 Thank you Natalie. I wish to welcome all participants to this session. This session on proactive protection. My name is Alain Sauré. I work in development and I work in the management of environment and development and it's a pleasure to be your host and moderator for the next hour and a half. In today's session we are going to discuss how communities can protect themselves and do so effectively. We're also going to discuss the actions carried out by the community and how these can contribute to obtaining results in terms of protection. It will also show how we can obtain results in terms of preventing violence. We also aim to strengthen the understanding of these approaches by presenting examples of different ways in which communities can protect themselves against armed conflicts and other violent situations together with their country and cultures. We shall present part of the experience gained by communities as well as the experience gained by local and national stakeholders and we will also discuss the vast experience of participants in a comprehensive manner. As you can see on this slide together with the agenda we aim to begin with opening remarks by Sarah Broad. She comes from the Swedish Agency for International Development. We will then also briefly introduce the theme of different approaches towards protections carried out by communities and then we will listen to examples from four local and national organizations from Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia and Ukraine. We will hear how they work with communities in order to prevent the generation of risks regarding protection. With this in mind we will then put together discussion groups per region so that you can benefit from a more in-depth discussion. We will then come back together into the plenary to hear the main points that emanated from these group discussions and we will then move on to final remarks. Before we start the presentations and the discussions I would like to present the speakers in today's session. Let us start with Sarah Broad who specializes in protection policy. She comes from the Swedish International Development Agency. Then we have Amina Ali Abdi who is a protection agent from Riado in Somalia. Then Lina Vanessa Roboyo-Kinones who is a deputy director for projects in Apoillard from Colombia. We then have Tatiana Koutas, project leader from the 10th of April in Ukraine, Ayalanta Calangero-Lusenge, coordinator from GAD-HOP from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and finally Samuel Chun who is a global cluster protection coordinator. Thank you very much for being here with you and without further ado I now give the floor to Ms Sarah Broad for her opening remarks. Thank you so much for inviting Cida to open this important seminar. As we all know, the number of people in need of humanitarian protection and assistance keep growing and despite funding also growing to a lot to certain extents, we're constantly falling short of the resources needed to respond to the needs of people in crisis and those appear obvious that we collectively need to work together to reduce those needs and behind a major part of the needs that we respond to is violence and abuse being perpetrated against civilians and we believe that therefore protection has to be at the center of humanitarian action with a clear focus on preventing such violence from being perpetrated in the first place. This while at the same time of course providing a quality response to those that have been affected by violence and are in need of services but we believe that to ensure that protection is firmly placed at the center of humanitarian action and that collective efforts are made to reach protection outcomes or in other words reducing protection risks, a strong humanitarian leadership commitment to address acute protection challenges, collective responsibility and increased advocacy on protection risks are needed. And this was also recommended by last year's independent review of the interagency standing committee protection policy. But given the complexity of protection risks it's also important to stress that they cannot be addressed by humanitarian actors alone. We therefore see that at heart enhanced attention to protection from a nexus perspective is required. We need to encourage and support more common understanding coordination and synergies with peace building or community peace building projects and humanitarian rights actors, human rights actors for example. But we also see a need to be more inclusive in humanitarian protection. But with millions of people threatened by conflict the capacity of humanitarian actors to protect them remains insufficient and there is not enough capacity within the existing mechanism to improve the safety and security of these people. In addition the lack of access to people in need of protection and for affected population to access protection and assistance make it even more important to think about how protection can be done differently or rather building on what is already done by protection actors, local actors, sorry the light, local actors and communities themselves on the ground. And I think today's meetings emphasise the importance of community-led protection, initiatives led by national local actors and by communities are cornerstone in efforts to reducing the risks that affected people face. Learning how to best support and enable such initiative through adopting a truly inclusive people-centred and community-led approaches together with our partners is crucial for CEDA. We see it as absolutely crucial also to develop and strengthen capacities, methods and tools enhancing the system's capacity to reach collective protection outcomes in terms of reduced risks of violence, cohesion and deliberate deprivation. But we also see that the work of humanitarian and protection actors who are proactively addressing threats to civilians in conflict often remains unnoticed and that's partly due to the challenges in proving and showing success of the prevention work. We think it's a priority for us to support initiatives to develop methods to measure the impact of risk reduction and contribute to building the necessary evidence base with partners such as NRC and Oxfam. We see that today humanitarian aid focus to a large extent on delivery of goods and services and if we are to reduce the risk of violence and abuse we have to focus much more on what can be done to prevent it from happening and thereby proactively protect affected population. I think we as donors we can ask those questions to our partners, we can keep an open dialogue and we need to focus more on the actual outcome of people being protected and focus maybe a little bit less on the number of people reached by services. CIDAS humanitarian unit where I work is currently also assessing how we can support national and local actors more directly, not only through funding but also to meaningfully participate and have an equal seat at the table in decision making for us at all levels. Locally led interventions are key in prevention and proactive protection including by local actors and communities identifying risk, reducing the threat and vulnerabilities and also to help increasing the capacity of the most vulnerable people to resist prevailing threats. And of course finally we are strongly committed to providing flexible and multi-year funding to our partners to support principled engagement, relationship building and trust in addition to sustained access and response. I'm going to end here but just to say that I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to engage with you all today and to learn more about what works and what donors such as CIDAS can do to facilitate community led approaches to advance prevention and proactive protection. So a big thank you already to GPC and community led protection task team and all other organizations involved in this event. Thank you. Thank you so much Ms Broder for your opening remarks. I'm sure that protection will be at the heart of humanitarian action but to do so we need leadership, we need lobbying and awareness raising given the recent vision from the we know that the work that we do is more and more needed. Humanitarian actors and protection actors work proactively to face threats against civilians in conflict but this is often unseen due to the fact that it can be difficult to prove these successes of prevention work. The current model of financing and implementation is often difficult and we do not often see the work of actors who are trying to strengthen a proactive approach towards protection. Today's topic is important and this is seen in the number of community groups who have gathered in the Gaza Strip over the last few weeks. As first respondents in the face of terrible, unimaginable situations and together they are carrying out activities to try and protect members of their community. They are sharing important information and they are helping communities to access the services that they need. These community actors are safeguarding local know-how that they use in the most difficult of circumstances. We believe that community-based approaches and self-protection allow us to make progress in terms of protection, taking into account resources needed for community groups because they are agents of their own protection. My organization works in Burkina Faso where they are struck by recurring attacks, armed attacks, perpetrated in various regions of the country. Over the last two years there have been at least three attacks that have killed huge numbers. Over 150, a second 80, a third 50 killed and this also causes mass displacement. Over 2 million displaced people. There is a crisis in terms of protection and it's becoming more and more essential and this is linked to a food crisis also within a context of the destruction of the social economic foundations and communication foundations. There's also a political crisis that is hurting the entire state. There have been two coup d'etat in 2022. Burkina Faso has a partnership with Oxfam and are carrying out actions based on two main aspects, reducing protection threats and reducing the vulnerability of persons who are subject to a protection threat. Through these actions we are working to strengthen capacity and to ensure the prevention and management of protection issues. This is done by information sharing, awareness raising and capacity building. This is based on community know-how and anchored in community know-how. We do this to improve their management of protection issues. These actions, the use of local expertise and lessons learned allow us to improve our interventions every day so that we can effectively work against protection based issues. We will now watch a video prepared by Ms Reboio from the Apoyar organization. This showcases the work of our organization with local communities in Colombia. Here is the video. Good morning. My name is Dina Vanessa. I'm sub director of Apoyar. I've been working for 10 years in community strengthening projects for the coordination of projects for humanitarian response with my experience in topics ranging from reproductive and sexual rights, migration and so forth. My commitment is to promote human rights and to generate a positive impact on society by strengthening protection spaces for women in my territory in Araucan Colombia. I've been part of Apoyar for nine years. It's a civil society with 22 years in experience in implementing projects in Araucan Colombia. It's actually a bet for hope in a critical moment in our territory with a firm commitment that we can change those excluding ways of relating with one another in order to create a more humanitarian and equalitarian community. We believe in respect and recognition of one another diversity and transparent relationships because they strengthen human capacities in order to live together and that's why your actions focus on working hand-by-hand with communities by identifying needs, understanding challenges, the dynamics, local dynamics and recognizing opportunities, strengths and capabilities of people who are present locally. We believe that the transformation of realities in which we live can only be guaranteed with the active participation of communities in the design, decision-making and implementation of projects that will impact them through consultations, open dialogues with the community, capability assessment and implementation of feedback loops. We can have an adaptive programming that can gather all of the opportunities to improve that the communities may identify and we also provide full transparency. Likewise, one of our objectives is to leave capabilities in local communities by developing skills and strengthening natural leadership and organization skills from women so that they can be autonomous in their deficient making and they can have communication with decision-makers in all different levels so that they can guarantee their rights and that's why we do different initiatives with public entities, with the community by using resources and knowledge so that we can provide more effective solutions. That's why the projects that we implement they need to include long-term actions. ARAUCO is a department that still needs immediate action because we have a triple affectation historically marked by armed conflict and climate change and the state doesn't have enough capabilities to cover the needs of the communities and that's why these actions need to be addressed to cause a transformative impact that is sustainable for communities. Now we're going to show you a video that we prepared for you with the actions that we developed in our project of humanitarian action to protect women and people who belong to LGTBQ community which we implemented with Oxfam Colombia and it's financed by ASTI. Thank you very much. Department of ARAUCO is a territory that suffers triple affectation as it is historically marked by the armed conflict of different non-state armed groups that have fought over the territory. It has also been affected by migration which has been confronted with large gaps in institutional response and climate variability disasters affecting the migrant population and the host population. The humanitarian assistance project to protect women migrants with diverse sexual and gender orientations migrants in transit and host communities from Venezuela in the Department of ARAUCO Colombia is implemented in partnership with Oxfam Colombia and funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency AGTIT which aims to increase the protection of migrant women and people with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities in transit from Venezuela who aim to permanently establish host communities and humanitarian assistance in the Department of ARAUCO. Two components are implemented from the mobile tent we carried out guidance training in sexual and reproductive menstrual rights advice and access to contraceptive methods rapid pregnancy tests rapid tests for sexually transmitted infections and we also delivered menstrual management kits micronutrients and kits for pregnant women we also identify roots and we do follow-up in cases of gender-based violence and we also provide assessments in the areas of nursing psychosocial and legal sectors. Protection root awareness raising on protection risk rights services delivery and differential nursing assessment psychosocial care cash transfer and access to humanitarian transport covering the ARAUCO root and cities within the country to women and their families in transit condition. We try to provide comprehensive care and a safe support network to these women we also strengthen local community actors and ARAUCO institutions on fundamental rights and migrant rights we also do prevention campaigns from xenophobia and discrimination gender-based violence and promotion of health in coexistence with communities with the aim of strengthening their capacities and mitigating protection risks with the support we provide through the protection route we have been able to provide care to women and their families with a transit travel plan in dignified conditions and additionally covering the median needs that arise as we did with Maria an 18 year old woman a migrant in transit to Ecuador during the stress she reported symptoms such as vomiting and dizziness she received medical attention and a pregnancy test was performed on her and turned out positive and that's why she decided to undergo the IVF in coordination with the first international emergency the procedure is guaranteed in safe conditions covering food accommodation medical and psychological support days after the procedure with medical authorization the participant continued her route to Ecuador the interpreters apologize yes thank you very much for having shared this video on Colombia's experience and without further ado we will now listen to miss Calongero she comes from the democratic republic of the Congre where she does coordination work at Gatop good morning everyone i am Yolanda Colongero and i am from the organization Gaya but he's a group of organization and defending rights of the populations but also peace building i am based in the city of Bukimbo i would like here to quickly present our actions on community based protection we work a lot when it comes to protecting civil population in the north kivu province and in the liberal territory so for our interventions and our community based protection actions we try to contribute to civil protection and during our work we also use like key messages in our communication and i think we could summarize that in a four so you have to acknowledge the population and first of all really make sure that the population has information on their rights as citizens to promote this communication of information we have some raising awareness sessions that are organized in different villages we gather men women together and we try to really reinforce their rights in the DRC in the north kivu province unfortunately it's a very violent area of the country there's a lot of conflict and sometimes people kind of lose sight of what are their rights in this context so this is why for our protection based actions we really try to promote all this visibility all this information on national legal framework we also try to provide a lot of additional information to displaced populations we look at maps that we share with them to try to identify the different services that can be made available to them and we share this information with the local population and with the displaced population this information can then be used in case of need by the local population or by the displaced population we also try to promote collaboration between the local population and the civil authorities local authorities but also the military authorities so when i say civil authorities we are talking about the the chief of the village so in the north kivu we have a lot of villages who have a chief who's in charge of running the village and it's good to have this link between the population and the authorities in some villages you don't really have a representative of the government you have to go through the chief of the village so here again our message is to reinforce that the villagers have rights that the displaced populations have rights so to still work on actions based on the community we also conduct some advocacy work at local level we organize activities for men activities for women it's actually good so that these men and women can then be the ambassadors of their own communities and spread the word spread this information what we also try to do because it is a very difficult situation when there is conflict when there is violence we also try to explain people how how to react faced with violence so there is some very basic knowledge on human rights that we've also mentioned in these sessions with men and with women so when it comes to violence in for unfortunately some people are arrested without given any reasons some are illegal detentions some people are killed there is forced labor there is land grabbing there is a sexual violence the interpreter apologizes I think mrs caloundero lost her connection it seems that Yolanda is facing some technical issues so maybe we'll give the floor to Yolanda a little later oh I think she's back thank you my apologies I think I mentioned our messages and I hope you heard all these different messages and that we use in our communication with the local population but despite the fact that we are in a difficult context we can see that there is improvement possible and that we can see the result of our work of our awareness work or our advocacy work because we see that thanks to all these messages and these interventions based with the community the population has the means to really better understand what's happening and also to sometimes be able to go to the police station or to the local authority and claim their rights and also we can see that the people now just go to the services when they need access to these services because they know it's their rights I'm sorry I think Yolanda is having some technical issues again all right so should we continue and then maybe we will ask Yolanda if she would like to conclude her presentation a little later but I think from what we heard from Yolanda I think it's a very good thing to start with like a strengthening capacities for the communities enabling the communities to understand their rights and enable them to take action so we'll see later if we have time and maybe we can again listen to the end of the presentation of Yolanda but let me now ask Mrs Abdi in Somalia if you can now also present the context in Somalia you have the floor thank you yeah thank you so much for having me I'll just wait for the presentation to come up yeah thanks so much yeah so I think I'll have my video on because it keeps I keep losing focus of the screen until I'm able to finish okay thanks so much for having me join the forum I'll go ahead and share an example of our efforts working with communities in Somalia as local protection actors and efforts of advancing protection and advocating for more proactive protection approaches and next slide so as we are though we are a local engine Somalia our decade-long experience and commitment has led to a profound understanding of the challenges as well as unique opportunities for interventions and our protection sector particularly within the context of southwestern region and it has also been incredible at how the partnership we've managed to forge with the community through their social legal system known as the HEHR which is X-E-E-R and it has been a transformative tool both to sexual stroke gender-based violence as well as child protection and next slide so under our protection approaches it has been the approach has been focused in has been rooted in rebuilding the community social structures empowering individuals and groups to realize their rights are enhancing the capacity of these of these communities to prevent social problem and effectively dealing with those that do arise and we've been we've managed to do this through investing in capacity building and capacity building of the of these communities on human rights as well as social cohesion and over the years this has proven to be successful in various contexts including those of conflict as well as prevention next slide so just so we understand of a number of us might know like Somalia is a country that has been dealing with the country a crisis a factor crisis for the last three decades and the women and the kids who make up majority of the population are the ones who are left to deal with this protection risk of displacement or all of various forms of forced direct violence forced eviction family separation as well as denial of access to basic services and each aftermath of this protection and aftermath of these are climate and conflict induced emergencies we see a spike in a spike in cases of separated children and an accompany children within the IDPs as well as we'd love to deal with a we'd love to deal with a surge in GBV cases of particularly against women and girls and the highest form reported being of those of intimate intimate partner violence for FGM of forced child marriages as well as being rampant again within the IDP communities and these are the kind of cycles we are trying to break up and empower the community at risk next slide so the health system the one we are currently in partnership with and working through to reach the community these are constitution of the council of elders together with the traditional leaders being the clan leaders tribal leaders religious leaders as well as at this point we can even include the camp leaders and the this system has traditionally and even up to date through incorporation of the sharia law into its framework being responsible for maintaining social order shipping the local norms and currently in some way they do continue to shape the modern legal framework as well as the constitution of the country and through this system the community has maintained has had its own ways of self-protection as well as conflict resolution and this is something we need to give them credit for they have like as a community care like system for the kids without a primary protection later like parents or close relatives where they will be sent to religious schools known as kafalak to be taken care of until they're able to stand on their own for the community for the for the conflict resolution the system the system adopts the retribution justice to as a way of maintaining harmony within the family clan and the general community as a whole next slide as much as this her system has been working for the community it hasn't been perfect all in all it has had its own challenges where like for the for the for the community care these these approach only embraced the younger boys excluding the girls and any any boys above the age of 13 years old this is because a 13 one is considered an adult and is expected to take up responsibility in terms of contributing to the family to the family financially the boys are expected to take up work while the girls who are prepared for marriages are web-lessening the burden to the family so and for the when it came to GBV or when it came to conflict resolution when the cases were involving women the system did tend to to be a bit oppressive and in considering to the rights of the women and girls and this was more evident during when they were dealing with cases of GBV where the in efforts of preserving the family's honor as well as the the reputation of the families the the women and girls were forced into accepting either compensation or marriage to the perpetrator normally marriage was the ultimate solution for the younger and married girls next slide and these are the kinds of these are the kinds of approaches and the concerns and gaps we are trying to address within the system as well as together with the wider community so in addressing these we're trying to bridge the gap between traditional values on the modern human rights principle under the one UN as well as the constitution and we've been gradually involving the community the leaders the local leaders the community in a gradual capacity building training session on human rights human rights with emphasis on women as well as children rights and throughout the years these and we are focusing on promoting gender sensitivity and survival centered approaches because we understand these are catalyzed these are they are catalyzed that change within the that to ensure catalyzed change within the community through this health system has also been a vital tool in our child protection where we are utilizing the the health local networks channels and knowledge to accelerate our IDTR efforts this is identification documentation tracing and reunification of these separated and accompanied children within the IDP communities back to their family after successful our education we throw these links we maintain a follow-up with the family to see how the child is progressing within their united family and throughout the years this has been this has proven successful where we are next slide where we are now documenting impressive behavior change within the community now we are seeing like a more and more legal gender sensitive legal framework being implemented within the the local systems as well as the courts where survivor centered approaches again in momentum are more and more leaders within the health system are rejoining in and advocating for for just illegal justice as well as right best approach on dealing with cases and and the wider community has also has also shown great support and they are shifting towards a positive attitude when it comes to matters of dealing with the GBV where before it was considered a stigma to even talk about it but now they're joining in speaking against it more outly making it easier for the survivors to reach out and seek support in medical both medical as well as legal for the also in action advocating for for the international frameworks as well as domesticated policies such as the ratified CRC that identify and protects any child anyone under the age of 18 to be being implemented and actively being acted upon within these within the local system next slide so we've been considering the majority of this affected that the IDP communities we've gone as the father in we've managed to establish child-friendly spaces this is not only to provide the kids with a safe environment but also but also for an opportunity for creation as well as skill development for the school at children we are currently trying to have them enrolled in our recently resumed education programs as well as in talks with the kafalah system the religious schools to see a way of integrating secular education into their curriculum as well as our local organization we're also trying to expand our work beyond the capacity building on human rights to include the efforts of social cohesion as well as conflict resolution currently we're working with a project of six months but we anticipate it holds much promise and this hope is coming from the community's positive attitude however realistically speaking these are areas that require immense commitment and this is where we are trying we are reaching out to the global community to the who seek support in terms of capacity as well as resources next slide for the recommendation I would just like to see more collaboration with the local injustice and where we are we are also provided more support in terms of capacity as well as capacity as well as resources we like to see the communities being engaged actively from the design to the implementation of the projects these are because it also ensures the initiatives are more culture sensitive and also we like to see more investment on the education and awareness because we've seen and it we've also it's approved they are they are the catalyst for promoting understanding and behavior change within the communities and we'll also like to see investment in long-term sustainability interventions such as social cohesion and conflict preventions thank you so much I think very interesting presentation thank you very much mrs abdi for sharing these interventions in Somalia now our last speaker in coming from Ukraine mrs bodas here working with the communities here based on the front line in Ukraine welcome and you have the floor yeah so hello I'm finally here my name is Tatiana Kutas and I am representative of national organization the 10th of April that is operating in Ukraine next slide please I will shortly tell you about the situation in Ukraine that's and our experience of work with community groups in this context next slide please the armed aggression of Russia against Ukraine started in 2014 and lead to the internal displacement of more than one and half million of Ukrainians next slide please the second phase of war began in February 2022 and caused an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in all regions of the country Ukrainian cities towns and villages have been systematically struck by rockets and drones while areas closer to the fighting are suffering from bombardments artillery and mortar shelling next slide please about 32 million people were directly or indirectly affected by the war next slide please the ongoing nature of the conflict and active hostilities shelling of civilian objects lead to the aggravation of the situation of the most vulnerable categories next slide about six million Ukrainians were forced to leave the territory of Ukraine in search of safety and five million were internally displaced next slide in this situation the first ones who started to respond to the needs in humanitarian aid safe evacuation social support work communities on the ground also those ones that were previously supported by our organization next slide please these communities started to collect and deliver food hygiene medicines water conducting forming conduct evacuation establish and accept people in shelters next slide please our organization has been supporting communities refugees communities idp's communities and host communities in Ukraine since 2016 these communities groups are associations of proactive individuals united around one goal our interventions are designed to help the larger community in general but through the community-based groups who implement their initiatives for their support we are using different approaches and tools as all communities are unique and require individual approach next slide please our stages of work with community groups is firstly identification of existing associations and groups second capacity and needs assessment thirdly development of capacity empowerment plan then plan implementation and after this assessment of the progress and plan amendment also we are trying to apply different approaches one of them is support activities are based only on the request on the communities after the consultations with them and with their active involvement to the process of activities development secondly we use individual and flexible approach to every community and also we are adopting cross-pillar approach as in all the activities we are trying to involve representatives of refugees idp's and host communities and enhancing experience sharing and development of their common initiatives next slide please to support communities we are using different tools such as meetings and consultations on constant base awareness raising sessions and educational activities such as trainings mentoring coaching master classes youth schools individual courses next slide please also dialogue platforms interregional regional local one public events general meetings forums award ceremonies all these tools depends on the situation of every community and on their request also next slide please we are using such support as as production of media materials advocacy support and informing next slide please also we pay very big attention to establishment of safe spaces of communities and support of their initiatives through in kind assistance or through cash grants one of great examples of such initiatives is the initiative of group of internally displaced women in the city that is very close to the fighting zone and is constantly under the shadow the aim of their initiative was to carrying of internally displaced women who left their occupation and the aim was restoring their psycho emotional and physical condition socializing and integrating women into the local community expanding their circle of communication they are doing it through the creation of safe space and also organizing psycho social support activities based on the needs of their woman who are about whom they are next slide please as a result of our support as from organizations communities enhance their capacity to develop activities and respond to the protection needs of themselves effectively using local potential such activities take into account the needs in the best possible way promptly respond to emergency situations and ensure sustainability next slide please communities grew their capacity to make needs assessment and develop based on these activity plans that have a result in advancing prevention and proactive protection such support a lot of people to respond to the needs of people even in small and remote locations in an efficient and constant way and ensure the sustainability of the results and next slide please based on our experience we developed the recommendations next slide please to donors and to representatives of international NGOs to implement flexible multi-year programs directed on the support of communities development and support of the initiatives of the communities and recommendation to the local NGOs to put as much as you can efforts to identify proactive individuals and support them on constant basis using individual approach to each community and selection of appropriate tools for every community to develop with them jointly activity plans and support their initiatives by grants of different types in kind or cash grants actually that's all thank you very much for the attention and i will be happy to answer to your questions in the written if you would like thank you thank you so much miss Tatiana Kutas for such interesting report on the Ukrainian context especially the areas close to the front line where we are aware of the challenges both in terms of protection and in terms of security so you heard such inspiring examples we would now like to move on to the group work you can now discuss the topics in smaller groups the groups will be organised by region and will be carried out in different languages we have a group of six groups five of which will go into their different meeting rooms and one of them will remain here in the plenary please note it is a group who will be here in the plenary the groups are as follows room one is for Latin America and the caravan this group will be discussing the topics in room two is for the middle east discussed in arabic room three is for africa there are two for africa this first one will be in french the fourth room is on africa for african again in english room four is europe plus asia plus the pacific area that will take place in english and finally in the plenary room and by the way we all come all come back here for overall discussion but the discussion taking place in the plenary will be interrupted in a moment my colleagues will open up the different group rooms so please do join the room that interests you the most obviously taking language into account because there will be no interpretation of different groups within the groups you will have 15 minutes to discuss the information you've just heard and to share your own experiences there will be a moderator in each room and they will offer question to direct your discussion and you are free to um to follow the directions or not it's just a way of utilizing your time more effectively you will also have a blank table where you can share your comments and the information you share in writing when we all come back together in the plenary the moderator of each room will share the one or two of the main points that you raised and we will try and put everything together into one document that we will share via the website you can now move into your different groups and i hope you enjoy your discussions you only have 15 minutes so unfortunately there is not time for everybody to speak you'll need to organize yourselves well to get the most out of these discussions i hope you all have a good session and we will meet again in the plenary to summarize elaine i'm going to hi elaine i'm going to allow the participants to unmute themselves in the plenary so that you can have a discussion here if anyone needs help moving into a room please just put it into the chat and we will move you okay just let us know which room you'd like to go into and yabawa you've got your hand raised do you want to go into a particular room yes madam can you hear me yes i can which room would you like to go into yes my own is more of a general general concern that i want to raise oh a general question okay bear with us just one moment we'll come back to that and elaine is going to be leading the the session here in the plenary for the global so i will hand it back over to him and all right thank you okay thank you i think that people are still going into the different groups we just have 15 minutes we have various questions that can guide us in our work and we can then note down the main points that come up in this plenary room the first question is as follows how does this community approach how is this community approach different from the usual protection programs this is something that we can discuss i'll take all questions but then we can come back together to see how we can approach everything so i'll just go through the questions first secondly when can an organization decide to adopt a certain this type of approach thirdly what are factors that are favorable for certain approaches and what are what key things need to already be in place for a certain approach to be used like the practice such as community cohesion community structures and mechanisms the will of the community etc and how to strengthen the spirit of prevention in our colleagues who are working in programming and finally what means can be used for international NGOs to support closer ties between groups working on protections and especially working with civil society in the front line so what lessons have you identified and that could be applied to protection work in the future in situations of conflict so these are the types of questions that you can use to guide your discussion today in your group work so has everybody understood what we what needs to be done so let's move back to the first question how does is a community approach different from the usual protection programs so this community approach within the scope of protection work how is it different from what is usually done hello yes hello victor go ahead hello yes hello you can go ahead i'm reported to say we are in the drc so i want to know how you get into group three sorry who was that that wanted to move to group three can you put your just put a message in the chat for us and we'll move you okay messy very good thank you very well i think we can start the discussion we can discuss the first question does nobody wish to take the floor very well i can see that there is a hand raised any law we're listening to you now yes hello thank you for having given me the floor i believe that this approach is the most appropriate when it comes because it allows communities to participate as much as possible to efforts that are designed for them it's important to involve communities in actions that are for them and it would also enable them to take measures and finally they will feel more of a sense of approach creation when it comes to activities that they participate in if they had a role in putting them together this participation will help enable good results as actions are taken thank you thank you thank you for sharing your ideas you've said that it's the most appropriate response it allows populations to be strongly involved and to be really engaged with what's happening which then leads to success thank you so much any other comments or questions yes gracia i'm sorry i couldn't see where to raise my hand yes yes hello everybody gracia i'm here from the central african republican republic when we put communities at the center of our work we do need to add that this approach is not without challenges the interpreter does apologize the the sound of the speaker is quite poor so this message might be incomplete the interpreter will resume when the sound is better the interpreter reiterates that the sound of the speaker is poor and so the interpreting will be incomplete the interpreter will resume when the sound is better we apologize for this inconvenience the interpreter resumes thank you very much we'll try and take one next speaker before moving on to another speaker i can see that jeremy allama has his hand raised jeremy the speaker has his microphone switched off your microphone is switched off jeremy jeremy i see hello ah we hear you now yes hello everybody my name is jeremy i am a community engagement and accountability officer we have many protection cases here so this approach is different from the normal standard approach why because it recognizes that we have a mission to provide protection and ideas of protection to the communities that we serve now this approach recognizes that the community itself already has assets and foundations that are useful for their own protection so the approach values the community in itself it allows the community to participate more in the approach allows the community to see how they can defend themselves we can only improve what they can already do and strengthen collaboration so they can become more resilient it also enables the community to gain more trust in terms of creating sustainability sustainable action thank you thank you very much jeremy for your comment let's continue with the next question so one when can an organization decide so when can you decide as an organization to adopt such an approach any ideas any prerequisites i see a hand raised hello everyone okay let's go ahead try in french but um i am uh an english speaker and to implement these activities so you really have to decide on the right moment it's about timing all right thank you next um next comment so it's about deciding to adopt this approach and when is that feasible and hello hello earlier i uh forgot to say that we are based in the as an organization i believe that there are some prerequisites in your activities if you decide to adopt this approach you have to understand that of course when your action needs to be implemented in the in the community you need involvement of the community and i think that's kind of obvious you need to really from the very beginning include the population if you're talking about a community-led approach a community-led action you will need of course to involve the community so you really have to from the designing of this action involve the community or at least have the community in mind and have really this this this whole idea of how you can involve the community thank you thank you very much so let me just uh here move on to the last questions what are the favorable factors to this approach a lamp quickly apologies to interrupt a lamp but some one of the co-hosts close the room so you'll be joined by all of the other rooms in just a few seconds all right thank you are we all here yes everyone is here welcome back so i hope you had time to have interesting discussions in our group it was a very interesting i would like to ask a representative of each group to maybe briefly share one or two items that were mentioned in the group so just very briefly please so the first room lina please hello thank you we did have received several comments but we weren't able to move past the first question the first question focused on the difference between a community-based approach and the traditional protection program all the people in the room agreed that whilst there were some differences there were also complementary so the conclusion we can reach based on the comments made in the breakout room was that whilst they are complementary the protection program is focused on immediate immediate assistance taken into account risks and also providing services goods in the most critical moment for a community whilst the community-based approach is looking more in the long term so that communities can participate have more active participation as part of the process also recognizing all the protection mechanisms developed by the communities which whilst international and local organizations may be aware of the context the communities are the ones that leave firsthand all the challenges arising from the context and are the ones that when we arrive with some possible solutions the communities are the ones that have already developed all the protection mechanisms to protect themselves so the community-based approach it also it also contributes to the resilience of the communities thank you over to you thank you very much and now sarah room two hello everyone the first point i would like to add there is a consensus based on the based community activity the society is a recipient there are the programs are already there the second point the local authority and the local NGOs they are helping individuals in many phases especially some crisis is more export than others the implementation is needed in this context thank you very much sarah yoland room three thank you very much in room three i think on top of what's been already said by my colleagues in other rooms we emphasize the fact that once the community has the of the right level of knowledge and information then it's very useful to also involve the local authorities to find solutions so we had a very interesting experiences shared including by the experience in burkina faso and we also actually had the time to cover the favorable factors saying that protection in general within the community is a sustainable solution for protection and this enables resilience building within the community and this is how we can also promote access to different basic services and just to conclude mrs armel also shared with us that the community based protection promotes the involvement of all the stakeholders of the community to find solutions sustainable solutions and involving all the leaders at all levels thank you very much thank you yoland for sharing room three and room four amina yeah thank you so much for our room we i think we have also a consensus where we are identified like this community are much different from the traditional one where we it focuses on increasing ownership of the of the community we're involving the community throughout the implementation the design ensuring that it tillers the needs of the community of the interventions to the community's needs as well as the local norms it was there for the adoption why when sort of this approach we came up with the the need because of there was need to align the protection efforts with the local culture norms encourage the community is willing that when the community is willing and capable of actively participating in protection activities and also their desire to foster sustainability and long term for the community resilience the nublin factor was one of our participant pointed out it was that the most important should be trust trust with the for to form trust with the communities because once trust is instilled the the all the remaining process just becomes easier to implement and for the the lesson for the how the international geocool become a support to the local to the civil society in efforts of bridging the gap with the national clusters we identified they're providing training and capacity for these local organizations and enhancing the participation in the clusters as a way of sustaining the protection efforts at the for the lessons we came up with we need to really recognize and empower the local actors and also we should emphasize on promoting community inter-involvements focusing on long-term interventions as long as conflict prevention as well as social cohesion which also to we we we understand majority of protection actors are put this aside where they only emphasize interventions related to child protection or a GBB and those kinds of while putting aside these long-term interventions such as conflict prevention and social cohesion but we we we reach a consensus that this needs to be a priority in future we like to see them being a priority in future thanks so much thank you very much amina room five attetiana we have discussed a couple of questions and i can make like three conclusions from it first of all we should take into the consideration inclusion of persons with disabilities to the leading role in the work of community groups the second one is sometimes we face the difficulties in establishing cooperation with local authorities so we should try to find different approaches to establish with them cooperation or in cases when it is not possible to go through other channels and maybe to work more with communities not to leave the people behind and the last conclusion that i think is very important that as long where the conflict lasts or other situation difficult situation for people last so more difficult for community cities to respond to their needs and they need more support so thank you and maybe Rachel from my group want to add something i think you covered everything thank you thank you thank you very much so here in our group to summarize i think we we also agreed that here action led a community led action is also a way to empower the community so the community can better implement action minimize a risk and improve the outcome this is also about sustainable solutions this is how you can develop long-term actions so that when the international partner leaves then the solution that was implemented can remain that's it for our group here in the plenary session thank you very much and now we are going to thank everyone for this active participation it was a very active workshop and before giving the floor here to Samuel Chang for the final comments i would like to congratulate all the speakers today thank you for sharing all these examples of this work with the communities thank you very much for all your contributions i would like to thank the interpreters as well thank you so much for your contribution to this session and thank you everyone thank you to the organizers and thank you for debating with us this important topic thank you also to all those working in the background to organize such a great and dynamic session congratulations everyone and Samuel you have the floor thank you very much thank you Alon and let me thank you for your brilliant moderation of this extremely important event i'm going to echo Amina from her her group which was clear that there's consensus from the protection community that this is a priority for us going forward i was so impressed first at our organizers oxham nrc and gad hop for convening this event and and really for the remarkable interventions from around the world we were able here to hear from columbia drc somalia ukraine and even more uh in a convincing and and and exciting display of what the protection community is doing in humanitarian emergencies around the world particularly on this issue of community led protection even self-protection to advance prevention and proactive protection you know our objective in protection in humanitarian emergencies is always to prevent or reduce harm to civilians and support the realization of their rights and in that our focus naturally begins with the duties of states of parties to conflict of authorities from local to national levels to protect people but our standard paradigm often focuses a lot on external actors who provide the support they assist the affected communities and and whereas the capacities of communities themselves as often as we've heard uh less understood or less visible um it's our focus on external actors who respond to immediate needs who strengthen coping capacities and mechanisms they strengthen resilience they spotlight violations etc but keeping community capacities as just in their role as merely under the umbrella of targets whose resilience needs to be built or coping mechanisms to be strengthened really sells short and does not recognize the extent of how they can actively contribute to their own protection and so that's the challenge i think before us today can community led protection appear not just as a footnote but as the spearhead of funding and response plans across the humanitarian sector can theories of change start with the absolutely vital role of communities in achieving protection outcomes for those faced with crisis over the past number of years this paradigm is shifting uh we're increasingly recognizing the participation leadership of communities even in the most complex crisis around the world and as a protection community we are committed to this course uh it's clear that community led approaches offer a pathway for advancing prevention and responsive protection risks by what by giving control of decisions and resources to community groups as agents of their own protection this is a course based on the recognition that community-based protection actors well they're the ones with the contextual knowledge the relationships of trust with parties to conflict and community leaders whether they be chiefs in uh village chiefs in the DRC to muktars and other leaders around the world uh it's also based on communities having the proximity and access needed to support the protection of people in the most difficult uh operating environments one of the challenges before us here is to take that a step forward knowing community led actions can contribute to achieving protection outcomes how can we apply this across the range of protection outcomes and across the spectrum of responses from emergencies to longer term recovery from not just participating in and shaping program delivery but actually in prevention and proactive protection this is a joint endeavor as a humanitarian community we're striving to shift our focus more on preventing what is happening and thereby being proactive not waiting for harm that's preventable to occur before taking action uh and to quote sarah broad from sida in our opening remarks uh how do we focus on people being protected and not just on the number of people reached by services well we also know community and local actors can't and shouldn't have to do it alone and so the question is for us as a broader sector including international protection actors and allies how do we support this shift is it through greater risk management and risk sharing uh is it in finding ways to amplify and accelerate these impacts uh how do we ensure the needed funding and resources and how can we work together in real partnership to further enable this type of local leadership this community leadership in proactive and preventive protection and once again in the theme of this forum in the hour of people's need the global protection cluster and its network of international and national partners which includes the newly established task team on community led protection offers an opportunity to support greater visibility and investment uh deeper learning stronger practices related to this vital area which is community led protection efforts as an enabler of proactive protection I can say as the global protection cluster we as a community we all of our stakeholders are committed to promoting and supporting the critical role of affected people in communities in advancing their own protection protection is not an activity done for or on behalf of those affected by crisis it is done by affected populations and our job is obviously to further enable support and compliment this so once again thank you so much all of you who joined in particular thanks to the organizers and and along your brilliant role in moderating uh to Lena from Columbia Yolan from DRC Amina from Somalia Teziana and all of those who were able to join us it's so clear our we as a protection community are united and in consensus and in order to advance these types of community led protection approaches for proactive protection and prevention around the world so thank you so much and we look forward to advancing these efforts together