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Find here a ACT Newsletter-Editing_South-Sudan published by the ACT Forum on July 30, 2021.

The Forum has launched an urgent call for action in a video as well. 

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Irawaty Manullang – Forum Convenor in Indonesia, Executive Director of PELKESI

How often do you meet within the forum?

The Forum Coordination Meeting is scheduled once every three months, either offline or online, depending on the Forum members’ agreement. But at least twice a year we hold offline meetings for discussing joint programs and evaluation. Since the Covid-19 pandemic however we changed the offline meetings to virtual online meetings or discussions through WhatsApp. The virtual meetings are held nearly every month, especially regarding disaster response and gender programs.

Where is the focus of joint activities within the forum? 

Based on the ACT Alliance’s global strategy, the Forum holds planning for joint programs on Climate Change, Gender, Peace, Migration and Emergency Preparedness and Humanitarian Response (EPHR). But the issues the Forum has mainly focused on were EPHR and Gender. EPHR is the Forum’s most common concern because disaster frequency in Indonesia is high. Rapid response on disasters can be done as a consortium with the coordinator changing alternately. Concerning gender, currently we are in the process of introducing gender mainstreaming and a gender justice policy for every member. However, each member has different activities since each one’s understanding of gender is different.  Therefore ICCO, the Forum member who has already implemented a gender justice policy, will help the other members in doing a self-assessment, and also will facilitate completing the needed documents for each member to introduce a gender justice policy.   

Why do you think coordination or working together is important?

Coordination is a must in doing joint programs. Periodically, we can see the progress of the goals the Forum has agreed on, and what the obstacles and the solutions are, so that there are lessons learnt and a common agreement for improvements.

How do you collaborate with the National Council of Churches in your country?

PELKESI, YEU, and CDRM-CDS are members of the ACT Indonesia Forum (ACTIF) and Jaringan Komunitas Kristen untuk Penanggulangan Bencana di Indonesia (Jakomkris PBI) or Christian Community Network for Disaster Management in Indonesia. Jakomkris is striving to encourage churches in Indonesia to have disaster preparedness units. So when disaster occurs, members of ACTIF always coordinate with the local or national-level churches through Jakomkris in disaster response. On the other hand, ACTIF members also serve as facilitators for Jakomkris’ disaster management training for churches.   

In what sense do you benefit from the collaboration as an organization / individual?

As organization the benefit we get from the collaboration is that the disaster response in affected areas become quicker, right on target, and complement each other. Each member has different competencies in disaster response management. For example, ICCO is competent in women’s empowerment in agriculture, PELKESI in health services, YEU in inclusion, and CWS in migration. Individually, each member can broaden its network, and has easy access to disaster information and regulation, either by the central or local government.

How do you communicate throughout the year?

We forward any information we receive from ACT Alliance to the Forum members through the contact persons appointed by each organization. When we feel it’s urgent and needs immediate response, we forward it via the WhatsApp group. At PELKESI, I have some staff that helps me with communication and information issues, and supports me in organizing the Forum meetings using an online platform. Currently PELKESI is trying to empower its PELKESI Disaster Response Unit (PeDRU), so that one day they could handle PELKESI’s role as a convenor.

Besides, some Forum members in charge or as part of regional working groups also help in communicating information from the ACT Alliance, in case I have not received such information. When there are regional-level meetings, I usually coordinate with the PELKESI team and each members’ leaders.

What challenges have you encountered?

1. Each member of the Forum, both NGOs and INGOs, have different characteristics. And that is the wealth of the Indonesian forum. We have planned several joint programs based on strategic issues at the same location, with work roles according to the potential and capacity of each institution. This will create a comprehensive collaborative activity. It turns out that the plan has not yet been implemented due to the large number of disasters that have occurred in Indonesia and resources have also become limited due to the pandemic.
2. The difficulty of each member to find time to conduct a Forum activity as each member has its own schedule, and also the limits of virtual meetings which can only have a length of 3 hours maximum. Not to mention the cross-province meetings with significant time differences which make it harder to adjust. Therefore, some Forum agenda are still pending such as ratification of all mandatory policies of ACT, the membership fee mechanism, as well as offering trainings to all members.

Dr. Sari Mutia Timur – Director of Yakkum Emergency Unit (YEU)

Where do you see the benefits/added value of participating in the forum?

Joining the forum allows YAKKUM to exercise meaningful collaboration with other members in different areas, such as in emergency response and advocacy. In emergency response, the forum has implemented appeals and Rapid Response Fund (RRF) projects across Indonesia and learnt from different contexts of emergencies, including how to work together with local churches in various levels of engagement. In advocacy, there are two things which have become the focus in 2021: the first is the initiative to mainstream gender through the ACT Gender Justice Program in Indonesia, and the second one is to support the COVID-19 vaccination program.

In addition, YAKKUM gains diverse perspectives, experiences and practices in delivering quality intervention, such as joint capacity building sessions on child protection, market assessment analysis, supply chain and the Core Humanitarian Standard. The forum commits to provide assistance to increase the capacity of its members as well as their local and church partners. 

What are the topics or issues which are most important for you within the forum?

Currently, there are five topics which YAKKUM intends to focus on and to contribute to the forum; the Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan (EPRP), inclusion, innovation, COVID-19 mitigation (including vaccination), and gender. Below is an elaboration of each issue:

• An update of the EPRP is important considering the different contexts of emergencies and different geographical locations of interventions by forum members, as well as identifying the church partners within the EPRP.
• Promoting inclusion within the forum starts through sharing sessions or discussions over program design, especially in addressing the rights and different needs of older people, persons with disability, persons living with HIV/AIDS and other at-risk groups.
• Innovation in humanitarian intervention should be supported through encouraging local innovators. YAKKUM is currently initiating “Ideaksi”, a project with a community-based and inclusive approach, where local innovators from the different communities collaborate with at-risk groups to develop solutions to tackle the challenges in their respective areas. The initiative is expected to reduce barriers for vulnerable groups who are often neglected in disaster response or development programs.
• COVID-19 mitigation efforts have been implemented by the forum members in different locations. However, with the current state of rising confirmed cases in Indonesia, a lot has to be done, especially in increasing public awareness on the adherence to health protocols, and public communication on vaccines. YAKKUM is currently advocating the accessibility of the vaccines to older people, persons with disability, transgender, and persons living with HIV/AIDS.
• The issue of gender inequality is still prevalent in Indonesia, particularly among the most vulnerable communities. Forum members who participate in the localization and mainstreaming of gender justice policy in Indonesia, namely CDRM and CDS, CWS, ICCO, PELKESI and YEU, have started to collaborate in reviewing and contextualizing the eight principles of ACT Gender Justice Policy to be relevant with the Indonesian context. This is important to the forum as it meets the need for developing future program designs that has a gender justice perspective, which is one of the key requirements under SDGs 2030.

Josephine Adam, Interim Country Representative of CWS

Where do you see the benefits/added value of participating in the forum?

CWS always sees that working with various parties is one of the keys to successful program implementation for communities in need. One of the collaborations and coordination that is considered important for CWS is participation in the ACT Indonesia Forum. In this forum, there is a great enthusiasm for helping each other, complementing each other, and learning from each other. Many opportunities are given by all members, ranging from capacity activities with various trainings, workshops, collaborating in providing disaster response, or exchanging access to information. For CWS, these things really help to improve the quality of assistance to the community.

What are the topics or issues which are most important for you within the forum?
All forum members have experience providing disaster response. This experience gives more strength or value to the members and ACT as a forum. The forum needs to discuss further on how lessons learned from the experience of implementing disaster response by forum members can be used as lessons by other institutions or church organizations that care about disasters. The discussion includes exploring the possibility of documenting lessons learned from disaster response experiences in a book, or publishing guides or modules that can be used as references for other institutions in carrying out similar programs.

The ACT Alliance as a membership-based organisation is committed to providing high-quality humanitarian, development and advocacy programmes and to working in an open and accountable way.  The alliance was founded with clear respect for the independence of its members. At the same time, the ACT Alliance has a vested and collective interest in the performance of individual members or groups of members.

In an effort to achieve high quality, ACT strives to meet and even surpass the expectations of its stakeholders, i.e., ACT members and their partners, communities with whom ACT members work, donors, supporters and the public. There may however, be occasions when ACT does not meet the reasonable expectations of all stakeholders at all times. ACT stakeholders have a right to raise a concern, give feedback and if necessary lodge a complaint when this occurs.

The ACT Alliance promotes accountable and transparent ways of working with all stakeholders. It encourages its members and the secretariat to address staff and stakeholder concerns quickly and effectively so that issues are resolved to the satisfaction of the concerned person and do not progress to the level of a complaint. Programme level concerns should be raised and discussed with responsible employees as close to the activity as possible.

Purpose

The purpose of the ACT Complaints Policy is to:

• recognise, promote and protect ACT stakeholder rights, including the right to raise a concern and/or complain about breaches or non-compliance to the ACT Alliance Code of Conduct and or the Code of Good Practice;
• set out roles, responsibilities and timeframes on handling of complaints and provide clear policy guidance for responding to and resolving complaints;
• ensure a consistent mechanism to hold ACT members,  staff of members and the secretariat staff accountable in terms of their behaviour and compliance with ACT standards and policies;
• provide a mechanism for stakeholders to raise a concern or complaint about the work of an ACT member if that member does not have its own complaints policy in place;
• ensure that ACT learns from all situations in order to strive for high quality and continuous improvement in ACT’s humanitarian, development and advocacy work;
• increase the level of stakeholder satisfaction with the work of the ACT Alliance; and
• learn from and improve the work of the ACT Alliance.

The ACT “Complaints Handling and Investigations Guidelines” provide additional, specific and complementary guidance to ACT members and the ACT secretariat on the key principles underpinning complaints handling and outline the minimum standards for the establishment of complaints handling mechanisms within their own organisations and programmes.  These additional guidelines support the implementation of this policy.

The ACT Alliance Complaints Policy is available in English, French and Spanish.

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(ACT Policy)

The new ACT Safeguarding Communities of Practice (CoP) was launched in early 2021. Co-chairs are Ms. Anne Fitzpatrick (ALWS, Australia) and Ms. Asma Shehzad (CWSA, Pakistan). We asked them about their plans for the CoP, their personal motivation and possibility of a regional CoP on Safeguarding.  

Congratulations for your new position, Anne and Asma! Can you tell us why safeguarding is an important topic to you personally and why it was good that the CoP was expanded from Child Safeguarding to Safeguarding in general?

Anne Fitzpatrick (AF): Here in Australia, there has been a government-led Royal Commission into institutional child sexual abuse. It uncovered a terrible amount of child abuse, both historically and in present day, that has happened through the actions and inactions of institutions and organisations. This has been an eye opener for me and many others to what can happen to children in organisational settings. It’s so important we all do everything we can to minimise the risks we may be creating in our work to children and other vulnerable people, and of course make sure we have ways of finding out if anyone is being abused by our personnel or due to our activities. There is a lot of cross-over between Child Safeguarding, PSEA and how they link with HR systems, complaints mechanisms, Code of Conduct etc, so it makes good sense to have a broader CoP for Safeguarding, instead of just Child Safeguarding.

Asma Shehzad (AS): In short, Safeguarding is a broader term which covers all aspects related to harm, abuse, neglect or sexual exploitation. Safeguarding is a tool of guidance which states that every person should live their lives without harm, no matter the age, gender, ethnicity or religion. It’s vital that every vulnerable child and adult is kept safe.

Do you have regional priorities for Asia and the Pacific?

AS: In Asia, Safeguarding is one of the most important topics of discussion nowadays, organizations are connecting globally to discuss further on safeguarding, its implementation, experience sharing and how to add good practices in their current context.

AF: In the PANZ Forum, we have already been working on Safeguarding a lot internally, and are really keen to connect more with the Alliance and global networks on prevention of sexual exploitation; abuse and harassment (PSEAH) and Child Safeguarding particularly.

Concerning the workplan, can you please tell us whether the priorities in Asia and the Pacific are different from the other regions, so that a compromise needs to be found?

For the workplan, we are planning 5 “streams” – peer support for members; technical/expert presentations for CoP members but also other interested ACT members; resource sharing; Alliance-focused engagement and action; discreet projects; and, linking and coordinating with external networks. So far priorities are somehow same, further with a help of upcoming meetings we can more evaluate the priorities from discussions.

Members who are interested in the CoP can still join, registering on the website. What’s your message to the members in Asia and the Pacific?

We have a very strong representation from the Asia/Pacific and Europe regions already (well done Asia Region!). We are hoping to gain more members form the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and Africa. However, we are also happy to have more expressions of interest from members in Asia Pacific.

Is there a plan to set up a regional CoP on Safeguarding?

It all depends upon the feedback, interest and willingness from the members in upcoming future meetings with them. If we received any request from any of the members regarding establishment of Regional CoP, we would definitely consider it and discuss it within our core team.

What’s your message to members in Asia and the Pacific?

AF: We hope this CoP will be a great resource to all ACT Members in Asia and the Pacific. Even if there is no member from your agency, I hope the CoP can do a good job of sharing and developing resources and providing guidance on good Safeguarding practice to all of your agencies.

AS: The main objective for this CoP is to gain knowledge, share learning, best practice and develop competence amongst ACT members in safeguarding.

Thank you for the interview!

35 nominees (28 members, 7 observers) are part of the CoP from Asia, Africa, MENA and Europe. If you are interested in joining the CoP, kindly register here. For more information please contact the co-chairs Anne Fitzpatrick or Asma Shehzad.

Governing Board approves the new Humanitarian Policy

ACT Alliance’s Governing Board recently approved the new Humanitarian Policy which will be rolled out in January 2022.  This policy replaces the ACT Humanitarian Policy revised in 2017. 

Here are highlights of the new policy:

1. The Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan, through an online platform, is now mandatory to all forums.
2. The Rapid Response Fund, intended for small- and medium-sized emergencies and accessible to national members, will have a limit of USD150,000 per member with a maximum response period of six months.
3. An Emergency Steering Committee will be created upon the issuance of an Alert from a forum, which will decide whether an appeal will be raised. The ESC will come from ACT membership, the composition of which will be in the Operations Manual
4. There will be fewer appeals raised in a year and will be focused on large-scale or protracted emergencies.
5. The consortia approach will be a new addition to the humanitarian mechanism, intended to improve better access to institutional back-donor funding. The consortia approach can be used for long-term funding for early recovery and long-term development activities. 
6. Humanitarian advocacy will put people at the center of humanitarian response and promote faith-based actors as key to deliver humanitarian assistance that builds resilience and reduces risks and vulnerabilities.
7. A Humanitarian Operations Manual will be drafted this year and expected to be rolled out in January 2022.

The new policy will be posted in the ACT Alliance website. Please contact Cyra Bullecer (cyra.bullecer@actalliance.org) for more information. 

Orientation Workshop on Humanitarian Essentials in Cox’s Bazar

For a complex response like the Rohingya response and working with the host community which involves dealing with an array of diverse stakeholders, it is crucial for the humanitarian aid workers to be fully aware of core humanitarian standards, competencies, and skilled enough to carry out the humanitarian work efficiently.

ICCO Cooperation is committed toward international humanitarian standards and commitments to promote humanitarian competencies and professionalism among ICCO and the ACT agency members to leverage impact through food assistance and livelihoods recovery in the lives of both Rohingya people and the host community in Cox’s Bazar. In this regard, ICCO organized a three days orientation workshop for capacity building on humanitarian essentials of the ACT Alliance team in Bangladesh. The workshop was held in Cox’s Bazar from 24 – 26 December 2020, with technical support provided by the Humanitarian Leadership Academy (HLA).

The training was inaugurated by Silvia Rovelli, Head of Humanitarian Response, ICCO Cooperation. The 20 participants – amongst whom 5 women – were 20 frontline staff and Project Managers of the ACT Forum organizations DCA, CAID, HEKS/EPERS, LWF, CCDB and ICCO Cooperation. They were mostly from across the Food Security and Livelihood support sectors engaged in Rohingya response and host community.

For more details: Short Report on CHS training

Amity Foundation’s Advocacy by Radio in Hong Kong

Even in times of social media and picture-oriented news, radio broadcasting still is of high importance in order to reach out to the community. Therefore, the Hong Kong Chinese Christian Council regularly organizes radio programmes on Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK),  the public broadcasting service in Hong Kong. Thus giving a voice to different faith-based organisations located there. Among others to ACT-member Amity Foundation’s Hong Kong office, whose communication officer Martin Lachmann recently advocated for a fair distribution of vaccines for worldwide or for international peace, cooperation and social development. “Mutual understanding, exchange and cooperation is more necessary than ever. We should use different communication channels, including radio. This makes our messages more inclusive, diverse and hopefully more impactful”, he says.  

The “Thought for the Week” organized by the Hong Kong Chinese Christian Council is broadcasted every Sunday from 8.25 – 8.35 am. 

The ACT Indonesian Forum puts its interest not only on disaster management, but also on gender justice. Some Forum-members who also work on gender justice issue are YEU, CWS, ICCO, CDRM&CDS, and PELKESI.
 
The latest activity on gender justice took place on March 17. PELKESI conducted a workshop on the role of the church concerning Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) and Gender Based Violence (GBV). It was carried out at the Payeti Church in the East Sumba district of the East Nusa Tenggara province.
 
The understanding of the Sumba people on gender justice is still poor so that old habits in the community which put female inferior to male are still occurring. Therefore, churches, traditional leaders, faith leaders and other stakeholders should participate and take roles in the gender justice issue in order to implement gender justice in the Sumba society. The churches of Sumba were encouraged to be the role model in implementing gender justice, and to take an important role in the sexual and reproduction health issue.
 
Watch here the video about the workshop (cf. screenshot underneath).

Regional Newsletter Asia Pacific 2-2021

Bangladesh Forum: Event Report on National level Experience Sharing_20210519