©HARP-F partner
In Myanmar, the layered dynamics of conflict, displacement, increasing needs, poor humanitarian access, COVID-19 and the February 2021 military coup d’état have increased humanitarian partners reliance on remote partnership models.
Delivering aid in a context where international agencies have restricted access requires a great reliance on local staff and partners, adapted Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to ensure accountability, and innovative ways of ensuring aid gets to the right people.
The HARP-F approach to remote partnerships relies on strengthening rather than replacing the national capacity to lead the response, shouldering some of the risks and compliance systems, and adapting SOPs to specific, protracted crisis contexts. In addition, HARP-F deploys a range of systems to support remote partnership.
©HARP-F partner
Build trust - The HARP-F approach relies on a trusted relationship with national partners. We empower national partners to take a ‘can- do’ attitude and support them to adopt operating systems – in procurement, financial management and safeguarding – to ensure they always meet the highest standards of delivery even as the conflict, access, political or health situation deteriorates.
Enhance the due diligence process - As reliance on downstream partners increases, and as political risk appetites from donor HQs potentially decrease, enhanced due diligence procedures conducted by independent partners such as HARP-F can provide an additional layer of reassurance that capacity challenges are flagged; equally they can increase donors’ confidence in the capacity of increasingly smaller, more community- based organisations to deliver the response.
Roll out the Remote Partnership Programming (RPP) Toolkit – adapted to the particular context partners are working in. Some may be delivering aid directly, others may have smaller partners or staff doing it, others may need to work with the camp management committees. The toolkit includes alternative Standard Operating Procedures for remote management programming (RMP) contexts, HARP-F approaches to RMP for partners applying for funding, Additional expected Due Diligence for downstream partners and guidance on Duty of Care for National Humanitarian Workers . The full Toolkit is available here.
©HARP-F partner
One of HARP-F national partners is working with IDPs in the Kachin and Northern Shan states of Myanmar since April 2009 to support their safe and dignified return and resettlement. The project has been providing food, cash assistance and safe and equitable access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services to over 24,000 IDPs in 25 camps in Kachin and Northern Shan.
But beyond this immediate relief, the project is incorporating strategies to reduce IDPs’ dependency on food aid and build their resilience – an approach that has proven particularly valuable during the COVID-19 outbreak.
In both Kachin and Northern Shan states, IDPs and other communities affected by conflict have limited means and support for sustainable livelihoods – in fact, the vast majority of the populations supported by the project remain reliant on aid and subsistence farming for their food. This precarious situation is compounded by the COVID-19 restrictions, especially in the non-government controlled areas, and travel limitations enforced on the China side of the border, which have considerably complicated aid transport and delivery in Kachin and Northern Shan states, and hampered access to the camps.
Yet, despite no access to the camps in non-Government controlled areas, and limited access to those in areas controlled by the Government, our partner has managed to adapt its project and keep its food distributions, hygiene campaigns and WASH activities going.
Building on its work to promote community engagement and ownership of the response, our partner has reformed the camp food committees through 2020 to put them in charge of food distribution. Members of the committee – at least 50% of whom are women and representatives from other vulnerable groups – attended training on warehouse management, food quality control and beneficiary registration through 2020. By the end of the year, the food committees in each of the 25 camps had gradually taken over the responsibility to organize food distributions, with our partner monitoring the process through social media and daily check ins by community facilitators.
Our partner started a similar process wit the camp WASH committees, strengthening their capacity to conduct hygiene awareness sessions and run the WASH maintenance activities. With COVID-19 restrictions banning public gatherings, it installed a sound system in all camps where it is running WASH activities, to convey hygiene and COVID-19 prevention and protection messages twice daily. Again, social media – WeChat, Messenger, Facebook and Skype – was the communication channel of choice to engage committee members, with community facilitators following up.
Throughout the project, and even more so since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, our partner has focused on keeping clear, regular communication with the WASH, food and camp management committees to be able to build their capacity. At the project closure in December 2020, this de-facto remote management had paid off, with the food committees reporting more community engagement and a stronger ownership of the response. The project continues to strengthen this practice of empowering food and WASH committees in the 25 camps it is working with in 2021.
