Guidance Note on Using the Cluster Approach to Strengthen Humanitarian Response

Dear colleagues, The 66th Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Working Group meeting (New York, 15-17 November 2006) endorsed the revised Guidance Note on Using the Cluster Approach to Strengthen Humanitarian Response, and decided to disseminate this note to the field through the Humanitarian Coordinators. This was done on 29 November 2006.

This Guidance Note is relevant and important to OHCHR because of the global policy towards greater cooperation and complementarity with Humanitarian agencies. It is also of particular importance with regard to the protection cluster. (UNHCR is the Cluster Lead for Protection in situations of population displacement while OHCHR and UNICEF share UNHCR leadership in all other situations).

The 'Cluster Approach' is one of the three pillars of the UN humanitarian reform (together with the Central Emergency Relief Fund and the strengthened role of Humanitarian Coordinators). As described in the Guidance Note, the Cluster Approach is a process that aims at increasing overall coordination of humanitarian initiatives at the global and field levels. The basic concept is that while some sectors of humanitarian work are relatively straightforward, both in terms of substance and responsibility (e.g. food), coordination in other areas is blurred. Areas that require a multi-sectoral approach with the intervention of a variety of actors – sometimes with very distant mandates – are called Clusters.

The Cluster Approach defines these areas where enhanced coordination is needed, establishing global and country responsibilities ('Cluster Leads'). Cluster Leads have the responsibility to ensure coordination (but not performance) of the partners of a given cluster at the country level. They are accountable to the Humanitarian Coordinators. At the global level, Cluster Leads ensure that the relevant backstopping to specific country situations is provided and that the relevant tools are developed to support humanitarian workers during crisis. It should be noted that OHCHR has mainstreaming responsibilities with regard to all clusters.

The Guidance Note was drafted with the inputs of all IASC partners - including OHCHR - and during the course of 2006 it was rolled out in a number of selected countries for testing: DRC, Uganda, Liberia, Somalia, Lebanon and Pakistan. IASC partners have also agreed that the Cluster Approach should eventually be applied in all countries with Humanitarian Coordinators (see attached list), underlining that Humanitarian Country Teams under the leadership of the Humanitarian Coordinator should drive this process, in order to ensure proper ownership and further refinement of this document. During 2007, the IASC is going to support a number of initiatives aimed at facilitating the implementation of the Guidance Note (including training and the development of guidance tools).

As some of you are closely working with humanitarian partners in countries where the Cluster Approach has been already implemented or where it will be implemented soon (it is also decided that the Cluster Approach will be applied in all new humanitarian emergencies requiring a multidimensional response), I encourage you to familiarise yourself with the Guidance Note and extend your collaboration to Humanitarian Coordinators and IASC partners in its implementation.

Should you have queries or comments on the Guidance Note, the IASC or the UN humanitarian reform, please address these to Giuseppe Calandruccio, at gcalandruccio@ohchr.org.
For more information on the IASC, you can consult http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/iasc/
With best wishes,