Supporting survivor and community-led response: an emerging pathway for people affected by disaster contexts

This blog post was written by Rebecca Venuto, Development Policy and Practice Research Policy Intern at ACT Alliance EU

On 25th November 2020, ACT Alliance EU and VOICE engaged with EU-based civil society and global partners in a workshop to raise awareness on the scope, the scale and impacts of approaches supporting survivor and community-led response (SCLR), an autonomous collective self-help provided by and for populations in disaster contexts. Thanks to the insights of Local to Global Protection and Oxfam facilitators and practitioners worldwide, this was the occasion to dive into the development of these approaches from a theoretical and practical perspective and identify both opportunities and challenges.

Survivor and community-led crisis response seeks to support the existing capacities of first responders in crisis situations and provide financial and operational ownership. This approach intends to complement existing emergency response programming, but under a different narrative. It centres on enhancing immediate survival and recovery in a holistic and inclusive manner as well as strengthening the sense of dignity and empowerment of communities. Practitioners also argue SCLR helps to tackle the root causes of vulnerability to crises by shaping long-term processes and visions led by and for communities.

SCLR approach is characterised by some common elements. First, it is based on a participatory action learning (PAL): after a rapid evaluation of existing capacities and resources of communities, the process explores local systems of “do no harm” as a starting point to identify local power dynamics and mechanisms. Second, it counts on a funding mechanism based on micro-grants to allow scale, speed and accountability for collective action in response to a given crisis. Finally, it is grounded on demand-led skills upgrading and both horizontal and vertical coordination between local groups, NGOs and governments.

SCLR approaches in practice

The workshop provided us with insights into blended practices of SCLR approaches worldwide, whose benefits are multiple. In Sudan, for instance, the scale of community-led practices was extremely successful. In just six months, 5 NGOs provided support to 150 initiatives, a majority led by women and youth. In response to the natural disaster caused by the Typhoon Mangkhut in the Philippines in 2018, micro-grants awarded by ECOWEB allowed livelihood recovery through the implementation of water system and seedling production-related projects that were led by the affected communities.

Empowering women and other marginalised categories is another positive outcome of this practice. In northern Kenya, IREMO collaborated with VOICE to facilitate access to training, and ensured coordination with local groups and the government. This inclusive approach increased knowledge-sharing and solidarity. Similarly, in the Oicha region of the DRC, the COPI, a platform for local organisations dedicated to humanitarian response, empowered local groups to effectively deliver disaster risk reduction (DRR) early warning and protection mechanisms and contributed to the development of women’s fora that were crucial to providing legal and psychological support to victims of sexual violence.

Challenges facing locally-led responses

Despite the successes of community-led approaches, many difficulties still exist. One of the most pressing problems is the lack of adequate financial resources and the rigidity of funding systems, which shrink the availability and chances to transfer grants to local communities. Coordination with the formal humanitarian system and between agencies remains a significant challenge. Moreover, as emphasised in the case of Philippines, Sudan and northern Kenya, another pressing issue is the lack of adequate knowledge of SCLR approaches by local and global organisations and the recurring and sometimes firm opposition to transferring power to local groups.

Lessons for first responder approaches

This learning exchange stresses the need for rethinking the role given to first responders in the current humanitarian system and paves the way for a more comprehensive and inclusive approach. The challenge is to maximise understanding among the humanitarian community of the potential of this approach for delivering on “the triple nexus”, empowering local and national actors, and strengthening communal self-help. To ensure the success of this approach, coordinated and scaled up funding and capacity support are also required. Thanks to this approach, as emphasised by the words of the CEO of IREMO, Eva Darare, “people will be empowered to take their own response and shape the future with their hands”.

ACT Alliance EU members will continue raising awareness on survivor and community-led approach and reaching future and concrete EU engagement on these issues directly linked to the implementation of the triple nexus.

Find the summary of the webinar with the video interventions here

 

 

ACT joins Guatemala Forum in calling for freedom for arrested pastor

ACT joins with the ACT Guatemala Forum in affirming the good work of CEDEPCA and its staff, the Reverend Delia Leal Mollinedo, whose tireless work in promoting gender justice has been disrupted by her unjust arrest. We regret the action taken in arresting her, and hope justice will prevail and she will be immediately released. CEDEPCA is a champion of human rights, particularly for migrants. Read the full statement by the forum in English and Spanish.

Register for online 7th Symposium on religion in international affairs

ACT Alliance, along with a number of faith-based groups and UN agencies, is hosting the 7th annual Symposium on the Role of Religion and Faith-based Organisations in International Affairs on January 26, 2021 from 8:00am-12:30pm (EST). This year’s theme will be “2021: A Defining Year for Accelerating Gender Equality, Equity and Justice.” 

Registration for the virtual event is now open here.

The CHS provides for a common language to improve our humanitarian work around quality and accountability

Group work on quality and accountability during a workshop in Mozambique. Photo: ACT
Group work on quality and accountability during a workshop in Mozambique in 2019. Photo: ACT

This article originally appeared on the HQAI website.

ACT Alliance is the largest protestant and orthodox coalition engaged in humanitarian, development, and advocacy work in the world. It consists of more than 135 members working together in over 120 countries to create positive and sustainable change in the lives of poor and marginalised people. The ACT Alliance Secretariat has been CHS certified since 2017. The Secretariat has an important role to facilitate learnings and experiences from the CHS certification across the network.

An interview with Rizwan Iqbal, Global Quality and Accountability Officer, ACT Alliance Secretariat.

Why did the ACT Alliance Secretariat decide to undertake certification against the CHS?

The reasons for the ACT Alliance Secretariat to get certified were to improve, to learn, and to encourage other members to undergo one of the CHS verification options, and to exchange knowledge on the process. The Secretariat started the process with a CHS self-assessment in 2016. Based on this insight, we decided to become CHS certified as we believe that certification helps us to improve and to learn even more. Another reason was to gather first-hand experience on the certification process to then encourage our 135 members to get CHS certified or independently verified. We share learnings and exchange experiences with other certified or independently verified ACT Alliance members to bring greater quality and accountability to the entire network. Finally, we believe that CHS certification is important to uphold a high standard in protecting the rights and dignity of the communities we serve. We see it as part of our duty-of-care.

What has surprised you during the audit(s)?

One positive surprise from the audit was to read the different perspectives on our quality and accountability from our stakeholders in the audit report. The auditor talked to staff members, members of the ACT Alliance network, and most importantly, to members of the affected communities. These insights were extremely interesting. Another point was the identification of gaps in our policies and practices. The audit report mentioned areas to improve and this helped us to set priorities and to strengthen our work. However, the audit process as such is quite extensive. We have to ensure that we keep track of the steps we take after the audit and allocate enough resources to prepare for the audit.

What were your major changes in the past three years?

One change from the audit was that the collaboration between the different teams at the Secretariat improved. The audit report and our subsequent work on the plan to improve on outlined areas led to good discussions between the different teams. It leads to better collaboration and mutual agreement on what to improve and how. It really enhanced the teamwork and brainstorming. Further, before the audit, we did not have a designated position for quality and accountability in the Secretariat. Now we do, and this helps to better support our members in the area of quality and accountability. Another change was the evolution of ACT Learn Platform (e-Learning at fabo.org) accessible for all members to learn and strengthen capacities. The online platform provides e-courses on the CHS, the Code of Conduct, complaint handling mechanisms, and many other topics. It’s a great way to streamline knowledge and learnings in the network. This platform was also a real advantage during COVID-19 as it was already in place and accessible to all members, allowing continued training and focus on capacity building across our membership.

Does your network such as members of the affected community, donors, and members, see a change?

Although we do not directly implement humanitarian programmes but work with our members, we see a change as we now put people affected by crisis even more at the centre of our work. For example, we changed our reporting template to include the Code of Conduct, staff behaviour, and how communities are involved in the process. We think these changes have also had direct effects on the members of the affected communities that participate in humanitarian programmes. Further, we recently developed a guideline on communication with communities throughout the project management cycle. This guideline touches upon many issues such as complaint handling mechanisms, prevention of sexual exploitation, abuse, and harassment, and including better information for affected communities on ACT Alliance itself. Our feedback mechanisms have changed as well, and this change was mentioned by people affected by crisis participating in the programmes. Finally, the changes we made have significantly improved our relationships with the communities we work with.

Lately, we have also had a positive experience with a donor when we applied for a grant related to a gender justice programme. We handed in our CHS audit report as part of a request for an external assessment. We think that it would be important that more donors accept the CHS audit reports in their assessments and due diligence processes.

Our major partners are the members of the ACT Alliance network. As of today, 18 of our members are members of the CHS Alliance which shows a great commitment to the CHS from our network. Further, these ACT Alliance members are all directly implementing humanitarian programmes or working with local partners. Being CHS certified and having many committed members gives us a common language in the area of quality and accountability. This knowledge is passed on to local partners through collaboration and capacity building.

Would you recommend other organisations to get certified?

We definitely recommend other organisations and specifically our ACT Alliance members to get CHS certified or independently verified. One of the reasons to enter the CHS certification process was to encourage other ACT Alliance members to do so too. We believe that the CHS has great potential because it is a standard agreed on and developed by the humanitarian sector and it ensures that we are accountable to the communities affected by crisis. Further, the CHS certification helped us in building the capacity of both our & our members’ staff, to agree on “good behaviour” and how to ensure that feedback from communities is incorporated in the programmes. It has positive impacts on organisational and staff development.

Finally, from a personal point of view, I was involved from an early stage with the CHS, theCHS Alliance and I think we can and should collectively improve the sector for the sake of affected communities. It is very useful to have this common language of the CHS and to improve our work around it by receiving an external assessment by HQAI. Further, we are a social sector in the end, and learning and improving from each other is really important.

Celebration amidst a climate emergency

Five years ago countries around the world agreed on a plan to tackle the climate crisis. As a result, the Paris Agreement was born, and an era of international cooperation to deliver climate action began. 

The Paris Agreement has already delivered concrete results, and various national, regional and international decisions and initiatives since then have made direct reference to the climate accord. 

It is important to note that the Paris Agreement itself will not deliver the results that are urgently needed to stop the climate crisis. There is no top-down mechanism that requires countries to take the necessary action, nor is there a compliance system to ensure that the broad and ambitious goals of the Paris Agreement are met. 

Despite this, the Paris Agreement’s, Ambition Mechanism, has the potential to facilitate scaled-up climate action over time. Through this mechanism, parties are expected to revise their national climate plans every five years, after which, a stocktake of the updated pledges and commitments will signal the level of climate action that must still be taken. The first round of updated plans are to be submitted by 2020.

We are now reaching the end of the year, and despite promises from parties to update their climate plans, only twenty countries have done so. While there is still time before the end of the year, some countries have announced that they will only submit their updated climate plan in 2021.  

Damage caused by Typhoon Ulysses in the Philippines. Photo by Mark Saludes

On the one hand, the urgency that was addressed in Paris five years ago has become even more significant, as people and communities, particularly in poor and vulnerable countries, continue to suffer from more frequent and intense cyclones, heatwaves, droughts and floods. It has become clear that the temperature target of 1.5°C is in fact, a matter of survival for many people.

On the other hand, there have also been some positive developments as we continue to witness enhanced innovation, mobilisation and action in response to the climate emergency. For example, investors are increasingly divesting from fossil fuels; countries are adopting new laws to promote a green transition, and more and more people are starting to shift their purchasing patterns, behaviours and ways of life towards more climate-friendly habits. 

Today, we celebrate the existence of a global climate change agreement that promotes climate action around the world, and tomorrow, we get back to work to scale up climate action to levels that will allow us to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement. 

Written by Mattias Söderberg, on behalf of the ACT Alliance Climate Justice Reference Group. 

Critical voices of civil society organisations suppressed in the Philippines

Civil society organisations in the Philippines are suspicious of the intent of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 that the Philippine congress passed this year. President Duterte’s administration has insidiously made it difficult for civil society organisations to engage and influence the country’s development. Only a few months after this law passed, ACT Alliance member National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) has reported increased harassment incidences from the military in the conduct of their work with the communities since they have been red-tagged or identified as a communist organization in a presentation made by the Department of National Defense to the Philippine congress last year. 

The National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) was established in 1963 and is the largest group of mainline Protestant and non-Roman Catholic churches in the Philippines. Aside from ACT Alliance, NCCP is also a member the World Council of Churches and the Christian Conference of Asia, and represents close to twelve million protestant adherents. NCCP members serve the communities by providing emergency assistance to disaster-stricken families and communities, assistance to small community-based projects, solidarity support (financial, material, technical assistance) to workers on strike, displaced urban and rural poor, and families of victims of human rights violations. NCCP is a strong advocate for human rights and environmental protection as part of their core mission. In 2017, the Philippine Faith-Based Organisations Forum (FBO PH) was formed by NCCP together with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines-NASSA/Caritas Philippines and the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches-Philippine Relief and Development Services, Inc. FBO PH forms the largest network of Christian churches and institutions in the Philippines. 

Delays in humanitarian aid

Since the Anti-terrorism Act was passed, NCCP and their members have been subjected to malicious propaganda and different forms of harassment by the government. NCCP has long been working with the communities in the Philippines through their member churches that are rooted in these communities. Last year, NCCP was one among a number of humanitarian and service-oriented organizations in the list of “front organizations of local communist terrorist groups” presented by the Philippine Department of National Defense in a congressional hearing.

NCCP decried the baseless and unfounded inclusion of its name. “Such red-tagging by the state may delay, impede, or even prevent the delivery of much-needed services to marginalized communities especially in the midst of disasters. Organizations like the NCCP should all the more be encouraged and supported especially in a context where human rights are attacked, and fear and insecurity constantly loom”, NCCP wrote in a resolution. Further, the General Convention of the NCCP approved to seek a dialogue with the Department of National Defense and/or other appropriate government bodies to resolve this matter. The ACT-member responded to the threat immediately. The campaign to stop the attacks on human rights defenders, including the church institutions and its people, gathered huge local and international support.

Impact on COVID-19 Responses

In March 2020, the Philippines implemented a strict lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19. Until now there are different forms of curfews and quarantine measures in place in the country, varying by region and set by the Local Governmental Units. Intercity and inter-province travel is restricted, and domestic air travel remains limited.

Check points have been setup in several places where Filipinos require to have a pre-approved pass to be able to travel from one point to another. These checkpoints and passes have slowed down NCCP’s COVID-19 response. Despite that, they reached more than 3,167 families providing them food and cash assistance – particularly people who had the difficulty to travel even to the markets, with the restrictions in place. Yet in these check points, NCCP and their church members’ staff and volunteers were questioned and harassed, often their intention to visit and support vulnerable groups become a point of suspicion. 

While lockdowns are in effect, the Philippine government passed the Anti-Terrorism Act that would further restrict access to humanitarian assistance and movement of aid workers. This further compromised the civil society action, particularly those implementing humanitarian response: churches, service-oriented groups, and humanitarian organizations impartially helping those who are most vulnerable and marginalized even more.

“Chilling effect” on humanitarian work instead of support

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet at the end of June 2020 formally presented her office’s report on the situation in the Philippines to the UN Human Rights Council during its 44th session, stating that “The law could have a further chilling effect on human rights and humanitarian work, hindering support to vulnerable and marginalized communities”.

Solidarity among faith-based organisations

NCCP issued a statement on Saturday, 3rd July 2020. ”It is a travesty against God’s will as the Anti-Terrorism Act gives the government, or even just a few persons in the Anti-terrorism Council, the absolute power that determines what course people’s lives will take by putting forward a very vague definition of terrorism”, it declared, and continued that the measure will “insidiously” strip away respect for human rights and was likely to be “misused and abused” by those who wish to “lord it over” the people, obliterate opposition, and quell even the most legitimate dissent. “This bill will cause a further shrinking of democratic space and weakening of public discourse that will be detrimental to our nation”, the statement says. The Philippine FBO Forum bringing together constituencies from the Catholic, Protestant and Evangelical churches showed solidarity though issuing statement of support to NCCP and released opposition to the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 as it poses threat to the civil and political rights, including the right to freedom of religion and to exercise ministry in furtherance of religious beliefs.

ACT Alliance’s support

In September 2020, amid continued violence in the Philippines, international church groups and human rights organisations demanded for an independent, impartial investigation into atrocities that characterize President Duterte’s administration. An “International Ecumenical Convocation on the Defense of Human Rights in the Philippines” was carried out on 17th September 2020, with ACT Alliance as one of the sponsors. In a “Unity Statement for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights in the Philippines”, the church leaders affirmed support for Filipinos who are enduring a “deteriorating situation of civil liberties and human rights”. It is signed by ACT Alliance as well as many of its member organisations and international ecumenical partners.

 

Photo Paul Jeffrey

ACT Argentina Forum responds in ecumenical alliance to the water and sanitary emergency in the Chaco

Working to secure access to water in drought-stricken Argentina.
The ACT Argentina Forum is working to support Indigenous and other vulnerable communities facing the double crisis of ongoing droughts and COVID-19 through their “Access to water as a fundamental right for the full enjoyment of life” project.

The El Impenetrable area of ​​the Province of Chaco, Argentina, has suffered cycles of recurrent droughts and floods for the last 20 years. This year, the drought added to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, and has made families of small farmers and indigenous communities in the area more vulnerable.

In a solidarity response to this situation, ACT Alliance Argentina Forum members and partners CREAS, SEDI, Hora de Obrar, and CWS joined to provide a rapid response fund to support to Junta Unida de Misiones (JUM)- an institution which has accompanied indigenous peoples in the area for more than 50 years, in an humanitarian project: “Access to water as a fundamental right for the full enjoyment of life.”

“Access to water is one of the most perverse forms of inequality and the consequence of a development model based on profit and lack of care for Creation. This joint initiative of the ACT Argentina Forum with the indigenous peoples in the Chaco is a concrete testimony of ecumenical diakonia in challenging times and a sign of hope,” emphasized Mara Luz Manzoni, Regional Director of CREAS.

“It seemed important to us to unite and accompany the JUM and the Chaco in the face of the seriousness of the situation of the drought and the fires. The best way was to create a rapid response fund to alleviate the situation. The sum of the contributions of each organization can have a concrete, rapid and accurate effect,” expressed Nicolás Rosenthal, executive director of the Hora de Obrar Foundation.

The project focuses on the construction and improvement of water infrastructures, both for human consumption and for agricultural and livestock use, as well as training in its construction and maintenance for rural community leaders in the municipalities of Castelli and Miraflores, Chaco. This initiative also seeks to reactivate the production of crops for families to both eat and sell. Both the drought and pandemic have impacted crop production, destabilizing food security for the population.

María del Pilar Cancelo, Executive Director of SEDI, an organisation invited to the ACT Argentina Forum, said, “The challenge of the Alliance is precisely the joint action of the churches, which makes it possible to join efforts and resources, to have greater impact, speed, and witness. This articulation between institutions is only a starting point, a challenge that we wish to sustain and enrich from this experience and the learning that arises”

For Martín Coria, CWS Regional Coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean, “This collaboration can be replicated for the benefit of more faith-based organizations such as JUM that, throughout the region of the South American Gran Chaco, accompany the struggle of indigenous peoples for their land and for water, for their dignity and rights ”

According to the JUM, in recent years there has been an increase in the frequency of prolonged droughts in Chaco. The lack of rain causes the loss of plant production, forest fires, high mortality of animals, and also a sharp drop in sales due to social isolation. This leads to decreases in the nutritional and sanitary health of the population, accompanied by forced migration from the countryside to the city.

Raúl Romero, the JUM coordinator, said in relation to the project “The response and support of the ACT Argentina Forum have been critical to strengthening rural communities in the territory, who face the drought and the pandemic in the Impenetrable zone of the Chaco, where they did not have access to a resource as vital as water.”

Faced with this panorama, as the ACT Argentina Forum, we articulate in ecumenical cooperation with the JUM, which together with public organizations will strengthen this initiative to guarantee the right to water through education processes in relation to the care and rational use of water and maintenance of existing infrastructures.

In this way, it will seek to benefit more than 200 members of farming families and indigenous communities, in the targeted area, through the construction and repair of reservoirs, cleaning and deburring of dams, and repair of wells. The people who will benefit from the initiative will be small producers, informal workers an artisans, who have seen their production and marketing affected, as well as the population groups in risk in relation to COVID-19.

Webinar: Strengthening Gender Justice in the Asia-Pacific Region

The regional Gender CoP Asia Pacific is happy to invite everybody interested to a webinar within the framework of the campaign “16 days of activism”.

  • Dr. Beulah Shekhar, Emeritus Professor in Criminology and Victimology of the Karunya Institute of Technology & Sciences in Coimbatore, India, has plenty of practical and theoretical experience in regard to all forms and consequences of gender-based violence.
  • Reverend James Bhagwan as General Secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches in Fiji will bring in the theological reflection of the topic, based on his work in the Pacific area.

The webinar is moderated by Cyra Bullecer, ACT Alliance Regional Representative Asia Pacific.

Tuesday, 8th December 2020, 11.30 am Bangkok time – open invitation

(the webinar will be followed by the meeting of the regional Community of Practice and conclude at 1 pm Bangkok time)

To join the webinar on Zoom: https://bit.ly/39j1Yqp, ID 897 0156 6719, PC 924510

Statement of the ACT Alliance Ethiopia Forum on the current situation in Ethiopia

The following statement was issued by the ACT Ethiopia Forum about the situation in the Tigray region.  ACT has also issued two alerts (one for Ethiopia, and one for Sudan) regarding humanitarian response in the region.

The ACT Alliance Ethiopia Forum lifts up in prayer the people affected by the crisis that erupted on the evening of 3 November 2020 in the Tigray regional state of Ethiopia.

According to unconfirmed reports from UNOCHA the conflict has already resulted in massive internal displacements among residents, and refugees living in Western and Northern Tigray. According to UNHCR, more than 25.000 refugees from Tigray have already crossed the border to Sudan and their numbers are continuously increasing.

We stand in solidarity with all affected, mourn the death, condole those who lost loved ones, and join all those who call for a peaceful resolution, and the immediate stop of the fighting.

The ACT Alliance Ethiopia Forum calls for the establishment of a humanitarian corridor to allow relief operations and the protection of all civilians and humanitarian aid workers.

It further calls on its members and partners to mobilize resources – programmatic, financial, in-kind, and spiritual – to provide an appropriate humanitarian response as soon as secure access can be guaranteed.

ACT Alliance participates in first regional review of the Global Compact for Migration

Refugees on their way to western Europe, a man from Iran holds his son as they approach the border into Croatia near the Serbian village of Berkasovo. The ACT Alliance has provided critical support for refugee and migrant families here and in other places along their journey.
Refugees on their way to western Europe, a man from Iran holds his son as they approach the border into Croatia near the Serbian village of Berkasovo.
The ACT Alliance has provided critical support for refugee and migrant families here and in other places along their journey. Photo: Paul Jeffrey/ACT

Last week, the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) was being reviewed for the first time at regional level by governments, UN agencies, and other stakeholders, to assess progress made in its implementation since it was adopted by the UN GA in December 2018. The first region to conduct such a review was the UNECE region, encompassing Europe, including Southeastern And Eastern Europe, Central Asia, as well as North America.

ACT Alliance has submitted a contribution to the United Nations Network on Migration (UNNM), which helped facilitate the consultations, together with the UN Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), who have invited written submissions for the review process. ACT’s submission examines the four main thematic areas of the regional review process, which are based on objectives of the GCM:

(1) Social inclusion and integration of migrants;
(2) Human rights protection, pathways and decent work;
(3) Human rights protection and border management; and
(4) Countering discrimination through promoting a facts-based migration discourse.

The submission portrayed the ACT Alliance position on these topics, assessed the progress we have seen in these areas so far in the UNECE region, gave examples of how ACT members have been involved, and included a call to action for important next steps on the way to the first International Migration Review Forum (IMRF) in 2022.

While acknowledging important progress in some countries- for example with regard to improving migrants’ access to health and other services, and promoting alternatives to detention in the context of COVID-19- ACT’s submission also highlighted major areas of concern, including pushbacks against migrants seeking protection, continued institutional discrimination, especially against undocumented migrants, states’ unwillingness to meaningfully address the impacts of climate change on human mobility, and the need for more participatory and inclusive dialogues to address xenophobia and discrimination.

The ACT submission, as well as all others, from states and non-state actors alike, is available on the UNNM website for the review.

The review meeting itself proceeded in two stages – kicking off with an informal multi-stakeholder consultation on November 9. 2020, which was attended by over 100 organisations, and during which ACT Alliance was moderating one of the roundtables – and continuing with the formal review on November 12-13. As documented in the excellent report by the civil society rapporteur, the multi-stakeholder consultation covered a wide range of topics, highlighting the diversity of countries and contexts, as well as the similarity of rights issues prevalent throughout most of them.

Major civil society concerns included: The persistence and increase in violence against migrants at borders; a continued disregard for the best interest of children in migration proceedings, including in situations of detention and returns; large labour rights deficits for migrant workers, putting them at risk of exploitation; the importance of providing migrants access to services, regardless of status, highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic; and the necessity to provide broader access to regular migration pathways for labour migration, family reunification, and through regularisation of status.

The formal review on November 12-13 included thematic panel discussions with the active participation of governments (including Turkey, Germany, Canada, Portugal, Kazakhstan, the UK, and Albania) and other stakeholders, reflecting on progress made in GCM implementation. For the most part, these discussions were quite honest and constructive, acknowledging the need to increase efforts not only in multilateral cooperation, but also domestically, and underlining the value of a whole-of-society approach.

In his closing remarks, the civil society speaker, Stephane Jacquemet from the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC), echoed many of our collective concerns when he focused on (1) the priority of providing access to services for all migrants, regardless of status; (2) the need to create and expand regular migration pathways; and (3) the pressing need to promote alternatives to detention, and in particular, to prohibit child detention.

The regional reviews of the GCM will continue early next year, since all other regions have now opted to postpone their review processes due to the impacts of COVID-19. ACT Alliance will continue to work with our members through our advisory structures to gather inputs and represent the voices of migrants in these regions.

Christian Wolff is ACT Alliance’s Migration and Displacement Program Manager.

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