Introduction
Security risk management (SRM) usually works best when decision making authority sits as close as possible to the context where risks actually occur. For national NGOs operating in dynamic and often high-risk environments, clear, context-driven security decision-making structures are essential.
GISF, alongside Humanitarian Outcomes, has designed a decision-making tool to support national NGOs in clarifying, strengthening, and communicating their internal security decision processes. The tool is designed to help national NGOs define roles and responsibilities related to security decisions and ensure that staff clearly understand who holds decision-making authority in different circumstances.
What this tool is designed for
This tool is designed to support national NGOs in the following ways:
- To clearly document and communicate your organisation’s security decision-making structures
- To share your security decision processes and structures with trusted partners, where appropriate
- To support onboarding and training of new staff on security-related decision-making procedures
- To provide staff with a practical reference to identify the appropriate decision maker in specific scenarios
- To facilitate internal dialogue about participation, accountability, and authority in security decision processes
How this tool is structured
Step 1 of the the tool invites your organisation to provide information regarding its decision-making structure and key roles related to security risk management.
Step 2 presents the decision-making matrix itself, where different example scenarios (or custom scenarios) can be assigned different members of staff. For each scenario, you will identify:
- Who makes a decision
- Who supports the decision
- Who is consulted throughout
- Who is the alternate decision maker
- Who should be informed
- Who completes the reporting process
The tool then uses this matrix to create an easy-to-consult chart in Section B. Staff can use this to determine who is responsible for making a particular decision.
The tool also contains space for an internal directory for staff responsible for SRM, alongside space to signpost SRM resources.
Disclaimer
This tool is for internal use only and once completed with employee names should be stored securely and only shared with staff or trusted partners. This excel uses autopopulate features, changing the structure of tables in any part will impact its functionality. Organisations are encouraged to only edit what text is identified as editable.