Compassion in action: Responding to emergencies

Caritas responds to humanitarian crises with compassion and professionalism. The General Secretariat is responsible for processing appeals for financial support and facilitating the coordination of Member Organisations’ response.

Since 2007, improvements have been made to systems and procedures. The Emergencies Team has been strengthened. Better use is made of information technology, with the CI Emergency Guidelines and Toolkit available online.

Communication with members during emergencies is now faster and more streamlined, with greater emphasis on coordinated, synergistic collaboration rather than simple information sharing.

The Emergency Response Team has worked closely with Member Organisations to improve the design and documentation of Emergency Appeals, in accordance with the CI Emergency Toolkit. Detailed proposals and budgets are now submitted before appeals are launched. Full narrative, financial and external audit reports are required before appeals are closed.

The quality of Emergency Appeals has improved dramatically. Prior to the last General Assembly only 13–16 percent of Special Operations Appeals (SOAs) launched were properly reported on to the confederation and closed. This figure rose to 85 percent in 2008 and is now close to 95 percent.

Confidence is growing among Member Organisations in the ability of the General Secretariat to respond to emergency situations. The Emergencies Team is committed to a process of continuous review and improvement. A Humanitarian Advisory Council of senior humanitarian experts in the confederation was established in 2008 to assist in this process.

Recognising the complexity and diversity of the response of members of Caritas to emergencies, the General Secretariat has piloted several different models of coordinating members’efforts. Today we have a CI Coordination unit in Juba, a Caritas Coordinator in Pakistan, and a Caritas Coordination Committee in Haiti served by a secretariat, each of which is actively improving the coordination, coherence, synergy and profile of our work.

Caritas also participates with other leading humanitarian organisations in initiatives to improve international standards. The Secretary General is currently Vice-President of the Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response (SCHR), an alliance of nine major international humanitarian organisations and networks that is working to develop a strategy to shape the humanitarian relationships of the future and the Humanitarian Director sits with his counterparts on the SCHRWorking Group. As SCHR we have revolving seats on the Principal’s andWorking Groups of the UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee.

In 2009, CI took part in the SCHR peer review on accountability to beneficiaries, together with ACT (Action of Churches Together) and the IFRC (International Federation of the Red Cross), focusing on Indonesia and Ethiopia.

CI is also currently a board member of the Sphere Project, which sets minimum standards for disaster response. A new edition of the Sphere Handbook was published in 2011.