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REMOTE FACILITATION IN THE AGE OF COVID-19
COVID-19 has triggered a surge in online communication, with remote working and remote management becoming the new norm for most industries and businesses. Platforms like Zoom have exploded in popularity: the number of daily active Zoom users jumped from 10 million to over 200 million between the end of December 2019 to March 2020.
Critical social sectors, like the aid and development sector, have joined the new trend. Movements of climate change and localisation of aid have been calling for less international travel and greater emphasis on local organisations’ leadership in emergency and development contexts in recent years, but the ban on international travel has forced a radical shift, pushing international staff to return home and reducing international access to emergency settings, as in the Pacific after Tropical Cyclone Harold in April 2020.
Humanitarian practitioners have adapted to this new reality, using technology more than ever to communicate, collect and use information in order to design, manage and evaluate aid projects. Workshops, consultations, group discussions, team meetings, brainstorming sessions and other formal and less formal facilitated discussions are now happening online, raising questions of security, access to new technologies, and the practicalities and effectiveness of remote facilitation compared to face-to-face facilitation in various contexts.
Why this guidance note?
This note is intended to guide international and national operational actors on how to adapt and think about remote facilitation in the context of, and after, COVID-19. It provides a snapshot of key takeaways from existing research, and draws together emerging learning and guidance.2 Humanitarian Advisory Group (HAG) and Caritas Australia collaborated on this note, drawing on our experience in jointly facilitating and participating in a four-day online event as part of Caritas’ international program strategic development in April 2020.
The note contributes to a guidance series on remote working produced as part of the Humanitarian Horizons research program.