Originally Posted by
Meh
Adam,
Are you working off Sphere standards for actual implementation? Or are you talking purely standards of interagency co-operation? My guess is the latter, although the former would serve you as an example of the complexity of creating unified humanitarian standards.
Currently looking for whatever is out there re standards for my literature review- both on implementation and on co-operation.
You aim to create a "practical tool" that can be used for any task and at any level, but I'm still unsure what the end result will be. You could create a million different practical tools for such tasks - where are you heading here?
I'm a civilian project/development manager by professional background. On that side there is a multitude of publications out there of how to plan and implement a project. So far I haven't seen something along the lines of the PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) that covers all of the additional areas required in a semi-permissive or hostile environment, or even in a natural disaster situation. The idea is to cover these areas- security planning, info/intel sharing etc and to come up with something that can guide anyone undertaking such projects in such environments by at least giving them the questions they will need to find answers to (both at the outset and on an ongoing basis) in order to put together a robust project plan. At the strategic level, I aim to cover the process of constructing and managing the inter-agency cooperation frameworks required to undertake such projects.
One suggestion:
On a recent course with humanitarian aid workers (experienced and novice), I noticed again how much the lack of a unified estimate process harmed their decision making. They still seem to rely too much on memory over deductive reasoning. If you could sell NGOs on such a decision making process, i.e. teaching their employees the humanitarian equivalent of the British Army's 7 Questions, that would be half the battle. If civilians and military were able to interface and explain "this is what we're doing and why" - and the other party actually understand what was being said and the reasoning behind it - you'd be taking one huge leap forward in interagency co-operation. Plus it would improve internal operations and planning as well. And my marriage, come to think of it.
Couldn't agree more. Hence the necessity to get down a lot of people's experiences as case studies from a range of backgrounds along with explaining that in given situations- "the Aussie mil does this, the US mil does this, and XYZ NGO does it this way". Along with providing the opportunity to learn from each other and adopt new ways of doing things, I hope that this process will allow different agencies to at least understand their counterparts' internal processes so that they can better work together.
You definitely can't create something for both the military and NGOs without getting into the heads of the latter. Hence...
1. Are you familiar with InterAction and their civil-military guidelines?
2. Humanitarian Military Intervention by Taylor Seybolt comes highly recommended.
3. Have you read:
a. A Bridge too far: aid agencies and the military in humanitarian response, by Jane Barry with Anna Jefferys.
b. Humanitarian Action and Military Intervention: Temptations and Possibilities, by Fabrice Weissman (MSF!).
c. Humanitarian Engagement with non-state Armed Actors, by Max P. Glaser.
d. Operational Security Management in Violent Environments, by Koenraad Van Brabant.
4. As you'll see from the publication origins of multiple readings above, joining the Humanitarian Practice Network is a good idea.
All hugely appreciated and precisely the sort of feedback re reading lists I'm looking for!
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