ALNAP's highlights from 2021

16 December 2021

Somehow, I have found myself in mid-December. Six months as ALNAP’s Acting Director have literally flown by, which is why I wanted to take stock of what we’ve done during 2021 to help humanitarians learn from one another. The result? These 12 highlights which I’m proud to share with you all. If any of this is new to you, why not add it to your end-of-year reading (and watching!) lists?

9. We published our lessons paper on adapting humanitarian action to climate change

In October, we also published our latest lessons paper on ‘Adapting humanitarian action to the effects of climate change’. The paper presents overarching lessons for humanitarian practitioners working in areas that have been or are likely to be affected by climate change in the future, including lessons on imperfectly understood disasters (such as tropical storms) and lessons from new weather events (such as heatwaves).

Further information and a summary of the lessons is available on our website, as well as a full recording of the paper’s launch event and panel discussion.

10. We published a new paper on Real-Time Learning approaches during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Our latest M&E paper ‘From Real-Time Evaluation to Real-Time Learning’ was published in October as the fourth and final paper in our ‘M&E during COVID-19’ series. The paper responds to the renewed interest in Real-Time Learning (RTL) during the pandemic. We reviewed RTL approaches adopted by ALNAP members and then summarised key lessons from these and the implications for future evaluation practice. If you’d like to find out more you can read the paper and watch a full recording of the paper’s launch event and panel discussion on our website.

11. We hosted the 2021 ALNAP Meeting on disruption in the humanitarian system

We hosted the 2021 ALNAP Meeting, ‘Learning from disruption: evolution, revolution or status quo?’ across 3 days in mid-October. The meeting responded to the external forces that have brought unplanned and unanticipated disruption to humanitarian practice over the past 17 months with sessions covering: the climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, digital technology and a greater range of voices challenging traditional notions of humanitarianism. Catch-up now by watching full recordings of the sessions on demand. Sessions which required translation will be available soon.

12. I got to know and understand the Network a little better

Since June, when I took over the role of Director from John, I have had the wonderful opportunity to reach out to many of our members and key external stakeholders to better understand how they see ALNAP. I’ve been asking them about what they value in our work, where they feel we add most value and, of course, where we could be contributing more.

The feedback has affirmed so much of what I had already felt was good about ALNAP: that they value our impartiality and our ability to convene the sector around key issues, but also that the work we share is of the best quality, timely and relevant. It has also raised some great challenges though, not least for us to redouble our efforts next year in supporting the sector to better learn and change as a result of the evidence we are collectively generating. There are so many areas where the sector has the evidence it needs but still struggles to learn from it, and our members are asking us to work out why this is and what needs to change. It’s given us food for thought and I’m very much looking forward to working with the members and the Secretariat to take on the challenge next year!

1. We convened a series of skills-building workshops on how COVID-19 is transforming M&E

In February and March, we hosted a series of skills-building workshops which brought together over 100 M&E practitioners to reflect and exchange learning on M&E during the pandemic. ALNAP prepared three papers for the workshops, which were updated to also include key discussion points from the events:

These were launched during a popular webinar. We have also prepared a short clip of a presentation delivered at one of the workshops by our Special Advisor John Mitchell on modern humanitarian history in 6 evaluations.

2. We hosted an urban learning exchange on systems thinking in humanitarian response

In March, ALNAP hosted an urban learning exchange event on systems thinking which gathered urban practitioners and systems thinking specialists for an interactive virtual day with presentations and sessions organised and led by all participants.

An engaging set of animations captured some of the key discussions which took place.

3. We discussed ‘How can humanitarians adapt to climate change?’ at HNPW21

In April, we took part in Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Weeks 2021 with a session on adapting humanitarian action to climate change. The webinar considered the impact that the climate will have on humanitarian action and asked ‘What can we know about unprecedented events? How can we collect useful evidence on things that haven’t happened yet?’.

The panel consisted of Mihir Bhatt (AIDMI), Francois Grunewald (Groupe URD) and Paul Knox Clarke (Prepare), all of whom are authors of the recently published ALNAP Lessons Paper of the same topic, as well as Geeta Bhatrai Bastakoti (ICIMOD).

4. We co-hosted a learning exchange with CALP on evaluating cash

In May, we co-hosted a learning exchange with The Cash Learning Partnership (CALP) to share key findings from our joint publication ‘Cashing in: Turning challenges into opportunities when evaluating humanitarian cash assistance’. Forty-five cash assistance specialists and evaluators came together to share examples of good practice in evaluating this type of humanitarian assistance. They included various INGO/NGOs, UN organisations, governments and institutional donors, the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement and independent evaluation consultants.

5. I took on the leadership of ALNAP’s secretariat

In June, John Mitchell stepped down as ALNAP Director after 19 years at the helm to become a Special Advisor to ALNAP, and I stepped up to become Acting Director. To mark this transition, ALNAP Member Loreine de la Cruz had a candid conversation with John on his reflections and learning whilst in his Director post. I also had an insightful conversation later in the year with ALNAP Members – Manu Gupta (SEEDS India) and Bernard Vicary (American Red Cross).

6. We joined forces with the COVID-19 Evaluation Coalition to become a repository of evaluations on the pandemic

As the pandemic hit in February 2020, ALNAP set up a portal to host learning resources on the response to COVID-19, which has become one of the go-to sites for humanitarian practitioners responding to the pandemic.

In 2021 we have been working with the COVID-19 Evaluation Coalition to centralise the sector’s efforts to collate evaluations and evaluative resources on the pandemic. We have now upgraded ALNAP’s COVID-19 portal so it can also become a repository for COVID-19 evaluations.

The portal relies on your evaluation submissions to stay relevant and useful to the sector. We look forward to working together with you to build on the knowledge housed in this portal in the coming year.

7. With FAO we hosted a discussion on evaluating the Humanitarian-Development-Peace nexus

In September, FAO and ALNAP co-hosted an interactive peer learning workshop for M&E practitioners to share insights on evaluating the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus and learn from one another. The event was attended by many ALNAP members including UN agencies, NGOs, and bilateral donors and also by non-members such as the World Bank and the OECD.

8. We launched our new ‘Essays’ format with a five-part series on localisation by Arbie Baguios

In October, we launched ‘Essays’, our new, online article format designed to provide leading global voices with a platform to discuss issues of importance in the humanitarian sector. The first essay series ‘Localisation Re-imagined’, consists of five articles which will each explore different dichotomies within the localisation debate. Arbie’s first and second articles are now available to read.

It’s been a busy year and it has been useful to reflect on how we’ve worked with our members to share knowledge and learning over what has been such a challenging time for the sector.  Looking forward there is so much more we have to offer. 

We plan to mark ALNAP's 25th anniversary by delivering new research and events that focus on understanding and improving how learning happens across the sector.  

Next year will also see the launch of the fifth edition of our flagship – The State of the Humanitarian System report – which will be out in September. We will follow this up with a series of launches across the world focusing on the issues covered in the report that are most relevant to each region.

We will also be hosting a series of member sessions in the new year – these will give you the opportunity to learn more about our upcoming work plan and discuss how we can work together to address issues that are most important to you and your organisation. Watch this space!