Historique

Early Recovery is a key component of humanitarian crisis response. Early Recovery addresses recovery needs during the humanitarian phase, using humanitarian mechanisms in accordance with development principles. It is an integrated, inclusive, and coordinated approach to gradually turn the dividends of humanitarian action into sustainable crisis recovery, resilience building and development opportunities. Emergency relief addresses peoples’ survival and basic well-being. Early Recovery restores people’s capacities and supports communities’ first steps to recover from the crisis. The Global Cluster on Early Recovery (GCER) advocates for humanitarian actors to integrate approaches into their humanitarian work, where possible, that will mitigate the impact of a future crisis on a community. Lastly, the Early Recovery approach presents important opportunities to promote gender equality. Failure to include gender perspectives in early decision-making processes can have long-lasting impacts on women, men, boys, and girls particularly in the context of governance structures, policies and practices, which can reinforce existing socio-economic disparities between men and women.

Where the humanitarian coordination architecture in a crisis response does not cover all the identified needs of the population, the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) may recommend the establishment of another cluster to coordinate the response in this thematic area.  This is often an area linked to Early Recovery issues, such as establishing a rubble removal cluster (Currently no agency is globally tasked with this), or a livelihoods cluster (if this is not integrated into another cluster effectively), or a governance cluster which may look at revitalizing the local authorities and empowering them to provide services and ensure they are relevant and active. 

There are several thematic areas that the additional cluster would focus on but it is predicted that any additional clusters could focus on: rubble removal, governance, livelihoods, small-scale infrastructure, community restoration, capacity building, etc. These areas are understood to be closely related to ‘Early Recovery’, and therefore UNDP is well placed to provide the leadership in the event that a HCT decides there is a need for an additional cluster in a crisis-affected country. 

This does not replace the need for Early Recovery as an approach that all actors should embrace – capitalizing on humanitarian response to support resilience building, recovery and development objectives, or linking relief and development. It is simply a cluster, which supports coordination of a distinct set of activities in a specific area that supports the coordination of the overall humanitarian response.  The cluster would not be called an “Early Recovery” cluster, as Early Recovery is the process which applies to all clusters in humanitarian response. 

Lastly, the Early Recovery approach presents important opportunities to promote gender equality. These opportunities are often lost because gender issues tend to be given low priority during an emergency and often times not prioritized when recovery begins. Failure to include gender perspectives in early decision-making processes can have long-lasting impacts on women, men, boys, and girls— particularly in the context of governance structures, policies and practices, which can reinforce existing socio-economic disparities between men and women.

The core functions of a cluster at country level are:

To support service delivery by:

• Providing a platform that ensures service delivery is driven by the Strategic Response Plan36 and strategic priorities.
• Developing mechanisms to eliminate duplication of service delivery.To inform the HC/HCT’s strategic decision-making by:
• Preparing needs assessments and analysis of gaps (across and within sectors, using information management tools as needed).
• Identifying and finding solutions for (emerging) gaps, obstacles, duplication and cross-cutting issues.
• Formulating priorities on the basis of analysis.To plan and develop strategy by:
• Developing sectoral plans, objectives and indicators that directly support realization of the response’s strategic priorities.
• Applying and adhering to common standards and guidelines.
• Clarifying funding requirements, helping to set priorities, and agreeing cluster contributions to the HC’s overall humanitarian funding proposals.

To monitor and evaluate performance by:

• Monitoring and reporting on activities and needs;
• Measuring performance against the cluster strategy and agreed results;
• Recommending corrective action where necessary.

  To build national capacity in preparedness and contingency planning.

Advocacy

• Identifying concerns that contribute to HC and HCT messaging and action.
• Undertaking advocacy on behalf of the cluster, cluster members, and affected people. 

Devoirs et responsabilités

Inclusion of key humanitarian partners.

• Ensure inclusion of key humanitarian partners for the sector, respecting their respective mandates and programme priorities.

Establishment and maintenance of appropriate humanitarian coordination mechanisms.

• Ensure appropriate coordination with all humanitarian and development partners and establishing effective links with other sectorial groups promoting Early Recovery planning.

Coordination with national/local authorities, State institutions, local civil society and other relevant actors.

• Ensure appropriate links with national and local authorities, State institutions, local civil society and other relevant actors in support of coordination and information exchange.

Participatory and community-based approaches.

• Identify and establish contact with all relevant stakeholders, including representatives of affected populations and ensure utilization of participatory and community based approaches in sectoral needs assessments, analysis, planning, monitoring and response.

Attention to priority cross-cutting issues.

• Raise awareness and promote the integration of agreed priority cross-cutting issues in sectoral needs assessment and contribute to the development of appropriate strategies to address these issues.

Needs assessment and analysis.

• Ensure effective and coherent sectoral needs assessment and analysis, involving all relevant partners, stakeholders;

Emergency Preparedness.

• Ensure adequate contingency planning and preparedness for new emergencies.

Planning and strategy development.

• Work with cluster members to identify gaps ensure a strategic response and action plan based on past activities and lessons learnt adequately reflecting the humanitarian needs.

Application of standards.

• Ensure that cluster participants are aware of relevant guidelines and standards and apply those in their response also in line with government commitments to Human Rights and IHL obligations.

Monitoring and reporting.

• Facilitate adequate monitoring mechanisms to review impact of the cluster and progress against implementation plans and ensure effective reporting and information sharing.

Advocacy and resource mobilization.

• Identify core advocacy concerns, including resource requirements, and contribute key messages to broader advocacy initiatives and resource mobilization;

Training and capacity building.

• Promote Early Recovery efforts to strengthen the capacity of the national authorities and civil society, including staff and cluster partners

Compétences

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission and strategic goals of the UN;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Specific Knowledge Competencies:

Humanitarian Response 

• Exceptional knowledge of humanitarian response systems, coordination mechanisms, and humanitarian policy. This includes coordinated needs assessments (MIRA, PDNA), and the Humanitarian Programme Cycle.

People Centered Approach

• Understands that a people-centered approach to humanitarian  action brings together the universal determinants of age, gender, and other specific diversity  characteristics for analysis that informs an effective response which includes; disability, HIV  AIDS, mental health, socio-economic status, religion, nationality, the environment and ethnic origins.

Recovery Programming

Strong knowledge of one or several of the early recovery programmatic areas:

• Livelihoods- Emergency Employment, Economic Recovery, Government Employment, Cash Coordination;
• Governance -  Rule of Law, Peace and Reconciliation, Community Stability, Social Cohesion, Local Governance, Civil Society;
• Basic Infrastructure repairs and rehabilitation- Waste Management, Utility systems, Local Government buildings, Community buildings, Mine Awareness and Clearance.

Transition Planning

• Comprehensive understanding of the challenges and experience of countries transitioning from humanitarian assistance to recovery and development.

Functional Competencies:

Professionalism

• Advanced knowledge of the use of information management in humanitarian response and recovery environments;
• Highly developed conceptual, analytical and innovative ability to identify and  articulate the information management requirements of complex situations requiring a coordinated response between disparate actors;
• Demonstrated problem-solving skills and ability to use sound judgment to ensure the effective and timely completion of complex tasks;
• Ability to work under extreme pressure, on occasion in a highly stressful environment (e.g. civil strife, natural disasters).

Communication

• Excellent communication and training (spoken and written) skills including the ability to convey complex information management concepts and recommendations to staff at all levels, both orally and in writing, in a clear, concise style that can be readily understood by non-information management practitioners.

Teamwork

• Works collaboratively with colleagues to achieve organizational goals;
• Places team agenda before personal agenda; supports and acts in accordance with final group decision.

Planning and Organization

• Develops clear goals that are consistent with agreed strategies; identifies priority activities and assignments;
• Adjusts priorities as required; foresees risks and allows for contingencies when planning;
• Monitors and adjusts plans and actions as necessary; uses time efficiently.

Accountability

• Takes ownership of all responsibilities and honours commitments;
• Operates in compliance with organizational regulations and rules;
• Supports subordinates and peers, provides oversight and takes responsibility for delegated assignments;
• Takes personal responsibility for his/her own shortcomings and those of the work unit, where applicable.

Client Orientation

• Considers all those to whom services are provided to be “clients” and seeks to see things from clients’ point of view;
• Designs solutions and basis recommendations on the principles of usability;
• Establishes and maintains productive partnerships with clients by gaining their trust and respect;
• Monitors ongoing developments inside and outside the clients’ environment to keep informed and anticipate problems;
• Keeps clients’ informed of progress or setbacks in projects;
• Meets timeline for delivery of products or services to clients.

Judgment/Decision-making

• Identifies the key issues in a complex situation, gathers relevant information before making a decision;
• Considers positive and negative impacts of decisions prior to making them;
• Proposes a course of action or makes a recommendation based on all available information;
• Checks assumptions against facts; determines that the actions proposed will satisfy the expressed and underlying needs for the decision.

Summary of Critical Competencies for Immediate Response Situations:

• Possess a comprehensive set of competencies to immediately take on the challenging role of leading the information needs of early recovery efforts in the designated area of responsibility – strategic, integrity, results oriented, teamwork, good inter-personal skills, well developed communication skills, sound judgment, analytical skills, flexibility, proactive engagement, innovation, risk management, gender and culturally sensitive, ability to work under pressure and demonstrates high tolerance for change, complexity and unpredictability.

Qualifications et expériences requises

Education:

• Advanced university degree (Masters Degree or equivalent) in Social Sciences (International Development, International Relations etc.), Social Science, A related field; or
• A combination of relevant academic background (at least a first level university degree id est Bachelor’s degree or equivalent) and extensive relevant professional experience in a related area may be accepted in lieu of advanced university degree.

Experience:

• Minimum of seven years of progressively responsible experience in humanitarian coordination or a related field; experience both at the national level and international level in large organizations with dispersed operations and/or in the public and private sector preferred (eight years’ experience if candidate holds Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent);
• Experience working within the UN system, preferably in an operational UN Agency or with OCHA;
• Experience in humanitarian response and recovery operations (complex emergencies and/or natural disasters) is desirable;
• Qualifications and / or industry certification and /or demonstrable experience in the following applications: Microsoft Office (advanced user certification of MS Access, MS Excel and MS Word desirable) and Lotus Notes are desirable.

Language Requirement:

• Fluency in written and spoken English is essential;
• Fluency in one or more official UN languages or the working language of the duty station is desirable.