Coordinating in Crisis: Driving improved humanitarian emergency response through NGO Collaboration | GISF at HNPW

GISF’s Executive Director, Jon Novakovic, will join this session as a panellist. The session is organised by ICVA as part of Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Weeks (HNPW). Join us in-person in Geneva or online!

As the world faces an increasing number of complex and concurrent emergencies, the need for more agile, adaptive, and effective humanitarian coordination has never been greater. Recent evaluations of large-scale humanitarian responses highlight recurring challenges within the global system, including slow adaptation to rapidly evolving emergencies, gaps in coordination between international and local actors, and the inadequate prioritisation of surge capacities. These lessons have underscored the importance of enhancing both local and global emergency response capabilities to address the growing demands of crises exacerbated by conflict, disease, displacement, and climate change.

This session will introduce a new, collaborative model for emergency response coordination led by NGOs, built on key findings from recent humanitarian evaluations and inter-agency reviews lessons learned and on lessons learned from major emergencies in Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Türkiye, Palestine, and Sudan.

The proposed model aims to strengthen the role of NGOs in emergency coordination, ensuring that local, national, and international NGOs can better leverage their comparative advantages to respond to crises in a more nuanced, agile, and context-specific manner. By showcasing practical examples of surge support, local actor collaboration, and adaptive coordination, the session will highlight how NGOs can collectively address key gaps in the system and implement more inclusive and flexible coordination mechanisms.

Focus will be placed on the need for more context-specific, flexible, and collaborative emergency coordination systems, particularly in politically sensitive and contested environments. Discussions will highlight the challenges of balancing long-term humanitarian efforts with the urgency of acute emergency response, the importance of supporting local first responders, and the critical role of surge support in catalysing rapid and effective responses.

Drawing on a series of case studies and practical examples, the session will present actionable recommendations to improve emergency coordination, including the need for a nuanced approach to surge deployment, better integration of local actors, more effective cross-agency collaboration and investment in dedicated staffing and expertise to manage surge capabilities.

The session aims to foster a shared vision among NGO actors across the humanitarian system and to encourage them to engage with these actionable recommendations, adopt and champion this model of emergency response coordination that aims to be collaborative, inclusive and nuanced.

How to register

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If you have any questions about GISF’s sessions, registration or HNPW, please reach out to Alyssa Thurston (alyssa@gisf.ngo).