ALNAP Webinar: Are humanitarians paying enough attention to learning on the frontline?

Thursday 8 December 2022 | 9:00–10:15 GMT

Frontline humanitarians learn every day. Whether it is through interacting with communities or when solving problems as they implement a project. Yet humanitarian organisations are typically not set up to optimise the benefits of that learning by sharing it with other frontline colleagues or feeding it into organisational decision making and programme design. It is often the case that as staff move between organisations or leave the sector, this learning disappears and must be re-learned by someone else – which is a loss not only felt by the organisation but also the crisis-affected communities it serves.

As part of our 25th Anniversary Spotlight on Learning series, ALNAP has been working with frontline staff and their managers from local and international organisations to better understand the benefits and challenges around frontline learning. We have designed, trialled and refined two new practical resource packs which we will share with you: Sharing Tacit Knowledge for Humanitarians and Action Learning for Frontline Humanitarians. Our learning from the pilots is captured in the paper Learning Where it Matters.

Join us and our implementing colleagues to discuss what we have learned about supporting and sharing frontline learning and tacit knowledge, and the challenges and opportunities these present for improving humanitarian action. You will hear from staff based in different regions of the world and senior leaders from local NGOs about their experiences in this project and the broader importance of frontline learning to their humanitarian work.

Panel:

• Jennifer Doherty (Chair) – Research Fellow (ALNAP)
• Amélie Cardon – Deputy Director of Operations for Programmes (Solidarités International)
• Sali Hafez – Research Associate (The Research People)
• Mohamed Haibe – MEAL Coordinator (OXFAM Somalia)
• Md. Mujibul Haque Munir – Joint Director-Social Development & Communication (COAST Foundation)