Attachments
Sub-national coordination
Why address sub-national coordination?
In the Cluster-based humanitarian coordination system, coordination occurs at different geographical levels – at the national level in the country where the Cluster response occurs, and at the subnational level closer to humanitarian operations in various field locations. Evaluations and research have consistently identified sub-national coordination as an area in need of significant improvement (Krueger et al., 2016; Knox Clarke and Campbell, 2015; STAIT, 2015; Polastro et al., 2011b; Diagne and Solberg, 2008; Stoddard et al., 2007; Wright et al., 2007; Young et al., 2007; De Silva et al., 2006).
ALNAP’s work on coordination (Knox Clarke and Campbell, 2015; Campbell, 2015) has identified sub-national coordination as a critical gap in the coordination architecture. At present, sub-national coordination is inconsistent, under-resourced and disconnected from strategic coordination processes in most humanitarian responses. A great deal of the difficulty relates to the many different approaches to sub-national coordination currently used in different response contexts. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is currently mapping out what sub-national coordination structures exist in each country where Clusters are active, which will be a helpful first step in understanding the issue of coordination.
The IASC Cluster Reference Module (IASC, 2015) – the central guidance document for Cluster coordination – recognises the importance of context-appropriate sub-national coordination, suggests a list of activities appropriate for sub-national clusters, and refers to the support and direction given to these sub-national clusters by national clusters. However, it does not outline how roles and responsibilities are to be divided, what the structure of sub-national coordination mechanisms should look like, or how national and sub-national coordination processes should communicate.