The effectiveness of any cluster depends on the quality of leadership provided as well as CLAs and the Cluster Coordinator’s ability to generate a spirit of partnership with cluster participants. When disaster strikes, empowered and accountable leadership is a prerequisite to an effective humanitarian response.
However, sharing the leadership of the FSC with national government agencies, NGOs and other humanitarian actors improves the overall response. It does so by strengthening: 1) partnership; 2) advocacy; 3) information sharing, 4) engagement, and 5) coordination.
Governmental Representatives
The overarching aim of FSC coordination is to support the national authority to respond to an emergency. Cluster coordination is therefore more effective if the government is in the driving seat and so, where the context allows, the national authorities should be approached to lead/chair or co-lead/co-chair the FSC.
Based on the willingness of the national authority to participate, there are several possible approaches, for example:
- Co-leadership with the CLA (full co-lead or co-chair arrangement): a national authority counterpart is willing to lead or co-chair cluster meetings and actively direct the work of humanitarian partners in any one cluster (e.g. in Bangladesh, the cluster system is included in a policy document which stipulates that the cluster must be chaired by a ministry or technical department and, in Lebanon, the Food Security and Agriculture Sector is led by the national authorities. See also the example of the Philippines under 3.3.1 above).
- Remote co-chair (deputising the CLA to act on its behalf in leading the cluster coordination structure for food security): a national authority counterpart is willing to coordinate but delegates the authority to do so to the CLA. The national authority co-chair is then presented with decision-making opportunities at regular intervals throughout the response (this is the most common arrangement in practice) (e.g. FSC Mozambique for the response to the TC Kenneth in 2019, FSC Burkina Faso and FSC Niger)
- The national authority is unwilling or unable to co-lead or co-chair for a variety of reasons and is instead informed of progress by the cluster (e.g. FSC Myanmar).
Governmental authorities are an important added value to the work of the FSC. They ensure continuity in coordination and ownership of activities that will continue after the end of the humanitarian operation and the deactivation of clusters.
Working with Government Counterparts: Depending on the level of engagement of the government co-lead, the Coordinator would liaise with the government counterpart. The approach (roles and responsibilities) should be agreed at the outset and reflected in a TOR or Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). See 3.3.1.
Specifically, when co-leading a cluster with a government counterpart, the Coordinator should:
- Suggest the division of roles and responsibilities (reflect in TORs or MOUs) and offer support to the counterpart on their areas.
- Jointly prepare for cluster meetings (or other relevant coordination meetings, e.g. SAG or TWG). with the government counterpart with prior discussions and briefing on the technical issues.
- Work with and engage national counterpart on an on-going basis. If necessary: sensitize them on food security tools, good practices, humanitarian food security needs and response.
- Ensure that authorities at the operational level (e.g. sub-national authorities, municipalities) also are engaged as relevant.
- Request the government co-lead to provide technical inputs at the meetings. This can help keep focus on operational rather than political issues and may also prompt the government counterpart to strengthen their capacity and identify areas where the FSC can offer support. This would help the Coordinator with the development of a ‘capacity building strategy’ (see 3.3.1 and 3.7).
Examples: The government through its ministries or departments (ministry of agriculture, ministry of disaster management etc.) can lead the FSC. See examples included above.
Guidance: See Good Practices and Tips from the Field on Working with National and Local Actors (GCCG, 2017). See Framework for Engagement between Local Governments and Humanitarian Actors (IASC, Placeholder, expected 2023).
Non-Governmental Representatives
An NGO ‘co-facilitator’ can help the cluster coordination not only by sharing the workload but also facilitating the NGOs’ engagement. This practice is strongly encouraged (and especially for national NGOs) as it helps to enhance the participation and visibility of NGO partners in the cluster.
Shared leadership is particularly effective in remote field locations with a limited or non- existent UN presence. In such instances, NGOs with a strong and consistent presence are well-positioned to provide a leadership role in coordination. In addition to access, NGO cluster leadership can offer technical expertise, different approaches on accountability to affected people and promote or strengthen community involvement.
There can be different arrangements for delegating tasks to the co-facilitator. Sharing leadership requires actors to clearly define roles and responsibilities. It is therefore important to establish clear TORs. While the NGO co-facilitator is considered as a full member of the FSC coordination team, it is important to keep in mind that he/she does not report directly to the two CLAs and cannot be held accountable for the general performance of the cluster.
Specific responsibilities: The NGO co-facilitator will generally support the implementation of the six core functions of the FSC (focusing on similar areas as the FSC Coordinator, see 3.5.1 and 3.5.2). Specific areas of responsibility for the NGO co-facilitator could be identified and reflected in the TOR (for reference, see the generic TORs for FSC Co-facilitators). Often, this role functions as link with national and international NGOs as well as NGO Consortia and national civil societies, establishing regular coordination with NGO mechanisms and ensuring NGO concerns and priorities are given adequate space within the FSC.
- TORs or MOUs should be developed, to ensure that parties have a common understanding of roles, responsibilities and accountabilities.
- It is a good practice that the co-chair/co-facilitation arrangement is discussed with all actors and NGOs elected by FSC members for a limited time (usually 12 months) to keep the position on a rotational basis.
- The actors involved should jointly determine which shared leadership model works best for their context. The TOR should be discussed, completed and understood in advance, since organizations that take on a shared leadership role will need to dedicate resources to this function (i.e. for example, full or part-time staff).
More specifically, the Coordinator should: ensure the NGO co-facilitator has space to work/make decisions. Shared responsibilities should be clear and should recognise the NGO’s comparative advantage to co-lead the cluster. See more details in the generic TORs for FSC Co-facilitators.
Examples: See also an example from South Sudan (2018), where the cluster, in line with Grand Bargain localisation commitments, have included local representation in leadership. See also the Co-facilitator TOR examples from Papua New Guinea, Cameroon, CAR and Mali on the FSC website.
Guidance:
- IASC Guidance: Strengthening Participation, Representation and Leadership of Local and National Actors in IASC Humanitarian Coordination Mechanism (2021).
- Guidance Note on the Participation of Local Actors in Humanitarian Coordination Groups from the Grand Bargain Localisation Workstream (2020).
- Good Practices and Tips from the Field on Working with National and Local Actors (GCCG, 2017).