 And from a funding perspective, we're advocating for protection programming to be 15 to 20 percent of the wider HRP. But we're also looking at clusters, non-protection clusters to have proportion of their funding dedicated for delivering protection outcomes. We're also looking at development and peace programming to have proportion of their resources dedicated for protection outcomes. So we're driving this message, and I think it's important to state that at the beginning of this meeting. We also, every year, issue the centrality of protection reports that Dalia, who's with us today, has written a number of them, and also supporting us for the centrality of protection report this year. And what we're doing different this year is that we're looking at all the other clusters to write their own chapter in this report of how CCM and shelter and health and wash, how are they implementing and putting in practice the centrality of protection. So that's another example of how we're driving this agenda forward. Another one is, of course, you know, there are these new results groups that organize interagency standing committee, IASC work at a global level, and in one of them results group one, we are supporting that results group to define indicators to measure the achievement against the centrality of protection. So that's also a third entry point that we're looking at. But of course, all of this needs to be built on the field practice. And one of the foundational things we started with Dalia this year is to look at how are we actually pulling together centrality of protection in your operations. And one starting point is, of course, the HCT protection strategies. These strategies have been introduced a couple of years ago. We see most of the operations today have an HCT protection strategy. But they have been developed through different mechanics. They have achieved different shapes and looks. And their implementation have taken different shades of gray going forward. So we looked with Dalia to review how are these strategies in place now? Do they actually serve their purpose, which is to put in practice centrality of protection? So Dalia has looked at several operations, also in collaboration with results group one, and have pulled together some overview and a number of recommendations pulled together in the report that was shared with you. So the purpose of today is to share with you some of the thinking we're going through bearing in mind the complementary elements that I've mentioned. And hear from you if it makes sense the recommendations that we have reached and how can we take that forward to make these processes more effective. So with this, I would like to again thank you for being with us on time on this important topic. Count on you to keep pushing for the centrality of protection and hand over to Dalia to take us through what she has learned and the recommendations she's putting forward. Dalia, the floor is yours. Thank you, William. And hello to everybody. It's really nice to see so many familiar names pop up. Just for those that don't know me and just as an introduction, I'm Dalia Aranke and I'm a Pro Cap Advisor and I'm currently hosted by the Global Protection Cluster. And as William said, I've been supporting the cluster's work on centrality of protection. So one of the pieces of work that I have done with the colleagues of the GPC is this HCT Protection Strategies Review. So I'm going to share the presentation now with you all. Just to go through, as William said, some of the findings. Many of you have actually participated in the process of putting this review together. So thank you to all of you for that. And because so many of you, I understand a lot of you are coordinators, co-coordinators involved in the coordination at country level. You will have been involved in the HCT Protection Strategies in your country if your HCT has one. So I'm just going to go through. I hope hopefully you will have had a chance to look at the report. But if not, I'm going to go through it. Just the top line point summary background and looking at some of the key insights and recommendations. And then there's a chance for discussion as well in terms of your experiences, as William said, whether the recommendations resonate, do they make sense to you and how we can work together to implement them and what that requires at global level and also at country level and what support would be needed from global level in particular. If you have any questions or input or suggestions, please do include them in the chat. There will be chance as well afterwards to put your hands up. I think Nancy's going to help me with that in terms of collecting any questions or feedback. But otherwise, I'll just start. So in terms of background, and this is something that's familiar to all of us, the idea, where did the centrality of protection come from? It's something that has been worked on for a number of years, but it really was formulated most concisely in 2013 with the statement of the IASC principles issuing their statement on centrality of protection and humanitarian action, which was a very powerful statement at the time and remained so. It really stressed how the protection of persons at risk, those affected by crisis, the risks that they face, their vulnerabilities and the ways that people cope should be the central tenant of any humanitarian response. So it should be part of the services that we're providing and really not just part but in form, decision making and operational response. So that was the starting point and it was articulated in that statement. The 2016 IASC policy on protection in humanitarian action, then articulated that in more detail, giving a more comprehensive perspective in terms of what does that mean to have centrality of protection in humanitarian action. And if you haven't, I really recommend going back to that policy. It is very useful because it sets out the ways that protection can be operationalized. Also it has a lot of definitions and sets out roles and responsibilities. It also took up this point that was originally set out in the statement about one way of operationalizing centrality of protection would be to have an HCT protection strategy. And to support that, there was some guidance was prepared by the Global Protection Cluster with support from Interaction and OCHA. And that was used as the basis for the HCT protection strategies that we know. There are other guidance documents as well, but that one is the main framework. And we have been implementing these HCT protection strategies at country level since about 2015. So this is probably a bit out of date, but at the time of this review at the beginning of the year, 22 out of 29 countries with humanitarian coordinators had a strategy. That may be more now. And so that's five years on. It meant it's a good chance for us to review those, as William said, the evolution of these strategies. So just some background to this review. The IASC Results Group 1 on operational response has a subgroup on centrality of protection. So this review was done very much in connection with the work of that subgroup, which GPC participates in and supports. And in turn, the results of this review were shared and are shared and form part of the basis of the work of the subgroup on centrality of protection. So a lot of you will be aware if you're in one of these 10 countries, that the subgroup selected 10 countries to review, to request those countries to reflect on how the protection policy has been implemented at country level. The report sets out how those countries were selected and what was called the country reflections exercise was shared with each of these countries at the beginning of this year. Asking HCTs to answer a number of questions through process defined by each country in terms of coming together as a humanitarian country team or as clusters to identify how the protection policy has been implemented. Now, a big part of that exercise included reflection on HCT protection strategies. So that was really useful in terms of then using those reflections and input from those countries as part of this review. In addition, we reviewed the HCT protection strategies of the 10 countries and also looked at most, well, most of the HCT country strategies that are, sorry, protection strategies that are on the GPC website. So there was also a brief review of all of those that are currently up on the website, which I also urge everyone to have a look at because it's very useful. So the process was a desk review and using the findings from the HCT reflections exercise. This is not an evaluation and so it wasn't set up to be an exercise which evaluates the HCT protection strategies. It's much more about identifying insights from looking at this range of strategies. So just then this is the very briefly set out list of insights from that review and there's more detail in the report. So you'll find a more detailed explanation for each one of these points. But just overall thinking about it and you'll be familiar, I'm sure, with this from your country work, some of the common insights that came out of reviewing the strategies. The development process of protection strategies, especially the ones we looked at in particular but mostly have been led by senior pro cap advisors that are deployed usually for a limited time or senior protection colleagues or in some operations by the protection cluster. But it's been very limited in terms of getting other clusters, other actors involved in the process from the ones that we reviewed. The second insight is about protection risk analysis. Now there's a lot of discussion about analysis, about data collection, how we do it, best practice that it needs to be continuous. But what's coming out from looking at the strategies is that there's often very long risk analysis and they have a great list of risks included. This is useful but it has made it then difficult to identify what are protection priorities. And also in some cases it's made it difficult to differentiate the protection cluster or protection sector and AOR strategies in the humanitarian response plan and to differentiate that or those from the HCT protection strategy and so they've sort of all merged into one making it confusing at times to really pick out what are the HCT specific protection priorities in a country and also connected to that is the collective protection outcome. Some strategies have protection outcomes and some don't. Sometimes they're just defined or set out as objectives or goals or just priorities but the outcomes they're arranged sometimes they're very very high level so it would be almost impossible to achieve them within a year or two years the time frame of the strategy. Sometimes they're outcome level so a little bit more realistic but it's not really clear what's intended what's the intention in terms of what could be achieved by the HCT collectively working together and also again how those are different from the HRP if that's relevant. When it comes to implementation I'm sure you'll all be familiar with this there isn't specific resourcing usually for implementation of HCT protection strategies. Some do refer to percentage of cluster budgets being used for centrality of protection but when followed up this hasn't really we haven't really seen how this has been done in practice it's a good intention but hasn't actually been taken up in practice. Usually there is not a specific capacity in terms of staffing working only on the HCT protection strategy or as part of the terms of reference or job description and this might be why it usually falls default position as I'm sure will resonate with many of you falls to the cluster and AORs to take on. In terms of roles and responsibilities these are often not specific enough they may be assigned to HC or HCT which usually means it's not nobody will take them on because it's not a specific agency or a specific role within an agency and in terms of links to other strategies and plans some of the strategies they do put out include a list of other strategies and plans in the humanitarian response that are relevant to the HCT protection strategy but very few set up concrete activities or ways that the two are connected and I think we're familiar that there are many strategies and plans in each operation and it can be difficult sometimes to differentiate what are the value of the different plans how do they come together and then connected to the implementation how are these actually implemented monitored and updated or adjusted. Many of the HCT protection strategies they are initially set out for time frames of one year or two year with the idea that they will be updated based on implementation or monitoring or progress very few are actually updated within the time period set and so they can seem to be a bit out of date especially when it comes to the action plans that accompany the strategy. So that's just a sort of brief overview of some of the insights of reviewing the HCT protection strategies I hope those make sense and you can connect to a lot of those. So then I'm going to come to the recommendations so looking at all of those insights some of those experiences what have we recommended as a result. Again the detail of these is set out in the report so I've just summarized them here to not take up too much of the time. So the first point is about having a strategic approach to the centrality of protection so one of the the sort of main recommendation which really is this encapsulates all the recommendations underneath as well but it's about not fixating too much on the HCT protection strategy as a standalone document in the form that they currently exist. It's more about using it as a process to have a framework under which the HCT can have some specific protection priorities that it looks at how the humanitarian actors can collectively come together and work with other actors beyond the humanitarian scope to achieve a set of outcomes which should allow the HCT to be much more agile so when thematic issues come up or geographic issues come up they can form part of it's the HCT protection priorities the strategies to date have been quite static and the idea is to have a much more flexible approach and also to specify what are issues that are protection related that the HCT and the humanitarian coordinator should be addressing should use their comparative advantage what is the value of them coming up to HCT level because if there are things that are already covered by the HRP or covered by the protection sector or by AOR strategies there is an argument that they do not need to be included in the HCT protection strategy it's not just a list of things that are happening it should be a way to as going back to the IARC principle statement a way to inform humanitarian decision making and response so a strategic approach more than just a document or an end product of a strategy then the next recommendation is about analysis of course we have to include analysis because in fact all of the all of the insights they all come back to this point about identifying what are the priorities what are the issues the risks that we want to reduce as a humanitarian community what do we want to come together collectively and work on what are the outcomes and to do this it would make sense as has happened and is happening currently with sort of developing a more inter-sector approach so not a multi-sector approach where every sector every cluster does its own analysis and then it's put together but actually an inter-sector approach where analysis data is collected and an analysis done where protection is at the heart of that not just as a standalone I mean there's also a standalone component of protection but thinking how protection fits into data collection and analysis as core to everything else that's the starting point for having it as central then the protection priorities that this has come up a lot in terms of how do we limit the number and the HCT Protection Strategy Guidance it really refers to the HCT having a process that's defined at country level in terms of how do we collectively identify protection priorities going back to the point that that it's not just a list of protection issues because those are probably covered in the HRP already how does the HCT define what its priorities are and what is the process so that if there are three priorities defined for the next 12 months but something comes up like the COVID-19 response do we how do we adjust to define to then adjust the HCT Protection Strategy or strategic approach to take in the COVID-19 response at HCT level how do we define the protection priorities and to use that methodology every single time so that it isn't a competing list of priorities but ones that we've all agreed are those that the HCT and HCT should be leading on advocacy as a key activity so this has come up quite a lot that it's strategically it's useful and I think this is done at most countries but it's more about having a coherent approach to have advocacy which is a big part of protection work and reducing protection risk and achieving protection outcomes to use the HCT and HCT as a strategic platform for having a joint approach to advocacy and that's the place that that fits is under this umbrella of centrality of protection at HCT level in terms of accountability for implementation this comes back to the roles and responsibilities so really about being more precise is it good enough to have a working group the recommendation is to have a working group that is multi-disciplinary ideally led by protection specialized and non-protection specialized actors and to have a defined role in terms of an action plan and roles and responsibilities who is going to take on the different activities that will lead to achieving protection outcomes and ideally those should be separate to those in the protection in the HRP but if it's identified that HCT protection priorities do overlap or connect with those in the HRP that's okay but it just needs to be set out in that way so the work is not duplicated and then connected to the roles and responsibilities is having greater involvement of our development piece security colleagues how do we do that how do we understand the frameworks in which they're working connected to the frameworks which humanitarian workers are working so for instance you know the country analysis that's done in the development process how can we formulate centrality of protection to connect with that how can we bring these strategies and the architecture of the development work together with the humanitarian work and there are a lot of common links and bonds which I'm sure you're familiar with you know it could be conflict sensitivity a human rights approach there's a lot that's already being done by the development piece security access that is really can be formulated as protection as it's how to tap into that best and then the last recommendation is about having protection central to the HPC so if we're serious about as the protection policy says having a system-wide commitment to centrality of protection if we want to collectively achieve meaningful protection outcomes then it has to be very firmly included in the HNO the humanitarian needs overview and the humanitarian response plan so next slide so I've just listed you know in terms of recommendations most of them are pitched towards the HCHCT but the idea is that the global protection cluster with the results group one as well with the subgroup on central to protection how can we support to achieve some of these recommendations I've just listed you know some of the actors that you'll be familiar with that will be relevant to taking on a lot of these recommendations and in some countries these steps have already are being taken or improvements are being made because some countries are on their third iteration of the HCT protection strategy so there's a lot of lessons learned and adjustments being made at country level I just in terms of I thought I'd take out the protection sector AORs just maybe this is what you're already doing but thinking about what is the role of the protection sector and I just wanted to start by saying in terms of the HCT protection strategies again it is important to think of how these are separate the strategy at HCT level is separate to the protection sector AOR strategies and the HRP strategic objectives there may be connections but the idea is not that they just duplicate what already exists and that's why having a more strategic approach at HCT level should take into account what else is being done in terms of the role of the protection sector the cluster the AORs a lot is said about all the responsibility falling to the protection colleagues in terms of HCT protection strategy and historically this has been the case and there's a lot of reasons for that and I'm sure we can discuss those and you will have a lot of ideas and thoughts about that and experiences in terms of systematically the way it's set out the contribution and support to HCT protection strategies there is a specific role for the for the protection cluster and the AORs that's set out in the protection policy which very usefully explains and sets out each actor's role and responsibility but the big picture involvement of the protection sectors the things that you will have been doing but it's the data and information collection sharing and management now it doesn't mean that the protection cluster has to do all that but it's about supporting and providing it could be initially or on an ongoing basis the technical support to get that up and running to have the identification of protection risks very firmly in the system-wide data and information collection efforts again the the importance of the in-depth and integrating protection analysis by the way these points are taken from the protection policy so they're set out in more detail there and the idea is that the protection analysis is not a one-off so all that work that's done of protection monitoring of collecting information about changes in context how people affected by crisis are coping their vulnerabilities how those might change in specific circumstances that's continuous and that's already being done so it's like how does that feed in and help advise the humanitarian country team and the and the HC and then this point about defining HCT specific protection priorities I don't think any country really has had one method of doing this that they keep on using and what we've seen is this long list of protection priorities is often there because the idea is that if protection issues are not included at HCT protection strategy level they will be excluded or they will be considered not important or they won't be funded and that is not or it should not be the case so that's why that's something we could help to define much more and also define the differences about what is HCT specific and what is still very important but dealt with under the HRP or under other strategies and then the idea about mobilizing other actors and stakeholders I think we've all got good and bad stories of how we've involved colleagues in protection and we have a lot of learning there in terms of what has worked and what hasn't and also identifying and this is what something as William mentioned in in the next piece of work but I'm focusing on the centrality of protection review for 2019 the idea is to really work with other clusters other actors development actors and colleagues to see how they're already including protection but it may be by another name it may not be as specific as set out in the protection policy but those measures to understand vulnerabilities and risks and react and respond to those do exist usually just set out in slightly different ways so thinking much more about how we can connect to that as protection actors and yes and then I put other so I know I've said a lot of things and quite quickly but the next thing was to have a bit of a brainstorming so I don't know Nancy if that's or William you're moderating to hand over in terms of how to discuss some of these things now based on the findings from the review and also your experiences so thinking about your experiences related to HCT protection strategies what you would like from the global protection cluster and global AORs in terms of support what would what would be useful and then also at country level what's the best way for the sector for the cluster to have a systematic and clear role for HCT protection strategies because I know at the moment it's a lot of work for many of you and that's not really how it's meant to be so how can we help inform and use this review to reset a little bit in terms of how the HCTs and HCs take on the protection strategies that they're responsible for and what you your role would be in terms of supporting those on an ongoing basis but not having to take full responsibility for them so that was that that was the idea so and William Nancy I don't know if I hand over to you for for sort of the discussion I mean of course I'm very I'm here to answer questions and participate in the discussion as well um I think William was supposed to moderate but William if you want me to go ahead it's fine okay William said for me to go ahead for now William do you want to be oh I see that some there's some questions oh sorry William that's fine we can thanks Nancy we can we can do it in ping ponging Elise go ahead a question from you hi good evening sorry I did not mean to derail the meeting with my questions and well like it's it's actually a two two questions the first one is on the the duplication of activities with those already featuring in the HRP so in Afghanistan we're currently in the process of revising the the HCT protection strategy because it's quite outdated it's very impractical people have been very critical of it and we've got basically two schools of thoughts in the working group some people would like to not basically copy activities already featuring in the HRP saying we need to define other priorities that only the HCT and the HCT can address basically whereas some other members of the working group say no we should include those HRP activities as well to make sure those agencies doing these activities are held accountable to the HCT members so that would be the first question how do you basically manage that discussion and the second one on advocacy would you recommend to include advocacy in the HCT protection strategy or have a separate advocacy strategy like some people are pushing for in Afghanistan thank you very much thanks a lot okay Elise I'm sure these questions resonate Dalia before you take the floor colleagues for questions or brainstorming and and inputs please either raise your hand or flag it in the chat box that you want to come in I encourage colleagues on all spectrums of the crisis to come in new emergencies protracted emergencies as well as countries where we have stabilization and development machineries I think the experience should be slightly different from these type of operations to come in Dalia over to you thank you yeah just for this in terms of your questions Elise the I mean there's different ways of doing it but in terms of the duplicating I think that reflects what a lot of countries have done because there's an idea that if those points are not included in the protection strategy they will not they're not important or they won't be covered sufficiently I think it does depend on the the HCT and the HCT in terms of how they're monitoring the HRP in terms of accountability I think we all agree that if something's in the HRP we're you know there is accountability there within it so it shouldn't have to be repeated in the HCT protection strategy I would say it having that or finding ways to have the HCT and the burden for this is not on on the protection cluster only but having the HCT have this define a methodology in terms of how what is an HCT protection priority for that HCT and if we could agree if that's something that could be agreed on then that could be applied to issues that were put forward as potential priorities of course it's easier to say than to do because there are agency see through see priorities through the issues that they're working on and they may prioritize based on how they are doing analysis and collecting data but that's why the idea is for the HCT to be an effective pool of that and take off the contributions you could look at a separate advocacy maybe it's not a strategy maybe it's more of an action plan you know the strategic point is included in the HCT protection strategy the actual how you're going to make that happen could be so important that it really needs to be um you need to have a sort of separate approach to it in terms of how you're going to achieve a protection outcome it could be I mean it depends what the advocacy is being used for in general having lots of strategies has not proved to have better protection outcomes I mean I'm saying that anecdotally I have not done a full evaluation but in countries where there are many strategies and plans it doesn't seem to have made it easier to achieve protection outcomes so I don't at least I don't know if that answers or or or raises more questions but I hope that's helpful in some way Elise any rebound no that was great thank you so much thanks a lot Elise I have from Sudan Aziz go ahead yes good afternoon everybody I just wanted to to share a little bit of our experience of following and the implementation of the HCT protection strategy as you know apart from that the strategy the document we have the monitoring framework and we have also localities agreed localities where we monitor the implementation of the HCT protection strategy however that during the first phase of implementation of the strategy it was really difficult to collect information on the implementation of the document by different agencies from their main main offices in Sudan then we tried and made an effort to to involve their representatives at the protection working group levels collect the related information however we found out that some of the agencies are either not aware of the strategy or they remember it only during the reporting time so it was difficult and therefore for the second quarter report of the HCT protection strategy we failed to perform our role as the secretariat and the last the latest is that we recommended that the monitoring framework the reporting templates or reviewed at the HCT level and in different states where we have the intersector and the HCT structures working together so this may give a little bit more ownership to other agencies especially non-protection mandated agencies and that way we collect more and useful information and at the same time draw their attention on the main elements of the strategy so this is the latest that happened and just wanted to share with you and seek advice from your site thank you thanks a lot Aziz let me just follow up on your intervention and say how can we be more helpful in such a process what would you expect from the global protection cluster and and the global AORs Aziz did you hear me sorry I didn't hear you can you repeat yes I'm saying thank you for the explanation of where you are my question is how can we from the global protection cluster and the AORs be helpful to you what do you expect from us in such a situation well I was thinking about about the problem how else we can we can address the situation maybe we didn't get the information because of the restrictions and in that people or tired of the situation COVID-19 restriction we were also thinking about it that it is because of the emergency involvement of most of the agencies and in small emergencies here and there and Sudan maybe because of that but also thinking that FF something comes from from the global protection sector directly to the HCRC or even from high-ranking colleagues directly to the HCRC or something from a higher structure to the representatives of different UN agencies so that may change a little bit the situation because this is after all an issue of responsibility in accountability they have to consider that so other than this I don't have any other recommendation William thank you so much Aziz I have Lillian followed by Yasmin then Samir Lillian over to you hello everyone I am Aziz's colleague in Sudan I want to just to contribute a little bit there is a plus and minus for our side so basically we have an RCHC that took on this role of the HCT protection strategy very seriously getting it endorsed and also establishing the task force and that task force has been developed the action plan the implementation framework and to be honest it is for now more of our from this protection sector and the AOR's responsibility towards following it up and reminding everyone but I think what would be helpful is is to have I'm not sure why it's there but pardon me if I did not read it in any background document to have some bit of clarity with regards to like the an action plan that really clearly shows the accountability to come from the the HCT and then also how the HCT can be able to utilize the HCT members so far we have the we have the RCHCs so there's a bit of confusion sometimes when we say the implementation so it ends up being a UNCT or UN partners that are more involved in the in the following following up an implementation and we really have less inputs coming in from the NGOs and this is something that we are struggling with so it may be too much to ask and sorry for that but I think based on the lessons learned that's where we have seen from other countries it would be helpful if there's the in the package there is something that really helps with the ongoing implementation and the reporting to be more on the HCT the HCT side with the clear rules for the HCT I know it is somewhere there but it's not really easily interpreted in in the country so it ends up being heavy on our side from the GPC from the protection sector and AORs thank you I hope I was clear if if there's a follow-on question you can ask me thank you thank you Lillian loud and clear I have Yasmeen followed by Samir and then Marie Emily Yasmeen over to you thank you William thank you Dahlia very much that was super interesting I have a quick question and apologies I'm you have referred to some to some elements some answers to my questions but I'm just interested to hear your views based on the review of how we can move away from in the second generation of HCT strategies how we can move away from a policy tick box exercise to more impact driven process thanks thanks a lot Yasmeen also quick question so we move to Samir then Marie Emily and we take a first stock with you Dahlia before the rest Samir over to you thank you William based on the experience from whole of Syria perspective I think we had the leadership which is the RC HC based in Damascus and the regional HC based in Aman and the deputy regional HC based in Kazantep who are part of the whole of Syria leadership they had separate protection strategies for themselves last year as they were not able to have a combined protection strategy for the SSG which is the senior most advisory group for the response however the problem was that over a period of time it became less about the about the leadership so the RC HC or the RC or the deputy RC feeding back on the efforts undertaken as part of their advocacy in line with their identified protection priorities which the protection sector helped them to come up with and and prioritize and it consistently became more about asking for more updates from the protection sector on those on those very things so I'm wondering maybe part of it is also a lack of understanding on part of the HCTs or on part of the RC HC and it's and RCs and HCs about how a protection strategy for the HCT can work and what is the role of the protection sector in supporting and where the accountability for it lies and I'm wondering if there is a way in which the GPC can help facilitate this understanding so that it's clear that the protection sector supports the HCT in coming up with the protection strategy but then the accountability for it lies which with the HCT and should not become an additional task for the protection sector to continue to report on those things which the protection sector is not advocating on but is actually seeking leadership support to advocate on Loud and clear Samir thanks for the intervention Marie Emily and then followed by back to you Dalia for the first interjection Hi everyone this is Marie from Mali first I wanted to thank you Dalia for this presentation we are going to present the HCT protection strategy in less than an hour in Mali so it's really a very nice warm-up for me just to share the experience here we started the drafting of the HCT protection strategy more than a year ago almost a year and a half ago in March 2019 so it's been a very very long consultation process and we've had two pro-cap mission coming to support us in this exercise and one of the things that we've learned is that you can't push for protection strategy at the level of the HCT without having the a strong protection cluster in place who is able to provide the analysis that is required and so this is why I think it has taken so long in Mali is that we the foundations basically were not there to take the protection discussion at a higher level and so I was wondering if we could maybe also include that in as part of one of the lessons learned is how much the protection analysis and the work of the protection cluster is instrumental in taking the protection discussion to a higher level and for me the protection pyramid that the interagency standing committee came up with makes a lot of sense and I feel at least for me it's been really useful to look at this pyramid and to see what needs to be done before we achieve or we are able to come up to the level of the HCT and as Sameer was saying I think there is still an assumption even among ourselves that this centrality of protection the statement and the policy that you were mentioning well known and understood and we've had some pushback from from the some from from agencies even protection agencies not understanding the difference between the HCT protection strategy and protection cluster strategy so I think the GPC could also help us in making clear and making sure that this understanding is well known and that this I'm sorry I'm coming always to this protection pyramid but for me it makes so much sense and it has really helped me to understand the different levels of responsibility towards protection and I feel that there's still work to be done on making sure that those policies statements and tools are being understood by our leadership and even among ourselves by protection coordinators thank you so much thank you Marie that was good and good luck in your next meeting I want to give the floor back to Dalia for some reactions to kind of relaunch some of the comments she'll be followed by Yasin and I would like to hear from some AORs colleagues with us if you're in how this experience come to you as well as some of the operations that have stabilisation and peace machinery in country that would also be great to hear from you so but first pit stop with you Dalia any initial reactions and answers thanks William yes sure and thanks to Yasmin, Sameer and Marie-Emily really good points just to reassure hopefully everyone that this review has not been widely shared and disseminated and actually this is sort of just touching base with you all as the people involved in so much of the work it's a starting point so don't think that these ideas and recommendations are all in the sight of HDSRCs and they're just not applying them or they're not agreeing with them it's pretty new way of thinking in some ways and that's why we need to come together and think about how to get that much more on their radar so Yasmin asked about how not to just have the policy tick box so maybe actually the answers to the other questions or not answers reflections I don't think I can claim to have the answers but just ideas will answer or contribute to that idea because in some ways and we have to recognise this having the protection strategy HCT level is in itself a huge step from where we were a few years ago and that has to be acknowledged and recognised even though we're already wanting to improve and learn from our experiences and move on to another place but having that and having protection or centrality of protection as one of the four mandatory obligations of the humanitarian country team that is an achievement although of course the operationalisation and implementation is the next step so we have moved in many ways and I think a lot of colleagues that acknowledge that we have the luxury of experience now because we've had a few years of trying this out and I think that experience in Mali of it taking over a year to draft and the consultation process probably sort of shows how difficult and why these strategies end up being quite static because it takes so long to put them together and their works of art in many ways but then when it comes to implementing and updating I mean the idea of going through a one-year process to do that is not something that any of us really want to go through so let me so in terms of whole of Syria and the lack of understanding I think this is coming out again and again the idea that who is responsible where do the roles sit and it always comes back to the protection cluster so what I think we could do with this review and it's something you know William's pushing for as well in terms of the advocacy and how we can come together to do that is how can we raise this much more at a policy well global level but then also to feed into country level in terms of how the protection cluster is not responsible for all of this it hasn't worked so far for us to say as protection cluster colleagues to tell all the other clusters or to tell the HCNRC no it's your responsibility unfortunately that hasn't worked so well and so maybe this is something we need to raise as well with the interagency standing committee and the results group in terms of operational response because it needs to come from a higher level and then you know what we're doing is trying to provide the technical support to that at country level the other thing that's connected to that and I think it came out with the Mali point is that the protection analysis in itself is a very valuable commodity it is something that all the you know HCTs want and HCs you know demand these updates and regular input yet maybe we need to think as well as the protection cluster at global level and also to support at country level how to use this valuable commodity a bit more in terms of setting the narrative of how to identify HCT protection priorities because if we can show that the cluster strategies are already covering a lot of the issues that have come up in the analysis we could then try to find ways of being more strategic more tactical in advocating to the HCT and it may be directly to the HCT but also work being done also with NGO forums with the inter cluster mechanism with other parts of the architecture to have a stronger strategic approach to pushing what the HCT priorities are and I think the other thing is it's going to take some time a lot of HCTs think that the having an update protection is centrality of protection and so maybe we also need to think how to hold back a little bit in terms of doing this I know it's easy to say and this is something maybe we need to bring up with the cluster lead agencies and co-leaders as well because we are providing so much work and material and it's taking a lot of time I'm sure you know it's your time and your efforts it's such a valuable stuff but it might not be used as you as intended and what's happening is that the update is becoming the result and it's not actually leading to strategic decision making so I can't give a magical answer but what I would suggest is that one of the starting points is that when you're entering in the process of developing a protection strategy or participating in developing a protection strategy and also for the implementation it could be that you reach out at that point to the Global Protection Cluster to see how the Global Protection Cluster can support or use other experiences from other countries to help you so that you don't get stuck doing something that is not quite what is intended or is the best use of your time or that leads to duplication but I would I mean I'll pass over to William now because maybe one of the things is to have a bit more of a brainstorming to think how creatively the global cluster can support more in terms of this strategic take-up for HCs and RCs that each centrality of protection is not the work of the Protection Cluster only and to define more what the Protection Cluster NAOR role is as opposed to allowing it to be defined at country level by HCTs and HCs and there's probably a role for the lead agencies there as well in terms of defining that so sorry that was a little bit of a stream of consciousness but I took all your points I think they're so valid and it really shows how in some ways your energies and efforts are not being allowed to be used as efficiently and effectively as possible and I think we can take that as one of the things we raise when disseminating and using this review as an advocacy tool to try to change or help change the mindset of how centrality of protection is implemented by HCs and HCTs back to you William Thanks a lot Dalia there is already a couple of suggestions in terms of our role as GPC to clarify the difference between HCT strategy and Protection Cluster strategy I will touch base to these points towards the end and the wrap up now I have a lineup of Yasin followed by David Garcia Najiba, Ilona and Lionel Yasin the floor is yours Hi William Hi Dalia Let's see how are you Well two things from involving with Protection Strategy before Ilane Ilane we have to be a little bit also to remind ourselves as a Protection Cluster in the field we are practical basically operational body or working group trying to see where is the gap and implement to the needs and sometime I felt we are like learning from before I felt we were pushing a lot to make the HCT accountable to have the Protection Strategy in place where we really don't have a strong programming when it's come to to provide evidence-based information like there is where is the protection issue what's need to be done etc so we assuming sometime which is normally in a conflict situation there is a protection issues and need to be respond to but we weren't somehow not able to provide evidence enough evidences which is based on assessment and feedback and not two or three people sitting somewhere saying there is a protection need and analyzing it and this is where we have to find ourselves we can pie or sell our messages or put or do more advocacy with the HCT so the HCT is strong when we have sorry evidences when we have assessment when we can see the protection needs and the impact and I think we have to start from there before we are pushing the HCT to adopt the Protection Strategy we have to look in a specific situation how we become better identifying protection issue and provide evidences so the HCT and also we also always have I agree with that and somehow when we also have to reduce that objective what we are trying to achieve in the Protection Strategy and focus on what we can achieve because also sometimes HCT they feel or they reject us because they feel the protection is too much is pushing putting like protection everywhere etc so we have to be smart in also focusing or starting from easy to achieve and that's also we link it to the capacity of the HCT in the country the sensitivity the ongoing situation we also to do some analysis what can be achieved what cannot be achieved otherwise we will produce a document it will never be used or HCT member will avoid to use it or the leadership because of the sensitivity because of the situation in the ground so we also we have to be realistic in the ground and HCT in the Protection Sector or cluster what we can do what we cannot do or what the HCT is ready to take and fight to achieve and this also another issue and the third thing also I found it it's sometimes things go well depend of the Protection Advisor who come to the field from Procab or North Cap it's also sometimes depend of this person of the qualification of this person of the way can interact with the HCT member and the relation with the Protection Sector so this is also I suggest also to look when we look to the evaluation how was the impact of the person who been sent to the specific country to support the HCT to develop a Protection Strategy which is I saw it some time it's working very well depend of this person and their background and sometimes things go wrong actually because of also understanding their rule and what they can do and their relation with the Protection Sector and also relation with the HCT or with the specific organization it's also important to revise that you are for the global expertise who supporting the country program in developing the Protection Strategy and to see if that's need to be evaluated what's rule like where is there's rule what they can do what they cannot do and the relation between Sector and HCT thank you thank you very much Yasin I have David Garcia followed by Najiba and Ilona David Garcia David can you hear me if not let me quickly David so there we have two couple of questions from David how to increase the commitment of the agencies and organizations that are members of the humanitarian team also considering that there are less and less resources allocated to these response plans so what's the basically David is David is asking what's the incentive for the agencies to be part of it Najiba can you just mute for a moment I'll get to you then David is saying a few years ago interaction carried out a study in Colombia and shared some specific recommendations but when we try to create a system to measure the impact of protection the majority of members voted against the proposal that would allow the operation to better measure the impacts of protection the current HRP monitoring tools do not guarantee the measurement of strategic protection agreement either so I think the question here Dalia is how how do we go about measuring this impact and how do we sensitize everyone to go along these lines the second question from David who's based in Colombia how to improve strategic coordination between different humanitarian response plans in countries where there is more than one I think Colombia is a case in point in the case of Colombia there's a plan that responds to the situation of conflict and a plan that responds to the crisis of Venezuelan migrants and refugees unfortunately these plans do not share the same coordination platforms and one of them is not part of the YASC structure so what's the role of the strategy in this case so thank you very much for the points David Najib Najiba go ahead thank you very much William and colleagues it is really very most I mean interesting discussion because for us in Afghanistan we also had some issues like you know the strategy was draft and then it took a little bit more time to implement the objective for the work plan so and then it was very slow like later by later and we were as a protection cluster asked like this is for example our job that we should monitor the progress or we should have a discussion like you know with the involved agencies that and especially we should report to the HCT about the progress I was thinking at that time that it will be I think this is only like you know suggestion is it okay like to create a task force at the country level for example at the HCT level to monitor the strategy progress the work plan and also to report to the HCT time to time like the suggestion like while if there is any obstacle that we cannot implement the strategy or if the progress is slow or delay like I mean the task force and then also to coordinate about the strategy review if there is need like you know the Afghanistan strategy when it was draft like most of the objective was very out of date and we didn't have like proper you know progress report to report the HCT and that that that objective some of them were like already achieved but the report was not there so all the protection cluster work on the strategy I mean we had some presentation to HCT about which which of the objective is in which level but still like you know protection cluster as other colleagues also mentioned it's a lot support for the protection cluster to monitor the overall process and then also the work plan and then coordinate with the relevant agencies and even in some cases some of objective are most relevant also to the government so I was thinking if there is a task force and then the task force take all this responsibility and report to HCT time to time and then also the progress I don't know if the suggestion is okay I'm just seeking advice like if it is okay or possible in in some of the countries thank you so much over to you William thank you very much Najiba I move to Ilona followed by Lionel and Jack Ilona thank you so as long as I'm you're on that well okay two things so one I just wanted to jump on to what was previously commented on the sensitization of HCTs and indeed HCs overall on the concept of centrality of protection this is yes this is a really key it seems like sometimes not everyone can be on the same page on the entire definition of the concept and the understanding of accountability for its incorporation across the entire HCT and if there's any kind of sensitization that can happen at a quite high level on this this could be good although from our level what has been happening many times if there's any core issues the protection cluster has marshaled all of the protection related members of the HCT to kind of collectively do a focus on any issue and so that has had some impact however it's you know nonetheless it's a great it's great to think that potentially something senior could happen whereby centrality of protection would kind of be in the front of people's minds as something that they have as you know part of their collective responsibility as HCT members as well but then the second comment was going to be about the issue of implementation matrix and working group and noting the recommendation to have a working group I believe if I'm not wrong there was discussion here in South Sudan of a working group however I'm sure it's the same in every operation the multiplicity of working groups coordination mechanisms different groups subgroups small groups growing out of other small groups etc that in order to avoid too much of a proliferation but at the same time also not have the protection cluster be exclusively responsible for all this tracking as other colleagues have also mentioned are there any alternate additional suggestions on that thank you thank you very much Ilona Lionel followed by Shaq and I believe if I don't have any further speakers back to you Dalia maybe for initial wrap up Lionel go ahead yeah Lionel speaking thank you for giving me the pro no I I just agree that there is no currently no clarity about who is doing who should do what especially when it comes to centralized protection so I think that maybe there is also there is already existing documentation quite extensive so maybe like very strong messages maybe one pager with some schemes about who is doing what there is another point when it comes to that of course and centrality of protection this is the responsibility of the HCT but of course other cluster sectors have a role to play so such advocacy or clarification I would rather say it would be good also to be extended I mean it extended to their to the cluster the simpler the better and on that one I would also insist on that the fact that the multiplicity of working group etc doesn't work according to me if I would rather say that it's a killer we are moving from a meeting to another one I think that the real problem is the lack of a clear strategy especially based on like result based management with clear outcomes and from there to outputs we are going to activities with some specific indicators if we manage to get some specific indicators there is no need to have like too often meetings where at the end of the day nothing really happens because nothing can be tracked because there is no I mean because at the end very often strategy is just in addition of words of as it was said in the review very generic outcomes for two specific outcomes etc so I think there are ways of question around that because this is also true for the HBC etc how we consider result based management so probably one other thing is like how do we consider the professional developments and the training I mean protection is it's nothing that we can improvise so I was also wondering if there is any way to reinforce that what is at the end of the day change with some solid curriculum from training online or not online thank you very much thank you Leonel which operation are you oh yes sorry I didn't introduce my kids so I Nadja Yaw and I am the yeah my my action coordinator my action no thanks nice meeting you thanks a lot for your comments much appreciated Jack followed by Ann Marie as the last intervention Jack thank you for the floor I'm sorry John later but I was in another meeting actually with the FCT meet the two points from my side I think probably we have to reassess our way as protection cluster I mean in the field there of working with pro cap advisor or maybe an advisor protection advisor from another another body who who used to be deployed to support the FCT we can see it as the way of questioning or assess the personality of the deployed person but I think probably we have also to to assess our way of collaborating and working with those those advisors in our case we had two deployments I think uh yeah two deployments of pro cap advisors yet it uh the FCT did not finalize the the the strategy so uh when it's like that I think we need to have a two ways evaluation assessment from uh their side but also from our side and maybe what we can how we can prepare their deployment what we can what we should have to achieve or to better prepare the mission etc but probably we have to to reassess this and to be honest they we used to take a great part of the work as protection cluster which was our our case in center of the public but maybe depending on how we manage this and it's not only a question of tors but it's on a practical way how we work with those guys my second point would be you know regarding the FCT the FC etc is uh how we do organize our uh with HCT members and and with the FC I think it helps better than sensitize U.N. uh U.N. agency heads uh representatives or NGOs have a mission etc but it's on what we bring as discussion in the sometimes uh it the FC who request uh a given presentation or on a given region etc sometimes we need as protection cluster also to to initiate discussion to ask to give a plantation on on some uh some topics and then during the discussion trying to uh you know to uh to to make HCT members accountable for some some action to to request them to take advocacy mission in the field etc so I think how we we do interact with them help us uh could help us bringing them and sensitizing them to uh to be accountable for for some uh for some uh some specific question or or points and maybe my like my last point is on the task force etc all of these to for the monitoring of the strategy actually we have a task force in uh in Sierra to be honest it uh it was weak and it does not help uh match why maybe uh really we need to uh to see it in a deep way but yeah to to establish a task force is one thing but to make it uh to make it functional it's uh operational I mean it's uh it's another challenge uh thank you thank you very much Jacques clear points and Marie you're the last speaker make it count I will try uh no actually I just wanted to bring in a point about the task force or or working group to uh I guess implement the strategy so we did have that here in Libya response uh we created a working group uh made of HCT members to write the work plan and sort of the timeline and such it initially started off quite uh promising and we were able to engage people who maybe weren't regularly engaging with us which is was quite quite great uh however the majority of all or all of the work I'd say I should say uh fell to us at the at the sector and then at the end of the day we were unable to actually pass the work plan uh the HCT never ended up uh finalizing it which made it particularly difficult because we put in a ton of hours and a ton of work into this document that was then never uh finalized and I think this does echo some of the issues that some of my colleagues have been raising about sort of the ownership of this strategy uh that needs to be a bit of a rethinking around who does this strategy belong to in a way because I think it was often pushed to us as the protection sector uh saying well this is a protection issue uh so protection should take the lead which completely negates the purpose of a centrality of protection uh strategy or work plan so I think just to first say the work point the working group can be successful uh but at the end of the day it's an ownership issue and if the HCT are unwilling to take ownership of the strategy then they're not going to necessarily follow through on the work plan that we create uh so a bit of a pro and con I suppose thanks a lot unmarried Dahlia you had seven speakers since your last intervention and you've got four minutes to wrap it up so give it your best shot oh thank you I'm going to try very hard but actually I'm going to use a bit of time to say thank you so much for everybody that's participated in sharing these experiences because this is as Yassina saying it's all about practical and operational points and um this is going to help as well when we're developing the guidance on HCT protection strategies I hope it helps to think that the HCT protection strategies as they currently stand doesn't have to be how they continue to be and a lot of our discussion has been based around how they currently are and that makes sense because we're very familiar with them and the last five years has really been developing a very similar version of protection strategy and we've got really good at it what we haven't been able to keep up with is the implementation and maybe that's the the project for the next five years of course risks are being reduced in the work that the humanitarian work that's being done so it's not as though I was speaking with one donor recently who thought that if something wasn't in the HCT protection strategy it means that no protection is being done and so that is uh really important that we clarify the HCT protection strategy is not the only place that identifies how people can be protected and I have taken this point to follow up on with GPC colleagues is about how to and come back with for more discussion and defining with you uh colleagues with your operational knowledge how do we define uh differentiate much more clearly the the different level strategies on protection and what is it that makes something HCT level if we look at the HCT as a place for a strategic approach and not just to produce this document that has been produced again and again in the last few years and then the action plan and stuff that should the idea is not to create more working groups and more task forces the it's to um make what exists better or more efficient even to reduce the number of working groups and meetings because there's no point having a whole set of layers and processes if it's not achieving what we intend for it to achieve I know you know that but that's what's really coming out from this review uh and from our experience so far incentive what does incentivize any agency or any uh uh actor to participate and that's a range of things it could be funding it could be what's included if you know through the HPC funding processes so through the common funding is there a requirement that centrality of protection participation is there do we need to get the donors to push this point we recognize that just saying repeatedly to the HC and HCT that it is their overall responsibility is not resulting in a sharing of the work or a distribution of the work and actually it's meaning that the protection cluster is having again and again to take the burden so I've noted that as something we need to work on and maybe this review can be a tool uh to do that and also through this results group that we've talked about quite a bit they are rethinking how to um as William said to come up we're trying to come up with indicators of how you measure centrality of protection so thinking of incentives there for agencies to participate is something that um that we can take on in terms of the working groups I mean one idea is not to have something separate that ends up default being the protection cluster maybe it's just about having a point on the intercluster meetings that go on that's that's looking at how to bring centrality of protection together or the age sorry the HCT protection strategy implementation uh it sounds like there's a lot of work to do whether that sensitization or advocacy in terms of stressing the reasons for having this protection strategy because what's come out and I think this is the overall point that's come out is there's so much effort going on to producing this strategy that we haven't really had much space to think about what it hopes to achieve in the implementation of it I've also noted the points on the the pro cap advisors or having other senior colleagues come in the sustainability point how does having colleagues come in for a short amount of time help is it it could be that it it does you know it's more of a hindrance so we need to factor that in um so I think I'll I'll pass back to William just to say that I've noted all your points but I think if there's one thing to take away and I would love to reconvene to talk about this is envisaging if you can think about protections centrality of protection as a strategic issue for the HCT to deal with don't think of it as the strategies that currently exist I mean I know you have to in your current work because they exist and you have to do all the work around it but if you could see it as something else that's what we want to try and capture how can we get that vision into the mindset because at the moment we got stuck in the in the tick box producing strategies as the end result but we want to move away from that so how can we do that together if any you know if if we're thinking creatively so I'll I'll pass back to William I'm sorry that I didn't answer everything directly but I'm also around to support for the next couple of months if individual questions come up back to you thank you William thank you very much Dalia thank you very much colleagues for a very dynamic and excellent conversation we've carefully taken notes of the marching orders on the specific questions or type of documents or one pagers you have referred to we have also taken note that some questions that do not have a clear cut answers yet and require a push and a process and a process of thinking and engagement with others for taking for reaching a point where we we start having answers and testing them what we will commit to is of course we have this review that has been conducted we will use this review for advocating for the obvious points that have been raised I will work with with Dalia and and maybe couple of you to give us feedback to write specific letters for all humanitarian coordinators putting our key asks and issues for their attention and attaching this document we'll do that in collaboration with results group one and and also to to be a step in the momentum where we're building forward we will as well look at of course Dalia is from pro cap we'll look at one of the major players that have been facilitating these processes pro cap to to already start adopting some of these recommendations and the and the processes that are ongoing and finally of course we have the guidelines that is coming up Dalia will be working on it it should be ready in the in the last quarter of the year and that would also give an opportunity to define the next generation of the the strategies or the strategic approaches it's a process we are I think on a good track to improve on it and go forward I've been encouraged by the conversation and the practical inputs from you and we'll keep pushing in the direction you have said big thanks for you Dalia for the fantastic experience expertise and collaborative process that you bring to us here and looking forward to continue collaborating with you with this I would like to thank you everyone and wish you a nice afternoon or evening or morning depending where you are in the world thank you everyone and bye bye thank you