Projekte

Kurzbeschreibung:

Projektziel

The project will strengthen capacities for effective humanitarian crisis response in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) through research grounded gender responsive individual competency development for professionals from civil protection authorities, security forces, and NGOs informed by the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus approach, and promote networking structures to enhance policy development, deployment capacities, (local) preparedness, and peace (impact).

Erwartete Ergebnisse

1: Increased individual competencies for gender responsive Humanitarian Assistance in West Africa among key actors from state authorities, NGOs, military, and police will indirectly strengthen institutional capacities and improve the (development and) implementation of disaster response mechanisms. HAWA alumni develop a broad view on the humanitarian sector beyond their own specialist areas and are thus well equipped to facilitate coordination with other stakeholders and take over more responsibilities (e.g, leadership roles).

2: Effective conflict transformation, preparedness, and humanitarian crisis response in target countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal) are enhanced and will improve the quality of local political strategies (policies, action plans, etc.) by considering the input of practitioners who are directly involved in humanitarian assistance and important stakeholder groups in communities (e.g., youths, IDPs). The better co-operation between government structures and civil society organisations will increase the capacity of actors to lead national/local humanitarian action in the international aid context.

Zielgruppe

The project activities will be implemented in Ghana, in cooperation with the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC), and in the target countries Burkina Faso, Senegal, Nigeria, Mali, and Niger in cooperation with HAWA graduates and local partner organisations. 1,527 persons will directly benefit from project activities.

At the institutional level, the KAIPTC and at least 20 (West African) agencies that plan and deliver humanitarian assistance or provide capacity development in the field are indirect beneficiaries. The project will, through its graduates, indirectly reach a total of 150,000 recipients of humanitarian assistance. After the end of the project, the trainees are expected to continue reaching about 150,000 recipients of humanitarian assistance annually through their work.

Maßnahmen

The core activities are trainings at the KAIPTC (Core Courses, Training of Trainers Courses, Specialisation Course on gender responsive climate action in Humanitarian Assistance) in English and French, Humanitarian Assistance and alumni networking activities in target countries, a survey on the human resource needs of international organisations in humanitarian assistance in West Africa, and one publication of the intersectional study on the drivers and impediments for women from West Africa to enter professional humanitarian assistance and their career advancement in international contexts (based on recent racism and sexism debates in the sector) as a policy brief.

Hintergrundinformation

Effective humanitarian assistance is ideally the result of coordinated efforts of multiple actors with specially trained personnel. This project is therefore embedded in and informed by the Austrian ‘3C Approach’ that aims at the development of coherent, coordinated, and complementary engagement of Austria’s governmental and non-governmental actors in international crisis situations. The project receives substantial operational support from the Austrian Ministry of Defense.

This project is the 4th phase of an ongoing co-operation with the project partners.