 Hello and welcome everyone. Welcome. Welcome. They are still flooding in. Okay, I think everybody is in now. So we'll hand over the spotlight to William over to you. So much. I am very pleased to be having this session this afternoon. We just finished a session on protection of civilians and we were trying to explore innovative ways of advancing protection of civilians in a context where access is limited crisis are multiplying in terms of complexity and numbers. I feel this session brings the answer to one important answer to the previous session. This session is going to be exciting because it is asking us to really focus ourselves from the outset on the agency and leadership of communities in advancing protection solutions. And refreshingly we aren't going to get there just at the end. It's not an afterthought that will be tacked on at the end rather. The entire premise today this afternoon is to look at the actions and influence of communities in engaging in negotiations, both with state and non state on actors to understand the factors of success and the risks associated. Now these negotiations must be understood as a critical form of self protection. Any of us who have been in the field negotiating would know that communities are undertaking these kind of negotiating negotiation the whole time to secure agreements for kids for students to go to school or to go to a clinic or to a pharmacy or access services of water or going to a market. There is negotiation was on the groups on on child demobilization when children are recruited to take temporary breaks or to be demobilized totally. Now these efforts, their amount and their size and their impact is massive is much bigger than our whole sector efforts combined. And it brings us to the humility and the reality that the communities are indeed the first and last responders when it comes to their protection. So for me today this conversation offers an opportunity for us to collectively explore how we can further accelerate towards a more systematic approach to strengthening civilian self protection. So there's a lot of instances where we have to be there. It's important to be there this protection by presence. But this is also a space where we have to get out of the way and support the communities to do what they do best. Why we're keeping an eye on the do no harm principles that we are associated with. There has been some excellent efforts in this area over the last several years will hear many about them today. There's a lot of leadership and drive from from NRC save and many others who are in the session with us today. So I think today we are in a position to start focusing on understanding the successes and the failures and the limitations of these approaches. So we can use the next year to scale up and use more of the successes and explore more in the failures to understand and adapt and I hope by the end of the session today we will get to a space where we can use today's conversation as a starting point for the whole global protection cluster to to use these individual successes and scale them up. But also to use next year's global protection forum to report back on how much we have progressed in this area. So with this, I wish us all a very good session very concrete dialogue and I'm looking forward to learn and to make conclusions and take steps forward after the session. Thank you and over back to the production team. So thank you very much William for that introduction. Maybe we can just skip a couple of these slides. Thank you. Yeah, so the agenda of what we wanted to talk through today. I hear the housekeeper was as well. The agenda for we wanted to talk to today. So as William said we're looking at community led negotiations around access and protection. And certainly a Williams introduction that we talked about having, we're trying to use this avenue for looking at answers to some of the questions that have been posed in other events throughout the global protection forum, both today and on other days as well. So just briefly, we have a great selection of speakers for you today. I'm very excited to be part of the event. So myself I'm with Save the Children. We have colleagues from NRC, we have colleagues from academia and people who are at the forefront delivering some of these strategies already. I won't go through and introduce every individual person because we also want to give them chance to speak. But certainly we'll be looking at civilian agency and armed conflict civilian self protection as a modality and specialized protection work challenges and opportunities in this kind of work. So we'll have a chance for closing remarks and quick up a bit of a Q&A as well with the audience. So please next slide then. So before we start just a few housekeeping rules. Yes of course unless you're a speaker, please keep microphones muted and video off. If you have questions or comments please raise your hand and put a comment in the chat box. Please type in the chat what country are working for and what organization you're with and please. So the speakers, as I think I've already broken this rule, so I'll be conscious of that. We need to keep speaking slowly to allow interpreters to translate. I'll slow down. Please next slide. So, yes, this as I said the panel, we can leave this up for a second while I start to introduce the project, but you can have a look at these are the speakers we will have today. So what is the project that we save the children and RC, we've been working for the past around the past eight months now and certainly looking ahead into next year. It's how do we as organizations understand and engage with negotiations are very much ongoing by communities. It is very much an area of innovation and emerging practice, but also as you will see today, an area where many academics organizations and certainly communities have been doing a lot for actually quite a long time. So in a way we are we're playing catch up with an area that is very much emerging as an area of best practice. So in looking at access and protection. It's not that we're looking at these to the exclusion of other factors. In fact, we're focusing very much on the, the process of negotiation that communities are going through to establish the solution outcomes to establish access to services. And then I think as William alluded to there, looking at, you know, other ways that we should stay out of the way to not interfere with those delicate balances that communities may have established, or are there perhaps ways that we can contribute and maybe support communities. So these kinds of negotiations can be significant areas of risk, but also can be the crucial element that provides communities with sustained access or protection. So next slide please. So as I say, the project is focused on these areas. I think I may have covered all of this while I let you look at the panelists. But as I say, we're about to go into this, this research phase of the project. Next month we'll be going to, in fact, in just a couple of weeks now, we'll be going to South Sudan and Columbia to undertake research in different project locations around the country. And to understand how our communities in those areas engaging negotiating with armed actors around protection and access. Our hope is that we will come back from that with a series of good practices, maybe looking at what could be transferable to the humanitarian community. But also to an extent this extends into conflict sensitivity, and really trying to understand what not to do as well. Next slide. Yeah, so I've highlighted here just a couple of the key questions that we're looking to explore through this research. So certainly what roles do communities take in negotiations, can and should we be involved in that space. Maybe the answer is often no. Can we do this in a principled way? Does actually a humanitarian approach or humanitarian principles actually limit the tools available to communities? And maybe we would limit that by being involved. Maybe we need to stay away and allow communities to come with their own solutions. And the reflections on the project deliverable so obviously we will come out with a report as is pretty standard. And but also we want to we want to look into both programming approaches and how we monitor those kinds of approaches going forward. And then yes as I said before looking at how we can implement this is a kind of guidance for our project staff on should they be involved how can they be involved and trying to understand the context that they are they are working on where these negotiations are ongoing. So that's just a very brief introduction, as I say, we have a lot of very good speakers to go through today. And hopefully at the end we will have time then to address some of the questions that you bring up in the chat so please throw all of your questions in, and we'll try and cover as many of those as possible. But without further ado I think I'll hand over to Oliver Kaplan. So over to you Oliver. Thank you Bob and thank you everyone it's good to see some familiar names in the chat as well so today I'm going to talk about my research on supporting communities to resist war. And next slide please. So the, this research is based on my 2017 book resisting war, how communities protect themselves. And this book really addresses the puzzle of how civilians who are unarmed can be effective against armed groups or armed doctors who are heavily armed in terms of providing their own protection. Next slide please. And this book just recently came out this year in Spanish so for those of you who are Spanish speakers there's the Spanish edition with resistive la guerra. And as part of my research going back to the mid 2000s, I started tracking cases of civilians organizing to protect themselves, essentially to fight for their own autonomy in the midst of conflict around the world and you can just see here on the map. Some of the countries that I've coded up and since this time, there have been a number of new cases as well so this is actually at this point slightly out of date but you can see that this is a phenomenon that occurs around the world. And next slide you can see that actually we can also measure civilian organizations at the very micro level as well and this is an example of the junta village councils that I've identified in Colombia and I'll talk a little bit about more in a moment. And just one other example on the next slide is of the what are called the peace zones in the Philippines and here you can see them at the level of barangays or the village councils in the Philippines. And a key part of my argument is that it's really community organization that allows civilians to take actions to protect themselves and so this is just a photo from a community work within Colombia, known as the ATCC, the peasant workers Association of the Carare River photo from 2013. And on the next slide we'll see that what I argue is that community organization really enables nonviolent strategies that civilians can take, and that those strategies will then impact the outcome of violence. And in short, I look at two different types of organizations that help civilians cooperate. They're formal peace organizations known as peace zones peace communities, they're designed specifically for peace and protection, but yet there are also other informal organizations such as village councils cooperatives religious institutions among others that also can help civilians organize themselves. And this slide didn't quite come out but there are different nonviolent autonomy strategies, including dialogue where the civilians are directly interacting with armed groups so such as the cover of the book. On the next slide here I'll list some of these strategies that I've identified. These include things like internal facing strategies that communities will use mainly for their communities such as dispute resolution, solving local disputes or armed actors don't solve them, propagating norms of non participation in the conflict, and then others that are more overt or engaging with armed groups such as managing information and managing people in the community who might collaborate with armed groups, as well as protesting against armed groups and leveraging their reputations. And then finally there are different early warning systems to try to avoid violence, including part of that would be temporary displacement. And one of the strategies that talk about in more depth in a journal article is a type of dialogue that I that I call rhetorical traps or basically civilians, leveraging the prior statements of different armed actors about adhering to the terms of protecting civilians. And in this case using that rhetoric to try to pressure armed groups to desist from using violence. And as a total estimate of an effect in Columbia, I did an analysis of what are called the who to village councils from around the country. And I looked at how the presence of these organizations correlates with a political political homicides or essentially selective in the midst of armed conflict. And what I saw is that when you go from on average having a low level of these who to councils to a high level of these who to councils, you see an on average 25% reduction in this type of violence and so this is just an average effect, some well organized communities may suffer more violence than than the low organized communities but overall, it's possible to estimate the effect of these community organizations on their own protection. So I argue using nonviolent strategies. And I want to just switch to a related project so most recently, I published a paper based on field research with the Red Cross in Columbia looking at how international humanitarian organizations can support communities that are trying to protect themselves. So go ahead. Yeah, in 2017 so I identified theoretically what are some of the different support actors, including from domestic NGOs all the way to NGOs or even governments, as well as the types of support that they might provide so there are certainly different types of support that can be used to protect so accompaniment solidarity providing resources advice and information sharing backing in negotiations and even going public and message amplification. And I see some questions here I'll share the links in a moment here's one of the links. And so one of the frameworks I developed is looking at how communities and support organizations interact for protection and you can see here I just have a very simple layout here of communities whether they're unorganized or organized, whether they have no support or have some support. And what you see the next slide is I really argue that it's this interaction of communities that are organized, receiving support, getting higher protection, I apologize the Mac icons are not coming out here so essentially that interaction of organized communities receiving support is theoretically going to generate the most protection here in the chat is the link to the ICRC related study. And so I see that communities can receive different types of support from international organizations such as the ICRC. The ICRC in the, in the case that I studied in Columbia was providing things like risk risk education awareness, assistance to reduce risk exposure and a small amount of helping to support social cohesion. They weren't quite yet at that time doing full self protection measures or other deeper engagement strategies with armed groups. And so in 2017 I accompanied an ICRC delegation team to the community of El Bagre and Northern Columbia you can see we're just going in the Land Cruiser out to the village. And we went to see what kinds of workshops the Red Cross were going to provide to try to support the community to start helping it come together for its own self protection. And so, so out here, we encountered a number of risks and I put up the poster that's on the airport for the neo paramilitary commander or Tony L who was actually just captured in Columbia on Saturday. But this group of the, the guys in East self defense forces of Columbia was one of the armed groups in the area as well as the ELN insurgent group, contesting control of the area so there were certainly some security risks that the community was coping with and the ICRC had to manage and so here's the just a quick picture of the team we had different people providing health education as well as safe behaviors training where to locate if an attack should happen in the community things like that. So just very basic things but even those basic activities help bring the community together and help bring community members together who didn't normally interact. And so just a few quotes to leave us with the villagers there were very supportive of the ICRC's presence they said because the ICRC educates armed actors and it's only one in 1000 times that something happens with an actual actress present and I feel at ease and protective. So this is a very reassuring quote. In addition, there were some statements by other community leaders saying that the ICRC presence provides the confidence and backing for the community to hold their own dialogues with more recalcitrant or what they called macho or tough armed actors. And so you really see this interaction between the community level organization and then the support provided by the international actor. So with these conclusions there are some opportunities and restraint for protecting war, and this can be measured empirically, as I argue community organizations use sophisticated collective nonviolent strategies to resist war and protect themselves. And then community ICRC interactions or community and humanitarian interactions can help multiply the self protection potential of these organizations and help expand the scope conditions under which they might be successful. I also want to note some different challenges for the ICRC as well as other support actors neutrality can sometimes cause a challenge for how deep some of these organizations might be willing to go in terms of engaging with communities. And there also might be some limits to how much self protection or social cohesion can be can be provided. And so I'll just leave you with a thought that you know I think a key role of international organizations is to help share information with other communities. And part of that starts with looking around seeing what happens really listening to communities and then sharing in addition to look for how civilians can themselves be sources of peace. So with that, thank you very much I put some links in the chat to the study and I look forward to the conversation in questions. Thanks very much Oliver. And yeah, thank you for all those contributions I think you've already highlighted a few of the key areas that we're focusing on the I mean I just want to pull out a few in case it questions from our audience but certainly some of those challenges around neutrality. And also you have the level of social cohesion being a key factor as well. So you're pleased to members of the audience if you have questions related to all of this presentation please be sticking them in the chat and we'll be gathering those for for the end of the presentations. Okay, but now we're heading over to Carla and Carlos for us. So, color is going to be talking about the self protection strategies and also have research in particularly in DRC. So maybe color over to you. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much. I just want to echo Ali and thinking and RC and say for organizing this panel and for inviting me to present my research here today I'm delighted to be here. I'm going to be speaking about a study that examines how civilians understand and practice their own protection measures in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the DRC. And I become interested in this topic about 10 years ago when I first began working with conflict affected communities in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. And while the context I worked in varied one of the things that consistently stood out for me was the sophisticated knowledge that civilians had about arm actors and the patterns of violence. And I found that civilians develop strategies that not only respond to what's happening in front of them, but draw on their past experiences to inform their future decisions. So in my writing I refer to this as a form of live knowledge. And this really is the basic premise of my work. Next slide please. So in my research, this is the basic question that I'm seeking to ask. And to answer this question, I conducted a multi-sided ethnographic research in two rural communities in the Eastern DRC between 2014 and 2015. And I found that relations with arm actors and hierarchies of violence inform the self protection strategies used by civilians. But before looking at these findings in more detail, I want to give you a brief overview of the context and methods that I use because I think that helps to kind of contextualize where these findings are coming from. Next slide please. Over 20 years, armed conflict in the Eastern DRC has morphed into what's often described as a stable instability. Currently, there are more armed groups operating in the region than there were during the Congo wars. The map shown here created by the Congo research group shows 120 different armed groups operating in the Kiva provinces, each circle that you see on this map represents a different rebel group. And daily security in the Kiva provinces is often shaped by formal and informal alliances that are forged among these multiple armed factions. These arrangements are often quite short lived. Many of the respondents that I spoke to would commonly say things like we're living in a situation where you never know what can happen next. Many of the communities the Congolese army has failed to provide basic security for these communities and at times is considered one of the main sources of insecurity. So the majority of these armed actors refer to them as the Mai Mai, and this is a colloquial term used for self defense forces that initially emerged during the Congo wars. The Mai Mai's are relatively small with less than 200 fighters, most of which are recruited along ethnic lines, and they vary substantially in terms of their organizational structure, their capacity, their resources, the level of violence towards civilians. But one of the common features of the Mai Mai is that they, many of them are socially embedded within the specific ethnic communities they claim to protect. And what I mean by this is that the Mai Mai leaders and fighters have family, friends living near or in areas where they operate. Next slide please. Between 2014 and 2015 I conducted research in Yabiondo and Sable located in the Kivu provinces. As you can see from this picture the two communities I worked in were outside major towns and difficult to reach, especially during the rainy season. My research team and I immerse ourselves into these communities during the data collection phase of this project. We rented a house where we stayed in each community for about four months. During this period we interviewed and interacted with a total of 185 participants. Most participants were interviewed on at least two occasions. This depended on the interest and availability of participants. While this was not a representative sample, I used purposive and snowballing sampling techniques to ensure diversity in terms of gender, age, socioeconomic status. I also made sure to include participants that were considered elite and non-elite in the communities. So elite participants would include customary chiefs, elders, restaurant owners, teachers and non-elites, farmers, fishermen, petty traders and so forth. So researching trusts with participants varied. It came easier with some while it was much harder to do with others and I think that this is really important and something to kind of consider further and I'm happy to talk more about it in the Q&A. The interviews lasted between one to three hours. All interviews were conducted in Swahili and translated into English. And lastly I conducted thematic analysis of the data, a process that began during the field research and continue well after. Next slide please. Through immersive field research, I was able to document strategies that emerge at the every day rather than seek them out. Which was useful as some of the strategies that I examine or practice almost habitually or intuitively. In fact, some of the individuals that employ these strategies initially did not recognize them as a self-protection strategy. And while I documented several strategies, I'm going to focus on three strategies derived from my larger dataset. The first strategy civilians assess whether armed confrontation is going to take place in their communities and the different techniques they use to verify whether the information they have collected is accurate. In the second strategy, civilians negotiate with armed groups when levels of abuse and exploitation against community members increase. And this strategy shows the different ways civilians promote accountability among armed actors. And in the last strategy, civilians exploit uncertainty to deceive and manipulate armed groups. So for example, civilians create the false illusion that there may be an attack on the army by a rebel group to get the army to change its behavior towards community members. The strategies that I'm about to discuss, these are all very subtle, covert, and non-confrontational. And the reason why these strategies take this particular form is because civilians are mostly concerned about preventing, mitigating, or evading risky situations. And in doing so, they usually are trying to accommodate or influence rather than overtly challenge the behavior of armed actors. And I think that this leads to an inherent tension as some self-protections end up reinforcing or if not reproducing some of the main drivers of conflict. So this is a key, a difficult issue for us to consider as we move forward. Next slide please. So I'm just going to go through each strategy in more detail. So obviously being aware of possible armed confrontation is important for civilians because they want to try to avoid being caught in the crossfire. And we know we've all seen how they would do this by staying inside their homes when fighting breaks out or fleeing to a nearby community as captured in this photograph. Participants also explained that they face serious repercussions after armed confrontation. Some of them claimed that they felt that they were being punished for any military losses or casualties that were endured during combat. So being aware of when, where an armed confrontation was likely to occur was essential at mitigating these concerns. And respondent develop different tactics to assessing this possibility of confrontation between the army and in my mind. And but these strategies were also contingent on the type of relationship that community members had with the armed actor. According to the army participants often had a disadvantage because they did not trust them or have the same type of access with them. And because these relationships were strained many participants have learned to monitor the daily routine of the army to determine whether they're going on regular patrol or preparing for combat. Participants were also aware of the ways in which soldiers behave when they are about to go to combat. According to one of the farmers I spoke with, she said, you know before going to to fight the soldiers are ready to kill anyone in sight. And while it's unlikely that what's likely that this respond is exaggerating in terms of the army's predisposition. Her observations suggest that soldiers are noticeably more tense and irritable when they're preparing for combat. In other words, civilians have learned to read the army's body language in this position, and this this assessment is set informed on whether they remain at home, went to their farming fields or send their kids to school. Now, when it came to the my my participants claimed that they would often receive an early warning. And this is something that Ali also mentioned in his presentation. So there was a sign that they were that there was going to be a confrontation. And one of the shopkeepers that I spoke to the my mind warns us before they fight they tell us so that we can leave and protect ourselves. Participants explained that they not only collect this information but had also developed ways to verify whether this information was accurate. Participants would ask them my mind's immediate networks, whether they the information that had received us true. But when these individuals could not be approached directly participants would observe their behavior. They would look out and to see whether these individuals were staying home, or whether they were packing their belongings and preparing to travel. They would follow their lead. So these strategies show civilians have learned to decipher the behavior of armed groups in different ways. Respondents had developed several negotiation tactics to mitigate abuse and exploited behavior of our groups and to try to influence our actors behavior participants drew on symbolic or material resources. When it comes to the my mind respondents deliberately and strategically a vote savior and victim narratives. So the savior narrative is used to remind them my mind that their main purpose is to defend and protect the community. As a farmer explained the my mind say that they are here to protect civilians and their land. And when we speak against their abuses we utilize the very same sentence that they use. So participants have learned the steadily pointing out the contradictions in what the my mind claim to do, and what they actually do is one way to try to promote accountability. The victim narrative is used when civilians resists or defies one of the armed groups rules and gets caught in the process. So to prevent a severe punishment that usually comes from this participants will emphasize their victim hood. One of the chiefs explained to me, it's much easier to play with the mind mind than that is with the army. When we approach to my mind we asked them to forgive the individual. For example, I say things like, can you look at the situation we are living in, you know that we are already suffering, how can you add more to this. So symbolic resources, such as narratives are useful with some of them my mind, because they're interested in maintaining their moral authority and legitimacy among the local population. So millions are keenly aware of this and have learned to exploit it. Now, when symbolic resources fail, participants will also rely on material incentives. The respondents noted that they have a certain leverage during negotiations with the my mind because the material and intelligence support that some of them give to them. So as mentioned previously, the my mind rely on the local population for basic supply such as food medicine, logistical support finding a safe place for them to stay or high or by collecting or withholding information from the army. When my mind tries to increase the amount of taxes are being collected at the household level, or through tolls, participants will often remind them my mind of how important the support is to them and threatened to withdraw it if there's not a change. So motorcycle explained, if people did not like them my mom they could destroy them if they wanted to, because civilians could tell the army how and where to finish them. Well, the claim to destroy the my mind sees a bit extreme here. Another participant who spent several months in captivity with the my mind had a similar perspective. In his words, when we would hear the army coming, we had to change locations, it did not matter if it was day or night, then my mind have their people in the communities and this is why it's impossible to ever catch them. Next slide please. One of the most creative tactics that participants identify was learning to exploit the presence of armed groups and possible attacks. So I'm going to tell you a story of how this worked. There was a period in Sable, where the army's predatory practices increased to a point where it was no longer tolerable. So during this period, the army was targeting the youth arbitrarily arresting them and detaining them at their base. At best, the youth were accused of supporting the my mind, while at worst they would be believed to be part of the group. Now to be released the accused would have to pay a fine. Community members met with the chief who in turn met with the army commander who urged for better discipline. But there was no change in the soldiers behaviors. Then one morning participants woke up and found letters scattered through the community. These letters were written by them by my mind warning the army that if it did not stop harassing the youth, then my mind was going to come and attack them. Several respondents considered this to be a concrete example of how the my mind managed to protect their communities, even when they're in the bush. During this respondents observed a decline in the number of youth that were being arrested. And while this only lasted for a few months, it was regarded as a success story by the participants I spoke to. So I became really interested in the story. It was something that kept coming up and shared among many this respondents. But as I began to inquire further about it, I learned that the letters that were written by the were written by a group of youth posting as the my mind to scare the army. So yeah, but yet most people that I spoke with still believe that it was the my mind that had written these letters. So there are a couple observations that can kind of be gleaned from the story. First, it shows the ways that individuals have learned to leverage the presence of the my mind, and use it to their advantage. And second, it shows the complex balance of power that exists among our actors in the eastern DRC. And participants told me that the presence of the my mind puts limits on how the army behaves towards them. I'm quite specific about the strategies I found my research, and I want to step back and consider some of the broader implications and lessons of these findings. Next slide, and this will be my final slide. So the analysis of the self protection strategies used by participants in my study demonstrated different compromises they make to increase stability and predictability in their daily lives. So self protection strategies are commonly used and valuing their outcomes is not always straightforward. And this is particular the case I would argue for self protection that strategies that tend to be subtle covert and non confrontational, which are probably most prevalent in our conflict situations. Today I've shown how relations and hierarchies of violence shape self protection strategies that are used. In fact, there's need to be taken into consideration when we consider how to support or integrate these strategies into the broader civilian protection regime. Self protection strategies can sometimes make civilians live more secure in the short term, but they also make their lives less secure in the long term. For example, civilians may request an army group to go and patrol or prevent a rival arm faction from attacking their community, or they will solicit the arm actor to adjudicate a dispute between community members. And by making these requests of billions are also bolstering the authority and legitimacy of these arm actors. So when we adapt a temporal perspectives, as I've done in my own research, it shows the difficulties of categorizing these strategies as violent and nonviolent. In intractable conflict settings, civilians may eventually rely on these armed groups to get things done, as I've seen in the Congo, and this collaboration becomes part of a self protection repertoire used by civilians. I think I will leave it here for now and I'll be happy to elaborate on my answers during the Q&A. Thank you very much, Carla. No, I think you've given us a lot to think about there. And again, just reminding everyone please put any questions in the chat. To say anyone who is not a speaker please turn off your video and mute your microphone, just to save some of the bandwidth for those people who are watching, of which we have many. I just wanted to pick up on one of two things that Carla said, I think yeah, certainly some of those short-term elements and the delicate balance between different actors, that interdependency that you highlighted, but also that many of those negotiations or interactions are relational. It's certainly something that we are, well, trying to look into further with our research, but yeah, maybe we can come into that more in the questions. I just felt like I had to highlight that part. Very interesting discussion. Thank you Carla. So now we go over to Nabil Alkayati from Oxfam, a protection coordinator in Yemen. Over to you Nabil. Thank you. And good morning, good afternoon, maybe good evening for me here in Yemen. So, first I will introduce myself. I'm Nabil Alkayati. I'm working with Oxfam JV in Yemen as country protection manager. So today we will like explain, I would like experience in Yemen regarding community self-protection, surveillance self-protection. So the presentation will be about four sections. The first section will start the meaning of self-protection, what does it mean. And then we're going to talk about self-protection strategies. Then after that we're going to talk about the community capacities of protection pillars and how humanitarian actors are supporting the capacities of communities in order to emphasize on community self-protection. And the last one we're going to talk about Yemen experience in conducting committee initiators through Oxfam community grants. So if we can start with the first slide please. So self-protection refers to what people do to ensure their own protection from violence, coercion and a little bit deprivation. So it can occur at individual, community, household and other subgroup levels. So for example, an individual who negotiate passage at a chicken, a family who hides when women better is a poster village, or an entire community that decide to flee in order to avoid conflict. So all these like we are adapting self-protection strategies. So self-protection strategies make up only part of survival strategies. So as you can see self-protection is only part of what people do to survive. For example, in order to cope with harsh economic conditions, people may resort to survival strategies such as unenrolling children from schools, families may also resort to skipping meals to cope with a lack of food. Next slide please. As you can see from the table. So we have like self-protection strategies. Self-protection strategies can be categorized according to their effects on threats level of engagement with perpetrators or primary duty bearers impact on the community. And as you can see that we have like for self-protection strategies along with engagement level, whether it is like engagement with violent and nonviolent or non-engagement level. So such exercise we given like to the communities so can help them to ensure, for example, to have a variety of strategies people adapt to ensure their own prediction. As you can see the four types of self-protection strategy categories based on their effects to threats. So when you say for example prevention strategies so entail to deterring the actual potential perpetrators of a threat. And the third strategy which is mitigation strategy so entail like reducing the severity of a threat or the range of people who may be affected by it. And the last one is cessation strategies and are those that bring an end to unenrolled threat. So each strategy can be like with a threat. Or a range of people who may be affected by it. And the last one is cessation strategies and are those that bring an end to unenrolled threat. So each strategy can be like with non-engagement or non-violent engagement or violent engagement with the perpetrators, duty bearers, or like even other stakeholders. So for example, so you can say for example for the avoidance strategy, self-protection strategies, which is non-engagement. So here we have like several examples, but I'm going to mention only two examples due to the limitation of time. So for the avoidance strategies we can say for example people try hide from actors when it's for example a front lines and they are reaching the bellages. So people as avoidance strategy with non-engagement so they try to hide from these armed forces. And another for example we have as you can see we have positive strategies and we have negative strategies. The negative strategies are with color as you can see that sometimes people keep girls out of schools in order to protect them from sexual abuse. Why it is negative because like violating rights of girls to access like education. And at the same time they might be exposed to early marriage forced marriage and they might be denied to access like service resources. So as you can see that this table is part of the CBP resources pack, the CBP resources pack was developed by Oxam in cooperation with different affiliates in different countries, and even with different, local partners in different countries. So the pack contains 15 template tools, 10 examples tools and 30, 32 case studies and eight recommendation more than that it has like a narrative. The narrative has an overview of how different resources fit into the program cycle. So I'm going to like just paste on later on on text box on the chat box so you can just browse these tools later on. Next, please. As you can see here we have civil protection capacities. As you know that the capacity variable variable of the risk equation, as we have we have protection risk equation. So the capacity of communities can be determined according to four pillars. So we have the knowledge pillar, the resources pillar, the solidarity pillar and the last one we have the engagement pillar. So I'm going to just mention what are these pillars to, for example, how can we improve the capacity of communities in order to emphasize on committees of protection, so they can decrease the vulnerability and the same time they can decrease the threat of protection. So the knowledge pillar refers to what communities know. So this encompasses information and awareness as well as skills. So that can contribute to communities protection from violence coercion deliberate deprivation, for example, can include information on incoming threat knowledge of successful protection strategies and negotiations goes on the same time. So this is the first pillar, the second pillar as part of community capacity capacity pillars is the resources pillars, which is refers to the materials resources that communities can count on to ensure their own predictions such as mobile phones, or solar powered lights. The solidarity pillar so concerns the support committee members provide one another, and is closely linked to social cohesion. And the last pillar which is the engagement pillar relates to community's ability to engage characters outside the community such as duty bearers, perpetrators, service providers and humanitarian organization. So as humanitarian actors in the field, how can we support to self protection strategies. So if we come for example, we always try to build the capacity of communities in order to decrease this fits and vulnerable to the same time. So as self protection mechanism targeting the whole community so we try to support them in the four pillars. So the first pillar would try to strengthen their skills. For example, so information collection identifying threats and how can an advising solution and in the same time building the capacity and advocacy. And we also conduct like several one decision on the communities for the importance of group work. So this can contribute in two pillars which is the information and knowledge and that one which is unit unity or solidarity practices. So the other pillar which is material resources. So as ox some in Yemen, usually provide for example, our community based protection network with provide them with some simple cell phones, internet, and we provide them with some incentives to cover the transportation and communication costs. And we provide them with the community grants. So the community grants we give, we just give the community with a grant. According to their proposal. So I'm going to elaborate that about the community grants later on the next slide, and we supporting like the existing resources. So whether it is financial sources, human resources, economic resources rather than resources. So as ox some we try to support the community for their available resources in order to improve the capacity in the pillar of material resources. The third resources which is the third pillar which is unity or solidarity practices. So as we said we established community based protection network in different communities. The community based protection network usually have third representation of men and women, whereas it's 50% representation of men and 50% from women, where they come from different background and different braces. So even we try to include, we ensure that there is inclusion of people with disability, and with other minorities and other for example marginalized people such as we have my machine again. And the last pillar which is the engagement practices so we strengthen the community members capacities on advocacy skills. We also know how can be advocate, what is how they know how to, how they can map the stakeholders the influence and agreement, so they can design the proposal very well. And at the same time we try to facilitate the Alex between the community and duty various where everything is in a community lit approach where ox and just try to support them with resources and technical expertise that we have. Next slide please. Here's the last slide which is the community initiatives. So in Yemen we have like committee initiative so oxam provide the community members with community grants, and through this committee grants they conduct like several community initiatives. So, for example, we, because we need to have like access to the community which is more effective as we have even many access constraint. So we try to establish committee based protection network from IDB source communities from other minorities people with disabilities, and they come from even different back social background. So when established this committee based protection network, we provide them with intensive capacity building in protection, social cohesion committees of protection, and committee based protection approach. And we provide for example the skills how can they do for example the rules how can be facilitated consultation with their communities. How can they do for example inclusion for all community members through the representation so they can decide for example what are the protection and they prioritize the risk and and decide on the type of intervention that they need to protect themselves. So, after that, the committee based protection network they held like different consultation with their committee members oxam try to support them with facilitation. And we just support them to make them include for example committee members from all the background and races that we have in the community. And once they do the consultation through the consultation they try to define the petition was that the face and the analysis the these risk or threats, then based on risk and risk. And so they try to do for example, stakeholder analysis. So you know who are with them, who are against them. So they can for example propose a suitable intervention for the protection for us. And they try to come up with a proposal. This happened the proposal to oxfam along with their budget and the same time with the work plan. So as oxfam we review for example their proposal, and along with the budget and work plan. So the proposal where should evaluated based on the extent to which you would like to respond to protection threat by implementing preventive mitigation and responsive approaches. They should contribute to the social cohesion of the target communities, ensure effective participation and consultation with committee members when women men youth and other vulnerable people together with the CBBS members. And it should be implemented according to clear work band objectives and budget which should be shared with oxfam in order to be endorsed and the last time it should ensure like sustainability. So under the conductor community initiatives. So, oxfam just do like some, some evaluation, just to know the impact of this initiative with a sustainable or not, in order to have some lesson learned for the coming like activities in other for example target areas. For example, of the initiatives. So we have for example, the risk reduction at night initiative. So committee members with CBBS facilitation maps the protection risk, they were facing in one of the areas in Yemen, which is Aden. So they prioritize the risk of being assaulted as they work through a cemetery at night. So at this cemetery is a shortcut for more than 1000 families, comparing to other alternative roles that take almost more than an hour to move the way around. So the cemetery had no lights for most of the hours for most of the hours at night. So community members proposed a lighting initiative. So the initiative had no light for most of the hours at night. So community members proposed a lighting, proposed that to have a lighting initiative. So people who were facing a lot of risk while they work through the cemetery at night hours. As there were for example some women and children who have been attacked or abused, as well as the cemetery used to be a place for youth to take drugs in the same time. So the community members proposed for Oxham to support them with some solar powered lights. So we supported them and installed these solar powered lights. Oxham technically supported them, supported the community to include their lights and build the capacity and the maintenance of these solar lights. On the same time there was another for example initiative to run campaigns against what's used and its rest in the same area in coordination with religious and community leaders and in the same time with the duty barriers to support them with some security and safety measures. We have many other like initiatives. If you're interested to read more about initiatives you can just visit our source like CBP resource back as you say in as you can adjust I'm going to just gonna paste them in the chat box. Thank you. And thank you for the panel and over to you. Thank you so much Nabil. And thank you for outlining there in particular how this these concepts and the potential angles of research really intersect with a programming environment. I think there's a lot for us to delve into further there and I can see that a lot of people are asking for the access to those slides. So yes we'll work on that for everyone. And particularly actually you talked a lot about community inclusion, which I think is an important topic for us to be addressing throughout maybe the discussions later as well. And I just need to correct one thing apparently it was a typo in the in the housekeeping earlier that it's in fact reminding the audience to turn on your cameras if you feel comfortable. I apologize for that. And yes please if you're comfortable to have your camera on we would very much love to see your faces. And so yes please do please do turn on your cameras, but please do also still keep your microphone muted for now. Thank you. So now we'll pass over to the next few speakers from NRC Colombia. Myra Alejandra Avendano-Rincon and Diana Vilan-Mithal. I hope I pronounced everyone's name right. So without further ado, over to you Myra. Thank you. Muchísimas gracias por la invitación. Muy buenos días, buenas tardes, buenas noches. Bueno, en principio nosotros queremos darle las gracias por la invitación a este espacio. Estoy en compañía de Diana Vilan-Mithal. Ella es una de las protagonistas de nuestra experiencia del programa de líderes, de líderes sociales enfocados en temas de autoprotección. Y antes de pasar a mi espacio pues quisiera darle la palabra a ella que mejor persona pues para contar un poco lo que ha significado el impacto de ser líder en Colombia. Y como este programa pues también ha tenido un impacto muy beneficioso en la vida de ellos y sus compañeros. Entonces le cedo la palabra a Diana y a continuación estaría yo. Muy buenos días. Agradecida por el espacio. Mi nombre es Diana Vilan-Mithal. Soy venezolana, migré de Venezuela en 2016. Por madre tengo la nacionalidad colombiana. Tengo lembra que para ser líder no es que nacemos siendo líder, sino que la vida o los tropiasos nos enseñan a ser líder. Tengo 25 años de edad. Ya tengo 3 años en liderazgo. No ha sido nada fácil ya que el territorio colombiano es un poco complicado en temas de seguridad. Yo soy amenazada. Mi liderazgo ha sido un poco complicado porque aparte de ser amenazada no me he rendido, sigo luchando. A mí me sentivo el ser líder la necesidad de muchas personas al igual que la misma necesidad es que vivía yo. Lo viven mucho, mucho más familias y de pronto hasta peores incondiciones que yo. He tenido la oportunidad de poder dialogar con varios grupos al margen de la ley porque nosotros los líderes en Colombia estamos dispuestos que en cualquier momento nos manden a llamar para decirnos las cosas o hacernos preguntas o cómo estamos trabajando. He tenido la oportunidad de pararme frente a ellos y decirles de pronto las cosas que están haciendo mal. Tengo varios compañeros que también han sido amenazados unos por grupos al margen de la ley. Yo en mi personal yo fui amenazada fue por un agente público por un funcionario público y no fui amenazada por un grupo al margen de la ley. Este fue el liderazgo es un poco complicado. Nosotros me puede pasar la página por favor. Nosotros los líderes vivimos expuesto. Tenemos un temor si tenemos temor porque la verdad no confiamos en el estado. En la hora que necesitamos una protección como tal la protección que nos brinda el estado no nos sirve. O sea sería como un cuchillo de doble filo para nosotros los líderes. Yo creo que el liderazgo más fuerte es el de una mujer es más difícil que el de un hombre. Somos como discriminado de pronto el cierto débil. No nos ven con esa capacidad de levantarnos y hablar de luchar de enfrentar de ser resiliente. Y resulta que pronto somos hasta mejor. No es por decir nada pero creo que a veces somos hasta más organizadas a la hora de tomar una decisión. La protección que nos brinda el estado como tal a nosotros en algunos sitios nos favorece. Tenemos mucho que agradecer al consejo noruego que es quien nos ha enseñado a educarnos. A poder implementar nosotros mismos nuestras protección. La auto protección yo para nosotros es que no hay mejor protección que la misma comunidad. La misma comunidad proteja su líder. La misma comunidad advierta su líder si en algún caso se ve en riesgo. Nosotros vivimos en una zona en Colombia un poco complicada. Y es la zona del catatumbo donde diferentes grupos al margen de la ley residen en la zona. Y aparte no solamente los grupos al margen de la ley sino también el mismo gobierno. Hemos sido pues digamos. La siguiente por favor. Si hay más de 100 y si se lee en Colombia asesinado. Este pues ese acuerdo firmado de paz de los asesinados de los asesinados de 332 son indígena 75 afrodescendientes cientos son campesinos y 77 son miembros de juntas de acción comunitaria. Ahí estén los líderes de juntas de acción comunitaria presidente de hat o líderes sociales la verdad no no tenemos una protección del Estado. La verdad nosotros cuando somos amenazados no tenemos un proceso como tal no nos hacen seguimiento no nos preguntan de pronto cómo estamos o cómo vamos o qué necesitamos y en algún momento sentimos que. Tenemos miedo de nuestras vidas. La verdad hay un abandono total y estamos expuesto estamos expuesto por ambas partes porque no sentimos en una balance. No tenemos protección de los que venían de estar ahí con nosotros que el Estado y tenemos que saber actuar en frente a un grupo al margen de la ley que pronto no es acción no nos vaya a perjudicar a nosotros. Es complicado liderar así tenemos que saber lo que vamos a decir lo que vamos a hacer o como vayamos a actuar para que nuestras vías no corran riesgo. Nosotros los mecanismos comunitarios auto protección. Surgen como respuesta a los regos que enfrentan las comunidades y sus desconfianza en los mecanismos de protección que no brinda el Estado. Basado en la interrelación entre el individuo la comunidad y su territorio busca la seguridad física económica política ambiental así como el bienestar psicosocial y la cultura. Están alineado con derecho humano y de y el D. Derecho Internacional Humanitario. Pues este allí la verdad nosotros como le digo no hemos educado y creo que gracias a eso es que podemos decir que tenemos conocimiento. Y no queda más sino que agradecerle al Consejo Noruego y a todas las entidades que no han apoyado. Diana muchas gracias. Justamente estas experiencias de vida que nos menciona Diana fue lo que motivó este programa de protección de líderes sociales en Colombia. El que hoy en día pues ya hemos completado tres capítulos ha sido un ejercicio muy interesante me ayudan por favor con a pasar la la siguiente y a positiva ha sido un ejercicio muy interesante que ha tenido por poder fortalecer las capacidades de líderes y líderes sociales especialmente líderes presidentes y miembros de la Junta de Acción Comunal que en Colombia tienen un rol muy importante. En la medida en que en muchas de las zonas rurales apartadas de Colombia en donde el mismo Estado tiene una poca o a veces no la presencia. Digamos que la Junta de Acción Comunal tiene un rol preponderante en la que es lo más cercano a algún nivel organizativo en términos de lo político y digamos que es como el nexo más fuerte que pueden tener las comunidades con algún nivel del Estado. En esa orden de ideas para nosotros fue muy importante empezar a trabajar con los presidentes secretarios y otros miembros de las organizaciones de base de las organizaciones comunitarias. A empezar a fortalecer sus capacidades desde identificar cuáles eran los riesgos que estaban viviendo en los distintos territorios. Encontrando que a pesar de las distancias geográficas había muchas similitudes en cuanto a que la mayoría estaban muy expuestos recibían amenazas. Además de esto algo muy particular es que en Colombia los líderes sociales son personas que emergen de manera muy natural y trabajan casi que de forma muy orgánica. Muchas veces no tienen la preparación académica ni los elementos técnicos que les permitan ejercer su liderazgo de una mejor forma. Es así como este programa de autoprotección empieza a enfocarse en identificar cuáles eran las necesidades que ellos tenían en materia por ejemplo de formación. Que tema sea importante que pudieran conocer que les permitiera alcanzar un mayor nivel de incidencia. Y en ese orden de ideas esta autoformación estaba enfocada en reducir los riesgos. Identificamos que en la medida en que nosotros fortalecíamos sus capacidades también había una reducción de riesgos porque ya tenían un conocimiento sobre cuáles eran las rutas sobre cuáles eran los mecanismos legales. Que aunque están establecidos desde hace mucho tiempo ejemplo la ley de víctimas que es el marco natural para la población víctima del conflicto armado en Colombia. Y que a pesar de esto había una distancia y una brecha muy grande entre la población decir hay un desconocimiento de cuáles son sus derechos y por ende no hay una manera de acceder a esos mecanismos. Además de eso empezamos a trabajar toda la implementación y el desarrollo de planes de autoprotección comunitaria. Con fundamento en las mismas experiencias de vida del territorio que funciona y que no funciona. Creo que Diana hablaba de esa radiografía del escenario colombiano en la medida en que hay una gran desconfianza hacia la institucionalidad. Y a pesar de que existen leyes la gente no se siente representada y por eso muchas veces los mecanismos comunitarios terminan funcionando más que las rutas establecidas en el estado. Además de eso entender que habían algunos temas dentro de las mismas comunidades como por ejemplo aprender a resolver situaciones que de alguna manera amenazaban el mismo liderargo. Ya no de amenazas externas sino de las mismas amenazas dentro de la misma organización en términos de llegar a consensos. Era muy importante entonces empezó a trabajar con ellos temas relacionados con comunicación con resolución colaborativa de conflictos pero dentro de las mismas organizaciones. Algo muy importante que también identificamos y que se incluyó dentro del programa es que no solo se deben fortalecer las capacidades sino también analizar como el ejercicio de liderazgo también impacta de manera individual la vida de las personas que lo ejercen. Y el proyecto también contempla el apoyo directo a los líderes que han recibido amenazas en términos de asistencia técnica y apoyo para reubicación dentro del mismo país. También nos dio la posibilidad de desarrollar un material de información interesante que que podríamos compartirles. Se hizo una cartilla sobre temas de liderazgo desde entender qué significa ser un líder en Colombia. Toda la normatividad aplicable para para los líderes y líderes en el marco de la ley de víctimas y temas muy importantes desde una óptica muy pedagógica muy didáctica. Y finalmente involucramos a las instituciones para generar una mayor cercanía entre la institucionalidad y los líderes a fin de cerrar un poco esa brecha entre el uno y el otro. Y bueno finalmente para no extendernos más hay una serie de lecciones aprendidas que nos ha permitido tener este proyecto y que ha sido un aprendizaje muy grande para nosotros porque como consejo no luego hemos aprendido mucho de los de los líderes y líderes con quienes hemos tenido la fortuna de trabajar y es que ha funcionado y va a seguir funcionando la consolidación de redes de apoyo entre ellos que subsisten mucho tiempo después del proyecto. Que gracias a este tipo de proyectos se ha logrado agilizar medidas de protección establecidas por el Estado que anteriormente no funcionaban para muchos de los líderes que han estado amenazados. Que también nos ha permitido la construcción de los planes de protección, generar apoyos a largo plazo y que finalmente todo lo que transferimos queda en manos de los líderes y líderes a quienes los siguen replicando dentro de sus comunidades. El fortalecimiento de las capacidades de las instituciones es algo que para nosotros ha funcionado mucho y que ha acercado mucho a líderes y líderes con las instituciones. Y que definitivamente ese conocimiento que se ha incrementado como ocasión de la escuela de líderes ha sido una fortaleza. Era como la experiencia que queríamos compartir y bueno las dos estaremos dispuestas a responder las preguntas o comentarios que tengan más adelante muchas gracias. Thank you very much. So now we will go to our last speaker before we come back to some more reflections. I'm very conscious of the time and we are hand over now to Hannah Jordan with NRC to kind of summarize and move us on to the Q&A. Thank you, over to you. Thanks Bob and thank you everyone for the presentation, it's been really been amazing. So I'll just go very, very quickly because I actually want to give a lot of time for comments, but two main points on my side is we really wanted to support the linkages and the coordination so really looking at cross siloed programming and looking at what are the linkages between peace building between access and being protection. And that looks at not only the project that save an NRC or are the research that we're doing, but also crossing those silos and what are the lessons that we can learn from different sectors. What are the things that we can take what are the things that how can we do that in a principled way, and how can we really learn in support each other in that. Next slide. And then the, so the last slide that I'm just going to talk about really really quickly is that there are four areas that we've identified as challenges and opportunities. And the first opportunity that I think is central to say and it's great following Myra and Diana is really the fact that community led and self civilian self protection cannot be done without being community led so you have to in terms of working and facilitating with those communities and with those individuals, they have to really be led those action plans have to be led and the civilians of protection priorities have to be led by the communities themselves. The second thing in terms of a challenge is the madam is the management cycle by talking too fast. So how do you really make a program in terms of the way that the humanitarian architecture is set up. That is actually community led. So how do you make indicators that are broad enough that allow us not to determine how those community action plans or how those strategies come from the beginning, but how but to let the communities decide that so how do we actually structure our programs how do we structure our budgets, and how do we actually go through that program cycle and the humanitarian program cycle to support to support and make sure that those actions those strategies as plans are actually community led. So that's a challenge but also an opportunity. The fourth thing is really looking at monitoring, learning and evaluation. So really how do you do M&E for prevention. How do you look at M&E and try and monitor something that if you are successful. You, it didn't happen. So also, looking into the M&E around prevention and getting really really creative with that M&E pulling and building resources from multiple different disciplines to really look at the tools that we can use and the different measures that we can use on that on that M&E. And also really supporting the fact that the, as Maya also said, is that really learning as we go and learning continuously almost on a daily basis from communities as well. And the fact that those processes are community led can also help us to design those M&E systems. And then the last thing I wanted to say and maybe Bob I can hand this over to you after that is that also how does the current certain current counter-terrorism legislation either challenge this type of work or prevent, prevent humanitarians from engaging in that because at premise of negotiation is that you have to be able to negotiate. And so what are the challenges with the counter-terrorism legislation. But I guess I will hand it over back to Bob. I did want to keep that quite quick and give about 10 minutes for questions. Anna and yes, thank you for summering it up so quickly there. I would just say as well before we go to the Q&A that we're very lucky to have actually a representative of CEDA with us here today, the donor for the project that we've been talking about. So after the Q&A, we will be briefly coming to Anna from CEDA as well to present their thoughts on this approach as well. But for the questions, we've actually had quite a few questions. So in the time available, I actually wanted to just merge a few of them together and ask the panel this kind of group question, which really about how to maintain neutrality in context to our own groups are considered beneficial or exert social control and are therefore perceived as popular by the community. And kind of linked to that question, bringing another one, while communities and international actors interact differently with that challenge of neutrality. So hopefully that question is clear. And I wanted to throw that first actually maybe to Carla because I think it relates directly to what you were discussing around some of those mechanisms that communities have for communicating or having signals from armed actors and maybe some of the strains that has on the perception of neutrality. So maybe if you want to come in first around that and then we'll pass it around a little bit, we've got about maybe seven or eight minutes to discuss. Over to you, Carla. Great, thank you. This is obviously a very difficult question something we think about and all struggle with that for in the context that I worked with for me what was most difficult in trying to assess neutrality is just even like these familial relations with our armed actors right and how how are we expected for it's difficult to expect for community members to be neutral when they're so intimately related to them. And this is not always the case that happens in certain cases in certain situations, but then what the research shows is how in certain situations that can activate. It could be a leverage right it can be a way to influence and get get information and push back, but in terms of how to further maintain those neutrality for other community level I find that I find that really difficult, and especially because daily coexistence is shared with them in many cases right so. Thank you. And I'm really sorry about the limited time actually to all the panelists as well and we will have to have another session at the next year's forum. And but maybe if the interpretation would work. Myra and Diana if maybe if you want to come in and talk a bit about how. Yeah, if you could talk maybe a little bit about how neutrality comes into your work as well or the struggles with neutrality. Bueno es es un dilemme al que nos vemos expuestos todo el tiempo. Creo que tener claro nuestra posición dentro de los territorios es muy importante mantener siempre los principios humanitarios y de protección es lo que de alguna manera nos permite tomar decisiones y siempre poner de presente el bienestar de las comunidades y la protección de las comunidades y de los equipos. Pero todo el tiempo estamos tomando decisiones sobre todo cuando nos enfrentamos a casos hemos tenido casos muy complejos en donde hemos tenido que debatir ampliamente dentro del grupo. Cual sería la decisión más acertada en términos de si apoyar una acción o no nos puede cerrar por ejemplo el acceso humanitario creo que es algo lo que siempre estamos expuesto pero que finalmente tener presente los principios humanitarios nos ha ayudado a sortear lo de la mejor manera posible. Thank you very much. And yeah, again, sorry for the limited time to answer that. Maybe we'll go to Nabil next to talk about how an organization looks at this in programming and then Oliver maybe we come to you on on that same question so maybe Nabil over to you. Yeah, thank you Bob this could you elaborate more on the question please. Yeah, we're looking at. Yeah, so how neutrality comes into that how communities are negotiating with our doctors or setting up certain precedents or arrangements to ensure their access or protection. And then also looking at how maybe communities have different tools or different ways of approaching than international organizations. Maybe from your perspective, maybe you can talk to us about some of the tensions that Oxfam faces in in the neutrality aspect of this kind of programming. So, as you know that in Yemen we have many like actors, whether that's like states and then state, but usually for example to keep neutral while I wouldn't implementation. So, whenever like we establish a community based protection network, we ensure that we have like different like actors from different for example participant from different background, different parties, different political for example part and so on. So, even we have sometimes like a backup of other actors to support like community based protection at work. And really the community based protection at work. They are the one who's leading everything. So as Oxfam we just try to support them with the resources and to support them with the facilitation. So, as we keep in the neutrality. So, our community based protection at work usually for example whenever we have like problems with the IDPs. The members from the IDP sit from the member with the members from the host community. So this is together to discuss and negotiate about the problems. Then for example, they get like support from the host community members through the community based protection at work members from the host community. So, through for example the leading the whole process is being lead by the community themselves. So what we do as Oxfam we try for example to build the capacity and the humidity principles, and what's the meaning of being neutral. And as for example being a community based protection at work members, they have like a specific to ours that they have to sign and they have code of conduct that they should for example represent represent all the community members and do not be for example on for example side of any for example, fight it Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, and I have a lot of follow up questions but they'll have to wait for another time. Maybe Oliver over to you just to kind of sum up how that fit into your research as well. Yeah, I'll be really brief thank you all. The neutrality of civilians is really a key issue behind all this self protection, thinking how do civilians stay out of conflict what part of it is not taking sides. And a big issue that civilians face is stigma in the context of armed conflict so some things get stigmatized as being part of one arm group or another and then they get targeted because they're perceived as being enemy group supporters. So, a huge task of these civilian organizations is how to manage that civilian community neutrality, and part of it is what I what are you maintaining autonomy through different strategies or mechanisms, including vouching for individuals who have been accused, trying to manage those threats, conducting the sort of in in group observation of individuals to understand who maybe has links with armed with armed groups. And so there's some different mechanisms that different communities have used to try to manage that neutrality and avoid links with armed groups. Just to the second question briefly, you know I think how do, or how do communities engage with supporting organizations I think the key prerequisite as I mentioned is community organization so you have to have some focal point or some figure to maintain those relations. And yet this, this creates a dilemma a catch 22 for both communities and there would be supporters because if you don't have organization to start with, how do you come in as an outsider and build that organization so it's it's not easy to get off the ground. And I think some supporting organizations might be reluctant to engage with communities that don't have their own organization that they're maybe precisely the ones that need help the most. Thank you. You know thank you all of it, and I think it's a good dilemma to kind of end our discussion on there as well. So yeah apologies to everyone who asked other questions we will either maybe come back through email or we find other ways, of course next year. But I wanted to hand over now to Anna from Cedar maybe to make a comment about about Cedars approaches as a partner in this project as well. So over to you thank you Anna. Thank you Bob. And good afternoon. Good evening, or good morning, depending on where you are. Well first of all, it's fascinating to have the opportunity to have such a rich description of the many ways in which civilians engage in self protection strategies and how actors are supporting such strategies. And when it comes to our approach, maybe first, more broadly, based on the observation that we are still in a situation where much more efforts and resources are invested in responding to the needs that arise from violence and abuse being perpetrated. And then Cedar took the decision that reducing the protection risks that crisis affected people face was going to be the overarching objective for protection in our human humanitarian strategy that was launched early this year. And the key challenge for reaching this objective is of course to understand what it actually takes to reduce protection risks. And I think one of the most important conclusions that we have drawn is that reduce protection risks and to ensure a sustainable impact in that regard. More consideration has to be given to people's own capacities to address and reduce the risks that they face. In the humanitarian system, we have become much better at assessing vulnerability and also to address vulnerability. And we see that our partners are very careful to ensure inclusion of those particularly vulnerable in their programs. And this is of course having a great impact on those who only a few years ago could have missed out on life saving assistance and protection. But we also see that much more attention needs to be given to what people already do to protect themselves and how they can be supported through strengthening of existing capacities and systems and mechanisms already put in place as has been discussed today. So I think the first critical critical element in developing programs that focus on strengthening people's own capacity to protect themselves is in our view, the undertaking of a context specific protection analysis that looks not only at the impacts that people face and who in the community is most vulnerable to those threats but also at the capacities and systems and mechanisms that people have and have put in place to protect themselves. And since a bit over three years now, I think it is, we are providing support to interaction and their results based protection program, which is a program that focuses on providing support to humanitarian actors in the field in applying a results based approach to protection and here the protection analysis that takes into account the threats, the vulnerabilities, but also the capacities is an extremely important component. And last year with support from CEDA interaction organized their first annual results based protection practitioners round table where more than 40 practitioners from 21 international NGOs got together to discuss what it takes to reduce risk. And a very interesting and important takeaway from that round table discussion was that we must understand that effective people actually are the primary agents of their own protection. And they will therefore have to be at the center of efforts to support them. And amongst a range of tactics that communities use to reduce risk that were identified was of course community members engagement with armed actors. And interestingly, participants acknowledged that even though there is a strong emphasis on the importance of community leadership and partnership, they felt that too often this felt more like mere lift service and not a true investment in community capacities to act as agents in risk production. So, so in terms of what is preventing us from engaging in more community led protection strategies. Just before, before I finish, I think some of the more important ones that are often mentioned are the lack of practical methodologies that allow actors to support community led responses to many times crisis. So here we see, of course, an important role for us as a donor to play in supporting our strategic partners to develop and strengthen strengthening working methodologies that support such strategies. And another important aspect of the dimension is of course the time pressure that the company humanitarian program with short term grants and here. CDA is looking into providing multi year support to strategic partners we are already doing this. But I would like to emphasize that here the main purpose is really to to facilitate support life saving humanitarian assistance and protection services. I'll stop there but those are I think reflections from our perspective and what we see as key components for being successful in this area. Thank you. Thank you very much, Anna. And no, I think it ties in very well with how we've been approaching us through each of the speakers today and the importance of community agency and bringing that into the heart of our work. I know that we are we are now out of time. So I only have time to thank everyone for taking part today. Thank you for all your contributions from the panelists. Thank you for the questions that we've received. I just wanted to well obviously next year hopefully we'll be back to present to you the findings of the project. But for today I just wanted to leave you with a quote actually from Diana was speaking before and said that everyone's own community is the best protection ever. And I think that really comes down to the core of this project and what we're trying to achieve is to really bring that into the core of our work. So thank you very much everyone. And yes, which you wish you a great rest of the day and we hope to see you next year at the global protection forum. Thank you.