Shelter community of practice meets in Geneva

Each October in Geneva there is a gathering of the shelter community of practice. The Global Shelter Cluster invites cluster coordinators and shelter practitioners to come and discuss ongoing shelter operations and what we can learn from them, as well as to continue to discuss and develop strategy and policy on shelter after natural disaster and conflict. In the same week, Shelter Centre hosts a meeting to reflect on current issues for the sector, focused on international NGOs and research centres.

Charles leads a break out discussion on evidence at Shelter Centre meeting

Charles Parrack from CENDEP attended the Global Shelter Cluster meetings as part of Global Shelter Cluster working groups on Shelter Projects, State of Humanitarian Shelter and Settlements, and Promoting Safer Building, as well as the Environment Community of Practice. He also presented CENDEP research on safer self recovery at the Shelter Centre meeting.

One of the most important items to be discussed by the community of practice was the upcoming Sphere Project revisions. It is a great opportunity for the operational agencies to contribute to writing standards for shelter which, due to the adoption of Sphere by so many in the humanitarian system, will influence shelter practice globally.

The Shelter Projects working group has recently overseen publication of the latest volume of Shelter Projects, a compilation of shelter case studies that is becoming a very useful piece of the evidence needed to inform policy and practice. Charles has been influential in this project by working with the operational agencies to raise the quality of the evidence by introducing peer review and methodological rigour.

The State of Humanitarian Shelter and Settlements is an initiative of the Global Shelter Cluster to provide more detailed information and analysis on current shelter practice. It is at the start of the process currently.

Promoting Safer Building is a new working group focused on making sure that effective build back safer messages are identified swiftly for adoption by operational shelter clusters.

At the Shelter Centre meeting Charles presented CENDEP research on the scarcity of good evidence on safety in self recovery shelter programmes. He called for the community of practice to develop better evidence gathering practice, and to co-produce this research along with academic partners. He stated that research will not be successful unless both partners are involved. The practitioners have the depth of contextual knowledge, access and relationships with stakeholders, but time and capacity for research is scarce. Academics can ensure methodological rigour and analytical consistency.