World Humanitarian Day: ZIF's Humanitarian Portfolio

Secondments to humanitarian missions

Since 2019, ZIF has been seconding experts of various professional profiles to humanitarian operations worldwide on behalf of the German Federal Foreign Office. Over the past years, more than 38 secondments to 26 countries were thus completed - including Iraq, Ukraine, Sudan, Haiti, Nigeria, and the Philippines.

ZIF now has secondment agreements with five humanitarian UN agencies and will continue to add new partnerships. Currently, ZIF seconds to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the UN World Food Program (WFP), the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). In order to support the work of our various partner organizations in the best possible way, we are expanding the number of profiles we are looking for and continually increase the ZIF Expert Pool in the competence field of humanitarian operations. In addition to the secondment of experts and their deployment preparation, we also work to directly strengthen the humanitarian system itself with the financial support of the German Foreign Office. In doing so, we work with our partners to build both capacity and sustainable structures. This approach is based on three pillars: (1) strengthening the Standby Partnership (SBP) network, (2) training cooperation with our UN partner organizations, and (3) operationalizing the Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) nexus.

Strengthening the SBP Network

ZIF is a member of the SBP Network, which today comprises 16 UN agencies and 56 partner organizations that support the UN with the short-term deployments of personnel in situations of complex and humanitarian crises. The network's objective is to strengthen the joint coordination of deployments to better respond to staffing needs, while also increasing the effectiveness of deployments by addressing structural challenges through joint solutions.

ZIF is particularly involved in this effort through its work in the areas of Duty of Care and Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL), where we contribute our expertise to support the network. For example, in the fall of 2023, ZIF will participate in a joint monitoring mission of the network to monitor and assess the effectiveness of SBP deployments in the context of the 2023 earthquake in Türkiye and northern Syria. Together with our partner organizations, we thus aim to contribute to ensuring that humanitarian secondments can continue to be on the ground quickly and work effectively in the future.

Training Cooperation with UN Partner Organizations

Another component of ZIF's humanitarian portfolio is training cooperation with UN partner organizations. ZIF not only provides financial support, but also organizational, logistical and content-related support for the implementation of humanitarian specialization trainings in Berlin and thus for the strengthening and enhancement of humanitarian capacities in the SBP network.

 For example, in the fall of 2022, the training on Health Cluster Coordination: Focus on women in leadership positions was conducted jointly with the WHO. The training was aimed exclusively at women, thereby contributing to ZIF's implementation of the Guidelines for Feminist Foreign Policy and the Women, Peace, and Security agenda, which calls for the promotion of women in leadership positions. Other trainings addressed, for example, Information Management Preparedness and Coordination, Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination, and the Humanitarian Programme Cycle (HPC).

Operationalization of the HDP Nexus.

ZIF has been working on the HDP Nexus since 2020 with a focus on operationalizing the approach and raising awareness of the civilian aspects of the peace component of the Nexus.

In collaboration with our partner organizations, this allows us to create important synergies as well as to work on the topic in more depth in terms of content and expertise. For example, in collaboration with the SBP network, a first virtual event on the HDP Nexus was held in June 2023, which attracted great interest and underscored the far-reaching importance of this topic. In the 2nd half of the year, a workshop series with implementing partners and policymakers is planned with the aim of providing a forum for participants to exchange views on opportunities and challenges in implementing the HDP Nexus approach at the country level and to develop recommendations for policymakers. In addition, the HDP Nexus was integrated more effectively into the mission preparation of ZIF humanitarian experts and, since 2023, has also been part of the Comprehensive Core Course, which prepares ZIF Expert Pool members for their assignments in peacekeeping missions. A booster training for potential HDP-Nexus advisors is also planned.

What is coming up in the next few months?

Throughout fall 2023, many exciting activities are awaiting ZIF's humanitarian team.

Several training collaborations are coming up: These include the second WHO training on Health Cluster Coordination & Female Leadership at the end of September and a new training collaboration with UNICEF and UNHCR in October on Accountability to Affected Populations.

In September, two colleagues from ZIF will accompany the joint monitoring mission of the SBP network in the context of the earthquake in Turkey and Northern Syria.

In October and November, the workshop series on the HDP Nexus will take place, where participants can discuss their experiences and formulate recommendations for strengthening and implementing the HDP Nexus.

Towards the end of the year, ZIF will conduct a pilot training on Humanitarian Access together with UN OCHA, that will include substantive contributions from ZIF.