to the competency requirement findings also identified during the simulations exercises.

The Horn of Africa Consortium is working with People in Aid to develop their understanding of humanitarian staff retention challenges in the region. A report outlines a series of recommendations, and best practice examples, that will be combined with further training. Sharing experiences to date and collaborating to develop effective solutions will enable program managers to adapt and adopt their strategies to continually improve staff engagement and retention.

Ideas on how to mainstream Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation initiatives across programs were shared by a number of DRR experts in a meeting held in Nairobi in August 2010. Key learning and action plan highlights will be disseminated in our next newsletter.

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