Ready to be more flexible? Time to shift your mindset

24 September 2019

This set of products is itself flexible to the user’s interests and needs: they can be read in conjunction with one another, or separately on their own. The entire study and three standalone sections are available for download on the sidebar.

We have also produced a set of short audio companions for the papers (see below), which describe the key points, and feature interviews with experts on these issues.

Why is it that many humanitarian organisations, once considered highly flexible, are now unable to quickly shift their strategies and programmes in response to situational changes, such as new outbreaks of conflict, changing markets, rising drought conditions or population movements? How did humanitarian organisations end up with approaches that inhibit learning and adaptation, when the complexity of protracted crises requires the opposite? Why is it that individual aid workers often have to work outside their organisation’s systems in an effort to do things differently? And what can decision-makers in humanitarian organisations do about this?

Over a two-year period, ALNAP spent time with our Members to understand the challenges they were facing in their operational flexibility in different crisis contexts. We looked at the opportunities and challenges to adapting humanitarian assistance in DRC, and learned from Members trying to flex between longer-term development, crisis mitigation and humanitarian drought response in Kenya. We also brought together a cross-section of the humanitarian sector to share their experiences in experimenting with different models for flexibility.

The result of all this is a set of papers and learning products which aim to support the shift in mindset that is required to support a more flexible, nimble humanitarian response.

Shifting Mindsets Audio Companion playlist

Want to listen on your phone, tablet or offline?

All individual Audio Companions for this research can be downloaded as well as listened to online on any device. To download them, you can either:

Click on the SoundCloud icon to the right of each companion and go to the 'more' option below the track, where an option to download is provided.
Download the SoundCloud app. To listen offline you would need to get a SoundCloud go+ account (free monthly trial).

This work aims to offer a companion for thinking about flexibility in humanitarian response. The study provides a framework for thinking about flexibility in humanitarian crises and address three of the main pillars to supporting flexible humanitarian responses: organisational systems, organisational culture and people, and funding. The standalone sections offer direct entry points for readers interested in these three areas.

1. Creating more flexible organisational systems for programming, supply chain, and monitoring

Organisational systems within humanitarian agencies are increasingly designed for top-down control rather than for enhancing response level flexibility. Based on examples collected through this research, there are steps that senior managers in international organisations can take to change their systems in order to enable flexible response. The three systems that are most salient to flexible humanitarian response are: 1) programming; 2) supply chain & procurement; 3) monitoring. A key takeaway from the study, is that flexible humanitarian country teams reflect greater integration and communication across these three systems.

Section 3 of the study focuses on this. You can download it on the sidebar.

The following audio companions explore this issue as well:

2. Supporting an organisational culture and teams for flexible response

Organisational culture and staff skillsets at field-level need to be conducive to making changes in a timely manner, using critical thinking and being prepared to question and revise assumptions about what’s working in a particular response. Cultivating the right culture and mindset for flexible action are difficult to do because they often do not rely on a system, but on interpersonal relationships and a set of often unspoken rules and ways of working. However, organisations can address this by recruiting for different types of skillsets and by facilitating cross-team conversations at country-level which move the working culture towards one that seeks out and supports change, rather than inhibits it.

Section 4 of the study focuses on this. You can download it on the sidebar.

The following audio companion explores this issue as well:

3. Utilising flexible funding

Recent reforms to humanitarian funding offer an opportunity to rethink how humanitarian action is planned, monitored and implemented—but doing this requires stronger action from both donors and implementing agencies. Donors need to continue trialling different forms of flexible funding and support the exploration of monitoring, evaluation and accountability systems that complement, rather than inhibit, useful changes to programming based on learning or changes in context. Agencies need to seriously engage in rethinking their systems and practices to enable more decision-making power in their field teams, local partners and crisis affected communities. They also need to better demonstrate the difference that unearmarked and flexible funds make to their operational flexibility—and how, in turn, this leads to tangible improvements for people in crisis.

Section 5 of the study focuses on this. You can download it on the sidebar.

The following audio companion explores this issue as well:

Shifting Mindsets Individual Audio Companions

Introduction

For years, humanitarian agencies have been seen as fast and flexible. But in several recent big crises, agencies struggled to keep up with their environment as it changed around them. Why is this? And how can humanitarian agencies make themselves ready and able to adapt?

In this introductory audio companion, Tim Harcourt-Powell (former Communications Officer) speaks to Alice Obrecht (Senior Research Fellow) about ALNAP’s research on flexibility in humanitarian action. They discuss what drew ALNAP to this topic, why a more flexible humanitarian response is needed, and offer an overview of what to expect in the rest of the episodes.