 I think we are ready to start and good morning afternoon or evening because you are joining us really from the extreme regions. It may be very early morning for some of you late evening for others so we are very happy to have you with us today for our monthly peer exchange webinar for those who are joining us regularly you know that this is really more of an informal exchange between colleagues from different entities NGO civil society UN entities and we come together to discuss a topic a topic which is today around advocacy in protracted crisis for communities living under non-state armed groups control and for those of you who have been with us in the last peer exchange webinar which took place I think 28th of January you would remember that this topic was suggested and proposed by one of the participants and that put it forward and we then followed up as the human rights engagement team along with advocacy task team and this is why we are here today so this is also an encouragement to all of you if you have some topics that you feel would be relevant to you or would you would like to discuss more broadly with other colleagues in the field or with experts on the topic we would be very happy to follow up on this video. So you already know probably the ground rules for those exchanges I would like to ask Dieter thank you for the next slide as many of you already did. Grateful if you can drop a line in the chat introducing yourself just saying who you are where you work where you are based so that we see who is with us online around this virtual table and we will have to get about one and a half hours maximum and we would really encourage you to use the chat also to drop some ideas examples reactions questions we will be constantly monitoring the chat as you know so we will be bringing back those elements and information questions also to the panelists so that we can have a discussion after the presentation. Okay so this is just setting the scene but I would like to present you today's speakers because we have a very varied panel today I mentioned briefly that today's event is co-organized between two task teams under the global protection cluster the human rights engagement task team but also the advocacy task team so we will have Alison Kent who will do the opening of our today's event who is the co-chair of the advocacy task team and then we will go directly to the good practices from the field so we will hear different perspectives from different entities and at different levels but we have a I think very appealing and beautiful mix of examples that will be shared today with us first of all Pascal Mungar from Geneva call who will get us started followed by Julian Watkinson based in Colombia with Ocha then going to a more broader holistic perspective from global level from Kiran Kotari from Save the Children and zooming in more specifically to Mali context with contributions from Mali Protection Cluster Sabrina Amirat but also colleagues from Unmas Nora Ajkar and Ocha Mali who will complement this perspective in Mali represented by Bakafrang Dakuri so as you see a very diverse set of examples and good practices that are complementary and then during our questions and answers we will also hear from a local NGO based in Yemen local NGO called Tangir and our colleague Jamal Abdo will make also an intervention. Voila so here is the program for today but colleagues I would really strongly encourage you to use the chat you can also raise your hand if you would like to make an intervention during the questions and answer section and we will take it forward to the panelists. I still be here and I give the floor directly to Alison Ken to please open our event now over to you Alison. Thank you so much Valerie and yeah really nice to be with you all today and very much looking forward to the exchange and to the discussion so I'll be brief but really I just wanted to say a few words about why both the GPC's advocacy task team and the human rights engagement task team were really keen to organize the session today and to also just outline how it links with some of our ongoing work in our focus this year. So I think as many of you know both of the task teams have been working together for a while now on a range of different initiatives ultimately looking to strengthen or further strengthen the human rights and advocacy elements of the amazing protection work that's being done by colleagues across you know 32 cluster operations at global levels with local partners and other protection allies and so as part of this both task teams you know are really committed to driving forward the use of the full range of advocacy approaches and tactics that can ultimately play such a critical role in supporting the protection and rights of communities in crisis and this includes really the full spectrum you know from quiet diplomacy and engagement with armed actors to using global human rights mechanisms directly lobbying security council members awareness raising campaigns you know etc there really is a wide range of actions that we want to further promote and leverage as part of driving stronger protection outcomes and so I think you know a big focus for the two task teams with this area of work has been about unpacking learnings and looking at good practices emerging good practices in terms of how we can use some of these different advocacy approaches to support the protection of communities understanding what's working what can be adapted as well as looking at how local and international actors how human rights and protection actors how we can collaborate better how we can complement each other in these sort of shared endeavors and so as Valérie mentioned when during the last webinar our colleague Julien raised this question of how can advocacy be used in the midst of protracted crises where communities are living under the control of non-state armed groups we thought okay perfect it's a good opportunity to bring colleagues together for more sharing and exchange on this kind of advocacy work and we know that the issue of protection for communities living under the control of non-state armed groups is a big one the ICRC has figures from 2020 where it estimates that 60 to 80 million people are living in territories exclusively controlled by armed groups and we're seeing this very much as a reality across many many cluster operations you know Central African Republic Iraq Nigeria South Sudan Mali Haiti and it goes on and to mention that of course many communities living in these areas controlled by non-state armed groups are under the control for often many years humanitarian access can often be quite limited and while in certain cases there might be some basic governance functions that the non-state armed groups are carrying out some service delivery tax collection etc it's also very clear that insecurity violence you know human rights abuses protection incidents are also very widespread in these contexts and another point is that of course these operating environments are very complex for humanitarian and protection actors and I think many of these contexts really bring out some of the perceived and also very real tensions and trade-offs between things like access and advocacy maintaining relationships with host governments staff safety considerations you know it's all very pronounced in many of these situations so I'm very much looking forward to the discussion and exchange on these issues and looking at how advocacy can be better used to strengthen protection in these contexts and with that I'll pass it back to you Valérie so thank you very much thank you so much Alison for introducing us to the topic giving us the chapeau but also what I really liked and remember from your intervention now is how you make the links between advocacy protection impact and outcomes as well as the human rights aspect and how it all fits together so this is very important and I think this also reflects the collaboration between the task teams the human rights engagement task team and the advocacy task team so thank you so much Alison and with that I think we are ready actually to go to our good practices examples and hear from colleagues and I would like to invite Pascal please to get us started over to you okay thank you very much for the invitation and I'm very happy to be part of this discussion on a very important topic so I have prepared two slides that will illustrate my presentation so first maybe I mean I need to say that my reflection of perspectives are mainly drawn from my experience with Geneva Colbe over the past 20 years as you may know Geneva Colbe our mission is to engage directly with non-state armed groups to advocate the respect for international elemental law, IHL and the protection of civilians and we engage armed groups both directly but also indirectly through what we call actors of influence and these actors of influence include community actors that are living in areas under the control of armed groups such as CBOs as community-based organizations elders religious leaders opinion leaders use women groups but also broad refugee communities and diaspora groups so we really try to influence the behavior of armed groups indirectly and directly and as you know many armed groups have some sort of constituency or support base and part of our engagement strategy is to identify and mobilize such actors to influence the behavior of armed groups and we have used this approach in many contexts over the past 20 years in particular in situation when direct engagement has been difficult or impossible or stalling we have tried to train community partners so we have identified and then train community partners the variety of actors I just mentioned before on IHL norms and negotiation skills in order to enhance their capacity to engage with armed groups on protection issues such as soldiers sexual violence healthcare or mind action and our assumption is that when community actors are better equipped in terms of knowledge of the rights of communities knowledge of international law they are in better position to advocates for their respect and we have used also community radio stations social media and other channels to disseminate tailor-made messages and to raise public awareness especially in areas under the control of armed groups so so far we have over the past 20 years experienced mixed results I must say this is not an exhaustive view but just to give you a kind of sense of the trends I would say that in in some cases community actors were very instrumental and helped us a lot to persuade armed groups to release trade soldiers or support mind clearance in areas under the control so that has been a very I would say effective way to add pressure on armed groups to change behavior or facilitate human action and it happens in different areas such for example in in Iraq or in southern Sudan but in other cases community actors especially when they were very much close to the group were just justifying the behavior of armed groups and dismissing IHL violations as government propaganda or enemy propaganda and this happened for example with the Tamil diaspora when we're engaging with the LTTE back in the in the in the early 20s 2000 sorry in Sri Lanka the Tamil diaspora which is quite important in number of western countries was not very much you know I would say was quite conservative in terms of acknowledging the need for for influencing on a positive way the LTTE in other contexts especially in the context of divided society some community actors are considered biased by the armed group partisan not really you know supportive and so a very little leverage on the armed groups so it's very important I think to really identify the the profile of the group but also who may have some potential influence and in our experience I would say the level of influence depends on on various factors so I mentioned a few on the slide the type of the armed group especially to what extent it is community embedded it has some kind of social constituency or basis but also as you mentioned before whether or not it exercise some governance function and service delivery that I think is very important in terms of potential leverage also what is important is the profile of the community actor so it's ideological ethnic religious proximity with the armed group the legitimacy of this actor the personal links that you may have with the leadership of the armed group all that matters but also there are many other factors that may influence the level of influence of community actors the conflict dynamics the potential entry points incentives that the armed groups may have to facilitate internal action or or respect the rights of the communities whether or not there is a peace process so the timing is also very important so all these factors show the need for a solid knowledge space to inform strategies of of engagement with non-state armed groups if we want to really you know engage effectively with armed groups through these actors of influence we need really to have a serious knowledge base and this is exactly this is the the second slide it is exactly what the generating respect project is aiming with regards to religious leaders so there are many examples known examples of religious leaders who have successfully influenced the behavior of armed groups and I mentioned the example on the slides in Iraq of Ayatollah Alsistani in Najaf who issue a fatwa in 2015 in response to abuses committed by the the PMF the popular mobilization forces and his advice and guidance to the fighters on the battlefield that he issued specified acts that are not permitted under islamic law shial most of which which are consistent with IHL such as the respect of civilians and this fatwa as we can see on the picture as influence directly PMF soldiers so the generating respect research project aims to explore exactly these two aspects what factors may religious leaders make sorry religious leaders inferential and how they can effectively influence the behavior of parties to armed conflict they look at both non-state armed groups but also state armed forces and Giva call is a partner of this project which is led by the the York University you have the link of the companion website of the research project there are a number of case studies that are underway in Colombia in Libya in Mali Myanmar Syria in Yemen and the result will be available by the end of the year and to conclude our experience show that community engagement this indirect engagement as we call it may be a valuable approach to add pressure on armed groups to advocate you know more effectively compliance with IHL but yet we often know little about the dynamics existing between armed groups and communities living in areas under the control especially how community actors influence armed groups these different factors and these dynamics between civilians and armed groups are often sought in terms of coercion victimization violence but they're often far more complex than that and often overlook the civilian agency and and potential of influence and this is something that I this research project focusing on religious leaders but I think is important that I mean to have mentioned that there are other projects by the center of study of armed groups hosted by ODI in London are looking at these dynamics between civilians and armed groups and that would be I think quite useful to inform more effective engagement strategy with armed groups for the better respect of the rights of communities living in areas under the control so I will stop here and would be very happy to exchange and respond to any questions thank you thank you so much Pascal for sharing those insights with us and also putting some recommendations forward and the importance of the analysis and the profile of the actors we have in front and no one size fit all approach at all but also what you mentioned the nuanced approach of using proxy stakeholders influencing those actors and much more complex and broader network of advocacy elements that you you have outlined for us here so thank you so much I'm sure there will be questions coming up also your way but now we will go to a country level example we will move to Colombia and we will hear from Julian Julian Watkinson from OCHA about his experience in engaging at a country level in in Colombia so over to you please Julian and colleagues apologies Julian cannot put the camera on because of connection but hopefully the line will be clear so over to you Julian thank you so much Valerie and hello colleagues and thank you again for for being so spontaneous and organizing this call after my my small little and last message and last meeting basically in Colombia we have two initiatives which are focusing on access and the nexus of humanitarian operations and human rights first one is our awareness campaign on humanitarian principles international human law in Colombia since 2016 the peace agreement we're seeing a modification of armed groups and with little knowledge of international humanitarian law and the knowledge about humanitarian operations and who we actually are so in last year's we saw an increasing trend in attacks and threats to our operations in the country both with NGOs and UN agencies and also quite quite severe is that even community leaders which were our best source for the access and recent years lost their access and their contact to armed groups due to the modification of armed groups and due to their dynamic operations since they are fighting for territory control so armed groups are changing their control quite frequently in the country to respond to this changing operational context even though I have to highlight that the context and access in Colombia still certainly better than in other operations but still we see downside trend in the country so what we are going to do is to actually broadcast radio campaigns small radio spots of 30 seconds in the majority of departments where we have the highest access restrictions on the three principles of neutrality impartiality and dependence and using local radio stations in the most conflict affected areas in the country and we're using over 60 radio stations and we're also taking those spots into indigenous languages to increase our awareness both of the community and of the armed groups and actors on our operations in the country on the left side you see the map of access restrictions and we're seeing downtrends especially in the Pacific coast in the port of Venezuela on the right side the small map you see where we actually broadcasting our radio spots so the overlap is quite quite strong but we still have I have to say that this is only the first start we need to focus more on our accessorizing or what we're doing to the communities and the armed groups so that you don't lose our our our access to the communities next slide please. For today's topic it's even even more relevant is our research study on the humanitarian impact of living and the influence and control of non state armed groups in the country even though as you probably know Ocha is using most in most of the times the numbers of mass placements and confinements which have increased in recent years considerably but still those numbers do not reflect the actual impact of the number of people living under the influence of armed groups so what we did first was a meta exercise to quantify actually how many people live under the under the influence and or control of armed groups on left side you see the map you might also see that the colors reflect actually different groups so we have a diverse range of groups in the country which is increasing the complexity of the Colombian context and the seven we we estimated in the last year that roughly seven million people live under the influence and or control we still have a few gaps to be honest for example we cannot differentiate between influence and or control which is certainly it's actually two situations however we don't have the capacity at the moment to actually be able to and differentiate those two different types of impact the second one is the most important part the research study on the human impact we are glad that we were able to to contract the human rights expert and our new conflict analyst in Colombia was able to actually bring in the nexus of human human rights and human operations in the country so we'd like to to actually quantify how what are the impacts of living under the chronic influence and control of armed groups in the country in rural areas because of seven million people live only in rural areas the number would be higher if you would also put urban areas but urban areas are it's complex to actually estimate the number of people who are under control influence and who are not and so we're doing the research in joint cooperation with OHHR and Human Rights Watch and to to follow up on the report of ICRC which was also mentioned earlier in the call but I think the most important part will be the situation of the results of the research study with all stakeholders involved because well research papers are a good start but the real work is afterwards to find solutions to the impact and here we still need to to work to and to create a plan on how we will socialize and use those URLs to leverage it and to make a change with the new administration which comes into place this year in the second half of the year and we would like to actually have an action plan on how to improve the picture of affected people with the human rights law sorry human rights law perspective and that's all from my side I'm happy to answer any questions or if you have any guidance or any recommendations and also happy to receive them thank you thank you thank you so much Jillian and there is a lot going on in Colombia I understand the research is not yet finalized and public but I am sure this group would be very keen to see then the report once it's possible to share it in a few weeks time maybe if it's possible and I must say also your intervention made me think on the point how to differentiate between influence and control how where to draw the line you know so a lot of interesting points that are of course the reality on the ground in many of the countries where we work very very concrete example from Colombia but I'm sure colleagues in many countries can relate to that as well so thank you so much Jillian for sharing those two examples with us and now we will move to the third panelist Kiran Kotari from Save the Children to continue our experience sharing so over to you please Kiran. Good evening everybody thanks Valerie and Allison for the opportunity and really interesting to hear from Pascal who I and we at Save the Children know very well and we appreciate Geneva call very very much and we appreciate Pascal's work but also interesting to hear from Julian just as a bridge you know Save the Children has presented some recent research and kind of experience learning on community led negotiations to the Alliance for Child Protection but also to the Global Protection Cluster in previous webinars and I can kind of dig out the links and share that with you all but I think you may be aware of that I've been asked to sort of look a little bit more strategically and try and think a little bit about how Save the Children works and to kind of explain that as a means of really focusing on it I'll try and keep my time to about five minutes and then take questions or continue as we see fit so in terms of how Save the Children works you know I'll tell you a little bit about our team we're four advisors we focus on relations with armed actors kind of access negotiations but it's relational and we do both relations and there we kind of put in a lot of the normative dialogues around advocacy things that you would normally consider advocacy but then we also look at the transactional side and trying to improve kind of very practical access for our services but also communities access to us in those dialogues that we have with people who either control or influence our presence in a given situation so that's kind of how we think about it our aim is to speak to all actors directly that's our preferred thing so that we manage the relationship ourselves or that our frontline colleagues do that and when we can't we work with intermediaries so Geneva call colleagues sometimes have excellent connections but also sometimes it's fight for humanity another kind of relative newcomer but also carrying lots and lots of experience including from Geneva call past so those could be our kind of international intermediaries or connectors but then also as a development and kind of humanitarian situation actor we we also often have strong ties to communities that may then go into a period of conflict and that is also something that we can very much capitalize on and it stands us in a very strong way then you know more about skill sets about me I'm based at the regional office in Amman and then you know I support my country office colleagues that this regional office for the Middle East and Eastern Europe covers so I work quite a lot on Yemen Syria Iraq Palestine Lebanon and because it's also Eastern Europe and because we've been maintaining relations with with our actors in Ukraine including through long-standing past projects with Geneva call colleagues in government and non-government controlled areas in Ukraine so we have learnt a lot from from all of this but you know in the past 20 months my colleagues and I have also worked on high intensity visible crises like Tigray and other operations in Ethiopia Afghanistan etc and Mali so I joined save in early 2017 I'm a war crimes investigator and before that I was a field researcher for a crisis group so you know conflicts violence and stuff like the other profiles in our team are somebody who carries a lot of humanitarian experience from our context but also somebody with a strong military background and somebody with a conflict and violence research background to help us manage our legal research work so the focus is on relations as in you know we have relations with our actors so that's when there's a blip in a situation or intense conflicts we can rely on those relationships that we've developed in order to communicate to them and then we look at specific transactions or negotiations and then how do we do that so the closer we get to communities the lines between advocacy and negotiations can get very blurry right this is it's one of the ways in which you think about it and being prepared for that as as most most operational actions will tell you you're going to analyze the context you're going to plan your interaction and then you're going to think a little bit about the transaction or the dialogue that you engage in and then you learn and then you reanalyze you replan and you you go back and try and have another hit and then you communicate across that context you rely on the communication of humanitarian partners on public communications understanding so you understand what's happening in the communications environment and I think that is something that is more and more important but you also through this analysis if you're looking at the analysis stage you're looking very much at you know trying to understand what your counterparts position is so what's the what's the most visible thing about them that you see when it comes to your priorities but then also trying to understand what their motivation is and then also to analyze the network of influence around that and so you you would do kind of like a stakeholder mapping or a like a network or connectors who are your key key kind of investors who you would be able to influence for this desired outcome in the interest of communities or your desired outcome and then that would inform your plan and that plan is you know you'd look at a scenario you try and prepare as much as possible and then you'd come back and then you decide some bottom lines you'd agree that with your colleagues like here what are the things that we can say what can we put at risk what can't we put at risk where can we make our compromises and then that's what you take into your transaction sometimes you've got a lot of time to prepare for your dialogue and sometimes you've got less than five minutes to prepare for a conversation but the idea is is that having this picture of the relations that you've got with those counterparts that is what really helps you be prepared to conduct that dialogue so we analyze and learn from all those relationships and transactions that we have ongoing at any given point in time but the analysis would start with you know breaking points down you'd really understand what's at stake where do we agree where do we disagree is it kind of a factual disagreement or a factual agreement and then you kind of know where your safe space is you know where the risks lie in the conversation and then you can start plotting things out but you know so here it's it's very much an action focused dialogue but it's it's about thoughtful action. Finally you know just in terms of how we also work we try to think about who we would ally with who are our kind of obvious humanitarian partners but also who do we work with within communities as Pascal was thinking or you know explaining dialogue with religious leaders and those can be very effective and then in other contexts it can be somebody who's very close to or influential over the armed actor or somebody who gives you access so for example in detention spot maybe the prison manager or somebody who's very close to prison's manager but there you know being a long-term actor in that context is is really beneficial for some of the riskier conversations that we might want to have and then finally you know each one of those relationships will have different strategies so with our more sort of very close to the front line partners we'd look at sort of capacity building type relations and engagement and exchanges the humanitarian peers we'd be sharing kind of common advocacy messages common messaging thinking about common communications and humanitarian diplomacy approaches and then we'd look at you know more influential capital level influencing all focused on trying to mitigate the effects of potential spoilers over our outcome but we're looking the ideal outcome for us is a dynamic outcome where there's we are trusted by our interlocutor and the demand for our services is kind of preferred I'm going to stop there I've spoken a lot and that's kind of our kind of top line stuff but in questions I can come back to the kind of complicated context where we're navigating things like transnational recruitment for armed conflicts situations like we see right now where it's international internationalized armed conflicts terrorism remote warfare and challenges that that faces for what kind of protection act those those kind of things and how we cover that in dialogues and relationships that we maintain I can come back to all of that later I'll stop here thanks thank you so much Kieran and fascinating all the elements you have pointed out and I see there are some questions starting to come Alice I was thinking about you and the work you have been doing in Niger and Congo and in Central African Republic and how this must resonate so thank you for the question we will leave it now until we come back to the panel but thank you so much Kieran I also thought about your intervention and you know the links between or rather the blurred lines between negotiations and advocacy that you stressed and actually the different steps and the complexity of the process I was thinking fits very well to the preparations of the GPC advocacy package that I'm sure colleagues on the call are also now having in mind so thank you so much for giving us this this outline and picture and we go now to the our last panelist or rather three panelists because for one country presentation we have a wonderful team presenting a real team work we go to Mali and in Mali we will start with a presentation by Sabrina who is the Protection Cluster Coordinator then turning towards Nora who is working with UNMAS mine action and finally Frank from Ocha in Mali so over to you colleagues in Mali I give the floor first to Sabrina and we will put the slides on the screen over to you thank you Valérie hello colleagues so we are trying to give a good example of one UN approach by being here together so we decided also to build this presentation the three of us because we wanted really to focus on on an issue that we are facing on a regular basis in forgot the camera and in a context like like Mali where basically we faced several situations of besieged villages where basically non-state armed groups took the control of these villages blocked the access to these villages etc so one key challenge we faced was first to come up with a clear definition of what do we consider as a situation of encirclement of villages to to to make sure that we we are able to build one approach even if each situation has its own complexity so basically we had several situations these last two years where some villages Farabugu, Dinanguru, Sokolo or Marebugu were basically under the control of non-state armed groups where we had like quite a strong issue with the use of IED but with the same modus operandi in attacking and destroying the infrastructures to make sure that basically there is no means to communicate with the communities within the villages so bridges were destroyed infrastructures to ensure that there is basically no communication between those still in the village and humanitarian actors but not only because in some in some situation like for example Marebugu even the militaries faced some challenges in accessing the village in terms of challenges we could see in the different situations I just mentioned is first maybe the challenge is in terms of having one level of understanding because of the different channels of communications around the situation so you have like a Bamako level communication between within the HCT within each cluster within the ISCG and then you have the regional level so it was sometimes the challenge I'm sorry Sabrina I think the connection got cut can you try to reconnect if you can hear us if not yes we have you back maybe if you can try to switch off the camera cheese yes very good okay let us give it a minute until they come back at the meantime I see the very interesting question that Stefan also put to the chat so we will definitely come back to it it's directly to Pascal but I think actually to all panelists and it's related to the training and of community actors and is there actually possible harm that they could lose and I see that we have colleagues now back from Mali so we go back to them and the presentation we continue so over to you please Sabrina and Nora thank you so so basically there was like a lot of meetings but not one harmonized way to to understand what were the needs that need to be addressed so so basically this question of who will be the right linkages between the different level was a kind of challenge also maybe sometimes even if we know that some needs were quite critical to address because of the the life saving part of it having access to food was critical having access sometimes to to drinkable water was critical etc but sometimes it was also difficult to understand what some quality of protection means in such context especially because in such situation we might have also some critical protection aspect that needs to be also addressed like the risk of children associated to to to armed groups or also IED issues I will let Nora did look on that but also maybe a point that is quite important and that we try to rise on regular basis is the lack of flexibility from humanitarian actors to to build ad hoc interventions in areas where actors are not necessarily present due to the constraint imposed by the donors when they fund like some some interventions in some specific location but then you have for example issues occurring in a location where we don't have like partners present etc so it can be it can be an issue in terms of opportunities and maybe a good practice that need to be strengthened what we identified is clearly how we can strengthen the community-based protection approach especially to but to find like a way at least to continue to collect on regular basis information when we have key informant when we have focal points present in these villages etc to at least disseminate key informations on some key protection aspect etc but also in order to to help us to to to maintain kind of protection monitoring of the situation by spotting like the the the clean risk by spotting like the the person in needs etc that needs like urgent assistance etc I think for this specific aspect we need of course to continue to think about how to maintain the right balance to not expose this this this focal point or key informant it depends on how we want to call them but it's it's quite critical because we are also in a context where often this key informant even in let's say regular protection monitoring activities are rising their concern to not be perceived as informant of let's say hostile counterpart to those controlling the area etc so it's really like matter of assessing on continuous basis to not to not expose them something that come that comes up quite frequently is how we need to strengthen the cooperation with the military actors but here again we need also to to keep the right balance to not create a misperception of or misunderstanding when we have because we have different mandate and also because as humanitarian actors we don't necessarily have full control on how military actors will intervene in the zone we don't necessarily have a picture on the the key risk that these military actors can create in terms of se in terms of diversion of assistance in terms of more exposing the the civilians etc it's important also to to make sure that we have kind of boundaries the way that we cooperate with them so regarding this we try to discuss a bit with with the coordinators of the different AORs how we can maybe of course maintain sensitization on some key protection aspect but in the meantime I think this is also in should be complemented with the way that we work directly with the communities to ensure that that we keep contact with the communities to not also jeopardize our intervention first solution find to this situation last but not least it's also identification of new voices for advocacy earlier I think the colleague from Geneva call mentioned how we use the religious leaders to unlock situations I had like a bilateral discussion with France maybe he will get back to that letter it's more how maybe we identify different channel of communication at different level maybe religious leaders in our cases to at least create new doors for communication but then negotiation should occur with like maybe more political actors etc and last but not least always have a more tailored approach the way that we identify our interlocutors depending on the context because again the situation in Marabugu or the situation in in Marabugu etc are quite different so we have different we need also to ensure that we are not just stuck with one approach that cannot maybe fit to each situation in terms of opportunities and maybe a new way of approaching the situation I think because we had like different situations it's also time for us to to maybe have like a joint exercise on lesson learned even if it was initiated last year but have it like more established to to build maybe a principled framework on assistance but also interventions etc in such situation where we can draw red lines for us as you and Italian actors and also to think about more innovative approach if we have such situation occurring for example in border areas to see how we can build like maybe a more transnational approach cooperation with with other countries especially because if we look at the the last development in the context we had like a new influx of refugees arriving especially in the region of Littaco Gourmet so arriving from Burkina Faso in the meantime we have also movement of IDPs in the meantime we have also refugees fleeing from Mali to entering to Burkina Faso etc so this should be also captured the way that we build our response I will let maybe Nora focusing on the IBD thank you thank you so much I would just like to ask Nora and then Frank please to take two minutes just one example and we will go back more into details in the discussion but over to you please Nora yes I was going to say my intervention is going to be brief is just to show the bridge between the protection cluster and OSHA in terms of access and negotiations so UNMAS came into play when it comes to the the besiegement of communities with the use of MIND and IEDs that the armed groups has used against the communities to restrict their movement so what we are trying to do in parallel to negotiating access and dialogue with that OSHA and other partners are dealing with in terms of responsabilizing the national authorities and also facilitating access that Frank will talk about our work was more into improving risk education approaches with the communities to make sure that they are being informed about the risk of explosive ordinance and how to get protected so what we were trying is to have focal points doing risk education activities in those areas but also focusing on remote approaches such as radio campaigns and others we are also working on a communication strategy and the behavior change strategy taking into consideration the nature of the risk and the influencers in order to have tailored approaches and come up with innovative approaches in terms of risk education when it comes to the protection monitoring and other tools we are also including the explosive threat in those tools for two reasons to get information about the risk but also to be able to respond to the risks based on the evaluations that are taking place whichever protection actor is there so it's not only about us doing direct risk education but also using other actors for emergency education so this is what we are trying to do also what we're trying to do because it's a conflict that is active so we could not do humanitarian depollution and that's why the humanitarian coordinator was negotiating depollution with the national authorities through a program that UNMAS has supported the national authorities in building their capacities in terms of your DNIED threat mitigation so this is in a nutshell we're trying to get ourselves in the protection tools to make sure we have access and at the same time working in parallel with OSHA and now I leave the voilà the floor to Frank to explain more how access is being negotiated thank you so much thank you so much thank you very much for giving me the floor I will try to have it in okay I will try to have it in less than one minute I'm not sure but yes I will just focus on how we we get involved in the negotiation negotiation of access and as Sabuna mentioned you're there in the camera it works very well sorry Frank now we cannot hear you sorry I'm afraid it was working very well before the headphones okay now it's very good yes thank you I will just focus on how the the humanitarian are engaged in the negotiation of access and what are the solutions we finally decided to implement basically as the station has been well described by Sabrina it's we do not have access with the nonsense approved for direct negotiation and as you know our our our strategy our points as a mentor and actor are put through the community and community leaders who are engaged in the in the dialogue and the particularity in the case of Mali is each of the fourth or more than that situation of encirclement we are different I mean and telekuto for the non-state group in some case it was regular religious leader in other case we had a local community victims who were organized to deal with the the non-state group and another side we had organization who has the capacity to negotiate access so what we do it is like for any of in all those cases we get in touch and push our opinion to to get involved and have their points into to something the the peace process and lastly is to focus on how we can engage the local authority to to to get more involved into improving security situation in the in the different area to more engage in politically and see how they can I mean I mean reduce that's because it's come to be a tool for the non-state group and second of it is come to be a tool for the non-state group and then more and more we see the those cases so how we can make this strategy stop from the sides and also to I mean mitigate our our limitations to to to to manage the process so first is to engage politically our leadership mental leadership to engage politically with local authorities and also to center the capacity of local actors to to continue I mean build confidence to the to the process lastly what I will mention is how we get the those processes I mean last by signature of agreement between non-state group and and in the community so in this agreement give a chance for a certain moment for I mean peace and all those things but the fact is those actually those agreements come to be very fragile and how we can get opportunity for the moment to ensure that we can access and then take opportunity to I mean yes to to to transcend our acceptance to the community and build more acceptance in talking about a very about like a mental principle and how we can see more mental actors neutral in all those processes so not to be long I mean others this one yes not to be long but uh final limit I will mention the case of for for a bugu and for a boomer bugu in some cases we had to use last results to provide assistance and as you know yes last last results to provide assistance but also yes yes yes yes yes just the last results but some more and more we have engaged local treaties to to admit to engage in dialogue and we expect things that the station going to be more more good for the population okay I will stop here and give the floor to you thank you thank you so much all three colleagues in Mali because you have given us a really different perspective of how you are tackling this topic in Mali from different mandates but working together and advancing and I liked a lot of examples you provided and I see also colleagues commented in the chat and thanks also Sabrina for already um partially responding to Stefan's question also on the training engaging with the capacity etc so very useful so now we are actually completing the part of the panel presentations dear colleagues and I would like to get back the questions to the panelists those that we have received so far and we will go with the first round of questions I think we will we have already six questions which is fantastic seven more coming and I will give them now back to the panelists but before I give you back the floor I will also ask Jamal from local NGO in in Yemen to reflect on some of those questions so as to give elements of response and hear from a local partners perspective on those elements but okay let me summarize some of the feedback we received from participants and what we heard so there has been quite a lot of reaction on the stakeholders mapping and the importance of it and if you can give maybe some more examples or hints tips in relation to that but also building on it Karolina supported by LOD we're curious if beyond the mapping if we can also look at the interest of the influencers if this is something which is happening if you can give examples etc so going even step further it would be interesting to hear about that Stefan's question already tackled by some of the panelists but a very interesting one do you feel that in some instances actually the engagement with community can also expose them how do you balance the do no harm principles in practice what is your experience with that we heard also a lot about the engagement with faith faith actors and others so it would be interesting to hear back from the panelists to continue on that further questions include for example if you could share some concrete examples on the messaging that works from your experience if there is some common theme or silver thread across the different efforts that have most impact or that resonate where you see of course depending on the context but if you could share some examples with us that would be very useful I saw the exchanges in the chat around the civil coordination framework and how it could help the protection sensitive approaches how we can use it maybe more efficiently or how to find a better synergies but also now coming from Karolina and other questions question on some of the challenges and possibilities of restorative justice or other community that reconciliation repatriation reparations mechanism so if there are some other examples Kiran or other colleagues on the panelist you could share even colleagues in as participants maybe you have some examples you can drop a line or raise your hand as well and finally to conclude on putting back the questions to you that have been received a question from Sarah if the inclusion of mine action in the peace agreement helped with entry and engagement with the community supported and non-storm armed groups negotiations so very specific also maybe to Nora so I will turn back to you but I would like to first ask Jamal Abdo from a local partner in Yemen and you called Tangier to come to us and share some reflection can you hear us Jamal? Yes this is Jamal Abdo from Temdin Yut Foundation in Yemen and thank you very much for giving us this opportunity to talk also thank you for the panelists with the amount of information they present as you know in Yemen here also we face a lot of issues with this because we got different groups controlling different areas in term of protection and also in term of advocacy for protection the context in Yemen is slightly different from other areas the context in Yemen here the people or the people are or most of them are armed our group is not even it's normal to see armed weapons in the street everyone at least has two to three for arms weapons in his house so it's part of the tradition it's part of it's part of their daily life so it is also we got a little bit when we starting to talk about protection and using protection terminologies is a little bit sensitive for the people also so because one word in one area means something and the same word in the other area means completely different things 180 degrees backward so it's too difficult to do this in terms of coordination engaging the key stakeholders in this issues getting the access it's normally getting the access or getting a touch of doing the stakeholder main stakeholder mapping and check their power influence during according to the power influence their power and their influence on the community and to get the right approach to them using their terminology not the overall or the word protection terminology we can get more effective results effective cooperation actually in terms of access we need to get a lot of permits to do our interventions in Yemen we you have to do it's in one if the project across two or three governments you need to do at least two to three permits from different parties so this is why it's working in especially in protection is a little bit challenging here in Yemen but with the effort of the the people effort with the local NGOs with the advocacy using that advocacy it's it's not mean that in the public or the in the media but during the meetings during negotiation also a brief coordination with the authorities or with the group with with the main the minister say called that prior to implementing any project that's chose an effective results for this thank you so much Jamal I think I see a lot of reactions for Kiran as you were speaking because I think this resonates in your experience as a local actor and really being at the forefront and the point you mentioned on the sensitivity of the language the terminology how it can meet something else to different groups of people individuals how we need to be more careful and target it and sensitive this is very very important thank you so much Jamal thank you very good so we go back to our dear panelists with the questions I just mentioned and maybe I would give first the floor back to Pascal over to you Pascal and panelists if you can put the cameras as you take the floor that would be fantastic over to you yes thank you very much for the very interesting questions and discussion on on the do no harm principle of course this is very important and and we try to not expose community actors or partners we are we are working with to additional risk by mainly focusing on cbo's or actors that have already pre-existing relationship with the the armed group so they're already somehow accepted sometimes they are part of the constituency and but they agree with our objectives and I can give you an example of the sahawi campaign to ban lemons which is a cbo's in in western sahara in the refugee camps and they have been very much helping us with sahawi mine victims association that are often former police sire front combatants that have been war victims and they have helped us to engage with the police sire front to to convince them to abandon the use of this weapon which they did and then they destroyed the stockpiles and then they've been collaborating with mine action organizations including icrc on victim assistance so this is what we try is really to focus on partners that are somehow already they've been engaged in an ongoing dialogue with the the armed actor but of course we when we come in we we we try to involve them in kind of you know the engagement strategy the the arguments the messaging the additional risk assessment so we try to also really much involve them in in the engagement process not just you know parachuting us and and basically you know imposing our our our ideas or conceptions in some context there are new partners but we try to test the waters with stakeholders or the armed groups to what extent you know they may be accepted and i remember an example in drc norskivu where we were figuring out so we try to to i would say explore test the waters first to make sure that there is no no you know unnecessary risk taking so far i don't think we had really burning issues but of course it's always a big concern especially in context where you have many different armed groups fighting each other fighting with together splitting uh fragmenting so at the end of the day you don't know who is who and and and and there is a lot of of confusion now where it comes maybe to the question of the the incentives and if there any arguments that maybe can help to engage better with armed groups i mean of course it's very important when you you start engaging to have a very deep knowledge of the armed group profile of his objectives of his structure of its modus operandi and and part of that i think it was mentioned by jamali is to understand what is the values or the ideology behind and how we can articulate our goals international standards in a ways that resonate for them whether it is with a religious framework of reference whether it is local norms traditional you know way of of honor you know warrior code of conduct like in in some countries and it's very important to try to look at any internal regulation they have many of these armed groups they have some kind of code of conduct they have some kind of policies or words of behavior or sometimes they have even made statements or agreements with other organizations so it's very important to um to start not from to start from there to start from this their own discourse their own narrative and and build on that and then hold them accountable so we we actually are engaged in another project research project that look at the perspective and practice of armed groups and looking at different um you know types of armed groups and to look at how they position themselves on idea with different thematics and it's very important to to to analyze that because that could actually provide some entry points that would be useful and I think to frame our engagement in the kind of mental universe or or or logic of the group is very important and for that local partners but also experts of the groups can really help to understand um you know these these insights um for for other armed groups that have de facto authority on a territory that are under pressure from the population to deliver services that could also provide another avenue to engage with them because they actually need support from the from specialized or human organizations and that could provide some some you know additional entry point there are other groups that are searching for international legitimacy often peace processes I think it was mentioned provide some very good avenues or windows of opportunities because they may have they may actually you know be more open to change the policy and I can give you the example of the FARC in Colombia back in 2016 or even before they had on child protection for example they had very a straight 15 years policy but through the engagement through the peace process they finally increased the age of recruitment and they were much more open also to to join the mining agreements with with the government or with international actors so that's really some kind of timely moment that you can see is to to engage with groups because because it can be more open to our you know objectives or discourse. Thank you so much Pascal you have really gotten we just saw your video now it is sorry I thought I put the camera up but sorry I think I messed up thank you so much it was great Kiran over to you and then Sabrina. Hi so I had a couple of questions one was on stakeholder mapping and you know sort of is there a dominant framing of messages that we tend to use no it's very situation specific it's about that specific conversation so then you know you find the right kind of conversation you break the issue down into whether it's factual or is it normative you would think you know that advocacy is only about respect for norms right that's kind of how we tend to regard it as as kind of advocates you know I'm a lawyer by training and I would tend to think about it like that but really on the frontline it's it's just you know you have so many competing values right you've got the values that the community has and those could be customary norms and there's customary practice so a classic example is it's okay for example let's say you take LCT controlled area it's not accepted practice family members were very upset about the recruitment of children but it was a kind of a norm in LCT controlled area that one child per family would be recruited by the LCT for example I'm using historic examples deliberately so as not to go into the specific operation context right now but then you know if you if that's a customary norm the the actual legal norm that we look at as principal international humanitarian actors is you know the like let's say strict AT that's what the optimal protocol and children conflict tells us and the CRC so that's what we would would choose to respect so that's the kind of then you have this this thing about the competing norms and then how would you challenge that is you would really look at who are you having your dialogue with is it somebody that's very local that you're trying to influence to to move their position and there you know it could be really interesting to look at the historic work that Geneva call did and to see the the fact that they got the year then to move and and far to move into that um uh the strict 18 uh thing so I think I think there's a lot to be gotten out of that particular kind of analysis that's one um so it is different for each context it's different for each conversation but you will also need to know but if you're going back repeatedly over time you're going to understand you know this is the position that you're trying to build and you're going to find building blocks so then I would break it down into you know are you looking at what's the local system of values what are the kind of international applicable norms what are the international standards and then what national laws can apply and then that tells you how to structure your dialogue depending on whether you're speaking to trying to get a group of allies of kind of those who would agree with your international norms so you you get them to coalesce around that then you get the local values to to kind of coalesce around a position where you're more or less respecting this the international norm but you you really challenge it if it's if it's undermining it and then that gives you a pathway for your your kind of your advocacy conversation that's the the initial mapping and then you would build that on your stakeholder map right your network of influence and then you kind of know which approach to take with which actor so it gives you a bit more of a clear plan but then having that map which is on one page will help you also communicate to your colleagues and to your your peers at the different organizations that you're trying to cooperate with so you can build momentum on one very quick easy shared picture that's one question the other question was on accountability and there you know I think a very good example I don't work for Geneva called but Geneva called did a lot of research on accountability in entity controlled areas and I remember that when I was working in Sri Lanka I remember that research coming out and it being something very important but I would also look at you know the examples of Nepal from how the Maoists exerted control over the population but we also have seen this very recently in kind of IS controlled areas and the means in which IS and other actors used to control populations under their control so I think we learn a lot from all of those those contexts and not all of them are really positive but for example in entity controlled areas one of the things that we knew is that incidences of domestic violence in entity controlled areas as opposed to government of Sri Lanka control areas domestic violence was very low in entity controlled areas because the entity would just come to your house and beat you up if you were abusing your child or your wife so you know you would you would see some of those kind of things not not exactly the greatest way of dispensing justice but you know there are there are things that that we can understand from those contexts I'll stop there and I can take any other questions if if colleagues want me to clarify another points thanks so interesting Kiran thank you so much for sharing also those concrete examples and all panelists please if you have links to those different research pieces or interesting projects if there is any kind of availability or so online I'm sure colleagues would really appreciate that if possible to share but now over to colleagues in my place thanks okay sorry we have too much I would like just to go back a bit on the donohom question because I think sometimes we need also to use our grandma common sense and just don't forget to just ask our key informant or focal point how they feel with the situation if I take the example of Mali we are in a very complex context where even within the communities we know that we have different dynamic so so I think it's important sometimes we could see even through our monitoring activities how the community members are quite stressed by the the dynamic the the level of paranoia is quite high because they don't know who is who etc so so I think it's quite important to first ask them how they feel with that so so in the case of for example I know that the colleagues were on regular basis checking with the focal point there and the focal point himself mentioned that he was not feeling comfortable so he clearly said that he do not want to continue to communicate to not expose further himself so basically I think it's I mean discussing with also community members require from our side to constantly check how do they feel with this channel of communication etc I think it's I mean it's quite key for us thank you so much Sabrina and also providing further elements of response to Stephens and Alice's question so yes okay thank you yes since in the Dunoham issue since in Dunoham issue yes our approach now is to avoid direct intervention with I mean the non-state armed group yes because we don't have access to them but also how the perception of the population of the I mean community can be damaged if we get involved in in the way we can be involved in the so I mean what we can what we can I mean we can get involved in the issue of mapping all the community actors who are involved in those who may have the capacity to get involved in those discussions because let me show you that even if you are now mixed operation try to I mean push all those non-state armed group the the 312 to still have the the second of each as sit there and also we we have to I mean bet on the capacity the local capacities to to to support access issues first things so I mean the point is for for my side to how we can map all the those capacity local capacities and how we can I mean some of the capacity in the issue of humanitarian I mean principle and then to show that in any cases we can I mean we can I mean gets many we are not involved but we can I mean how our points involved in the processes and also even if we we participate community may know our points that's one thing and also what we try to do anytime is in the case we have we have been engaged in the last resort the we get representation on the communication communication from the military we provide the assistance and also communication of the authorities on the kind of support we might have received from the from the humanitarian community so the communication should not I mean engage our action in the I mean in the the communication and also the conclusion should not present the the action the the action as an humanitarian action also so advocacy was made before the military and the authorities here to make sure that in any cases we support for the I mean the last results I mean the pay attention on the fact that we are not involving but also we are sure that the community are not getting are not being are not going to be attacked after the the the I mean the the assistance that they might have received also this is basically we pay attention on it in the case of Malabogo thank you thank you so much Frank for this very concrete example and complimenting the no harm thank you thank you so much colleagues we have reached actually the end of the time allocated unfortunately I'm sure Nora and other colleagues would have elements to say Nora may I invite you please to summarize maybe few points in the chat for colleagues and apologies to cut but I know most colleagues will need to disconnect in one minute unfortunately and of course this is a dialogue this is a dialogue that will continue it was prompted based on a request from the field and as Alison mentioned but it's a continuous practice and we would hope to engage with you with colleagues in the field or sharing by collecting your good examples practice examples but also the challenges and information on where we can support you going further the advocacy task team as well as the human rights engagement task team because we are here for you in whatever way you find maybe most impactful or relevant and Alison I see you are on camera would you like to add a few words before we close no just yeah I just wanted to say thank you to you Valerie but to all of our speakers and to everyone for that yeah fantastic thank you so much Alison indeed a big thanks goes to our speakers from global level to Mali to Colombia to Yemen and the wealth of examples experiences you have shared with us and we hope that we will continue that going forward and if you have any further resources you would like to share with this group we will definitely also bring it forward and continue this discussion if you are interested the next peer exchange webinar is actually already next week on 15th of March at 10 o'clock it will focus on a collaboration of one of the special procedures mandates the working group on arbitrary detection so we will discuss how we can better use this mandate what are the possible synergies and collaborations and here's some examples also of impact of engagement with them so this is the plan but if you have other themes we would be happy to hear them and I see now all the panelists nearly on the on the screen fantastic thank you so much dear colleagues I hope you enjoyed this peer exchange thematic webinar and look forward to reconnecting again soon thank you very much thank you very much and thank you so much Nora for also putting it in the chat this is excellent very useful and I think we will need to have a dedicated session on mine action actually for this very complex and important topic so thank you so much Nora and everybody thank you from Mali thank you thank you all