Overviews of humanitarian and early recovery coordination, funding mechanisms and strategies in Zimbabwe

2.1.3 The Humanitarian and UN Country Team

The Humanitarian Country Team(HCT), established in Zimbabwe in March 2009, is the highest level coordination body for humanitarian and early actors. It is strengthening humanitarian action in the country through setting common objectives and priorities, promoting implementation of various global IASC guidelines and procedures on humanitarian action, promoting closer linkages with, and undertaking periodic oversight of, the cluster approach, the ERF/CERF arrangements, and other initiatives within the overall humanitarian reform agenda.

The HCT is composed of Heads of UN agencies namely FAO, IOM, UNDP, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, WHO, the World Bank; Heads of 5 NNGOs/INGOs¹¹. OCHA acts as the secretariat. The HCT has standing observers namely: Heads of ICRC, IFRC, ZRCS, NGOs and Humanitarian Reform Project Officer.

¹⁰ OCHA Zimbabwe ; Interagency National Contingency Plan July 2010-July 2011, Harare, June 2010

2.1.4 The Clusters

An Inter-cluster Forum was established in Zimbabwe following the guidance provided by the global IASC, IASC-WG and IASC Task Forces, and the Humanitarian Reform Agenda. The Inter-cluster Forum seeks to improve the planning and coordination between and across clusters in pursuit of a more transparent and predictable response to priority areas of humanitarian and early recovery assistance.

Each cluster has a work plan that is used to guide their work. OCHA assist to coordinate efforts and thereby eliminate duplication and also seek opportunities for clusters to work together such as Health and WASH during the cholera outbreak.

Through the Humanitarian Country Team(HCT), the Humanitarian Coordinator in Zimbabwe has designated Cluster Leads in sectors relevant to the Contingency Plan as follows:

Cluster	Cluster Lead (UN & int. orgs)
Health	WHO
Nutrition	UNICEF
Water, Sanitation & Hygiene	UNICEF
Food	WFP
Education in Emergencies	UNICEF/Save the Children
Protection	UNHCR
Agriculture	FAO
Economic Livelihoods, Infrastructure and Institutional Capacity Building (LICI)	UNDP and IOM
Logistics	WFP

Indirectly, all communities likely to be affected by future disasters and receiving assistance by the above stakeholders are stakeholders.

2.2 Humanitarian and Early Recovery Assessments: Linkage to the Actions

In view of the changing context in Zimbabwe and the increasing shift to recovery and development activities to address the remaining needs which are more or less of a chronic nature, the scope of existing humanitarian coordination structures need to be broadened.

In the CAP 2011 Workshop facilitated by OCHA office in Zimbabwe from the 1rst to the 2^nd September 2010, it was agreed that the CAP 2011 should focus on early recovery which will address current challenges and pave way for long term relief and restoration of livelihoods. A key task is how to effectively link ongoing humanitarian activities to recovery and development initiatives that are simultaneously undertaken by development partners and the Government of Zimbabwe. This calls for an adoption of a multi-sector approach in responding to the needs on the ground and the integration of humanitarian response in development actions. OCHA and UNDP Zimbabwe can and should play a vital role in ensuring there is a clear interface between the actions of different Humanitarian Clusters and between these clusters and their corresponding development forums.

In addition, the need remains for accurate monitoring of the humanitarian situation and inter-agency assessment in vulnerable regions to get a better understanding of socio-economic and political situation and to improve humanitarian programming and targeting. More has to be done in terms of improving the available information on humanitarian needs and collaboration with local structures in this regard. In 2009, with concerted efforts and advocacy with the Government, there were significant improvements in the areas of protection monitoring and a joint assessment was conducted with the government to get an overview of the needs of Internal Displaced Peoples(IDPs). The joint assessment brought out the keys needs of various IDP communities. However, the number of IDPs in Zimbabwe is not known and there is a need to conduct a comprehensive national-level IDP profiling so that the demographic and

economic characteristics of these communities are further studied and recommendations for durable solutions are made.

In 2010, the Government of Zimbabwe launched Food Deficit Mitigation Strategy and National Small-farmer Input Support Programme to address food insecurity in a holistic and inter-sectoral approach. While this is a welcome development, there is a need to ensure humanitarian and early recovery principles are upheld in implementing these programmes and that there are complementariness between these initiatives and the actions of the Humanitarian and development community. The humanitarian and early recovery community must build on progress made so far and should conduct more sectoral and thematic joint assessments with the government, or/and among humanitarian and early recovery partners to enhance the effectiveness of humanitarian and early recovery response: Therefore, there is a need:

To strengthen advocacy activities through accurate and regular monitoring and dissemination of humanitarian information, humanitarian and early recovery principles and humanitarian law

For an effective coordination between humanitarian and early recovery stakeholders and government counterparts to improve on common planning, preparedness, coordination and response on humanitarian and early recovery situation. There exists a misunderstanding between many government counterparts who generally view the clusters as parallel arrangements and who still insist that humanitarians should follow development structures, many of which are largely non-functional. This entails operationalising clusters at field level and expanding humanitarian and early coordination to sub-national levels. There is also a need for adapting the humanitarian and early recovery structures to the evolving context and ensure strong linkages are created between humanitarian and development forums.

The CAP 2011 workshop participants emphasized the need for strengthening coordination at national and sub-national levels. It highlighted the need for a close collaboration between humanitarian coordination forums and recovery and development structures. Increasing collaboration through constant consultations and by ensuring the involvement of relevant Government line ministries at cluster level coordination structures is recognized as a key factor in aligning humanitarian priorities with the Governmental plans. There is no clarity in how cluster-level discussions feed into recovery forums and this needs to be strengthened.

The Workshop participants also agreed that a program-based approach rather than project-based in the selection and funding of CAP projects will give a strategic focus to the exercise and will allow monitoring of gaps in humanitarian and early recovery response. The success of the new approach will depend on the acceptance and buy-in of the Donor community and hence it was also agreed that a corresponding funding strategy should be produced.

Lessons learnt from 2008 and 2009 seasonal disasters, including cholera, indicate that the capacities of local actors need to be strengthened so that emergency preparedness initiatives are in place and relief and recovery response is better coordinated at the field level. This is to be achieved by designing specific contingency plans that address the risks involving all the local stakeholders. While development actors take the lead in capacity building, the Humanitarian Community should support in the areas where they have unique expertise mainly in disaster preparedness and mitigation.