Join the H2H Network at HNPW 2024

29 Apr, 9:30-11:00 CEST

As global crises continue to happen - in many cases sporadically due to the climate crisis, the Humanitarian Leadership Academy leaning on our experience of supporting over 700,000 humanitarians globally will examine the changing nature of global crises, the current humanitarian landscape and why radical new thinking is important.

We will share lessons from our regional training strategy and our coaching and mentoring platform to explore - how we can get better youth engagement, what new funding models and localised responses are required, and why the next generation of humanitarian leaders can make a difference.

Member: Humanitarian Leadership Academy

29 Apr 24 15:00-16:00

Humanitarian actors operate in insecure environments, such as conflict zones, which increases their exposure to violence. Over the last 5 years, 623 humanitarian workers were killed, 937 injured and 661 kidnapped globally, the vast majority of whom were national staff.

As a response to this, Protect Aid Workers is a new initiative that supports humanitarian workers of national and international NGOs that have experienced a critical incident or are under threat due to their work as a humanitarian. Protection grants can be provided to humanitarian NGOs to cover the cost of protection measures and post-incident support to affected staff. The ultimate aim is to protect staff from further harm, support their recovery and improve their immediate and long term well-being. The pilot phase of the program is being implemented in Middle-East & North Africa.

The session will aim at presenting the situations covered by the mechanism, the selection criteria, the grant application process and the partnership specificities.

Member: GISF

30 Apr, 9:00 -10:30 UTC

As global crises continue to happen - in many cases sporadically due to the climate crisis, the Humanitarian Leadership Academy leaning on our experience of supporting over 700,000 humanitarians globally will examine the changing nature of global crises, the current humanitarian landscape and why radical new thinking is important.

We will share lessons from our regional training strategy and our coaching and mentoring platform to explore - how we can get better youth engagement, what new funding models and localised responses are required, and why the next generation of humanitarian leaders can make a difference.

Member: Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation (CCHN)

30 Apr 13:00-14:00 CEST

In this session titled 'Optimizing Information Management for Humanitarian Response in Yemen: iMMAP's Field Operations Insights,' we will delve into how iMMAP Inc.'s innovative information management strategies are transforming humanitarian aid in Yemen. With a focus on the unique challenges faced in the region, the presentation by iMMAP Inc. will showcase the development and implementation of advanced information systems. These systems are critical for enhancing coordination, decision-making, and effectiveness of aid distribution amidst the complex humanitarian crisis. Attendees will gain insights into the practical applications and impact of these systems, learning from iMMAP Inc.''s extensive field experience in Yemen. This session promises to provide valuable lessons for information management in humanitarian contexts worldwide.

Member: iMMAP Inc.

2 May, 11:00-12:30 CEST

One under-explored facet of the rise of PSCs is their impact on humanitarian action and the delivery of humanitarian aid. This panel will ask and attempt to answer a number of key questions relating to the use of PSCs in humanitarian settings, including:

How do PSCs impact the humanitarian situation of populations in crisis zones? With humanitarian organisations now widely contracting private security actors to secure their staff, assets and operations, how does this recent evolution blur the perception of humanitarian organisations as neutral actors but also create risks for the people they assist? How do humanitarian actors negotiate with PSCs for acceptance and access and how should they go about this? How should humanitarian organisations be selecting and vetting their security providers and what do are they typically doing this in practice? What are the key risks for humanitarian organisations when contracting security providers and how can these be mitigated?

Member: GISF

2 May, 16:00-17:30 CEST

In crises, accurate information is vital for people to stay safe, connect with loved ones and decide on the way forward. It is also crucial to organise a locally relevant response, involve communities and hold humanitarian agencies to account. But access to information, sharing data, navigating multiple channels and platforms, critically evaluating information, including mis- and disinformation, the messengers and their sources - it makes the information ecosystem a complicated environment to navigate for people affected by crisis and humanitarian responders alike. When these efforts are conducted with a relationship-based, community-centered approach they open opportunities for strengthening social cohesion and inter-communal dialogue, as well as increased transparency and accountability for humanitarian actors.

The Internews information-related Protection Framework links up with the Protection Analytical Framework to ensure that humanitarian responders and local actors can all share locally relevant and reliable information and allow for safe participation and communication.

Member: Internews

2 May, 14:00-15:30 CEST

In a crisis, digital services offer vital information, communication, protection, and community - as long as they’re designed for the people who need to use them. Yet despite innovations in connectivity, service provision and language technology like large language modeling, only a fraction of the world’s 7,000 languages are meaningfully online. For the billions already locked out, the gap is only widening. Organizations need to understand both the challenges and opportunities of using language technology to expand access to services to advance meaningful inclusion, especially for marginalized language speakers. This session explores the state of digital language inclusion in humanitarian action and how the sector can work together to confront issues around effective user-centered design, equity, and ethical data use to ensure technology works for everyone who needs - and wants - to use it.

Member: CLEAR Global

2 May, 16:00-17:30 CEST

In recent years, tens of millions of people have been affected by humanitarian crises in urban settings across the globe, including Marawi, Aleppo and Port-au-Prince. However, unique security risks can be a significant constraint on access to these populations. This session builds off a recent paper exploring this issue, ‘Good Practices, lessons learned, and the unique challenges affecting security risk management in urban humanitarian responses.’ The paper was published by the Global Interagency Security Forum in January 2024. This session will unpack some of the key contextual elements humanitarians encounter in urban settings and the security risk management (SRM) implications of these dynamics, such as high population density, diverse populations, the prevalence of urban violence and crime and intense political activity. It will also offer an opportunity to share ideas on new approaches to account for the ‘urbanisation’ trend, including the need to increase sector dialogue on urban SRM approaches, further support urban security collaboration, and adapt acceptance approaches meet the specific challenges.

Member: GISF

3 May,15:00-16:30 CEST

In a crisis, digital services offer vital information, communication, protection, and community - as long as they’re designed for the people who need to use them. Yet despite innovations in connectivity, service provision and language technology like large language modeling, only a fraction of the world’s 7,000 languages are meaningfully online. For the billions already locked out, the gap is only widening. Organizations need to understand both the challenges and opportunities of using language technology to expand access to services to advance meaningful inclusion, especially for marginalized language speakers. This session explores the state of digital language inclusion in humanitarian action and how the sector can work together to confront issues around effective user-centered design, equity, and ethical data use to ensure technology works for everyone who needs - and wants - to use it.

Member: Insecurity Insight

7 May, 9:00-10:30 CEST

In a landscape marked by complex emergencies and evolving challenges, effective Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is crucial, particularly in regions like Afghanistan. This session, titled 'Advancing Disaster Risk Reduction in Afghanistan: Insight into HSDC and RPDC Initiatives by iMMAP Inc.', aims to shed light on innovative approaches to DRR through the utilization of advanced information management tools. Join us to understand how pioneering initiatives by iMMAP Inc. are contributing to a more resilient and responsive humanitarian ecosystem in Afghanistan, setting a precedent for DRR efforts globally.

Member: iMMAP Inc.

7 May, 11:00-12:30 CEST

This panel brings together international organisations' leaders to explore the latest best practices in data protection and cybersecurity, shedding light on the evolving landscape of digital ethics. As we navigate the intricate balance between technological advancement and ethical responsibility, our speakers will share insights into the importance of robust cybersecurity and data protection measures, as well as the role they play in upholding the principle of 'do no harm' in the digital age.

This session will also build on the DRWG (Data Responsibility Working Group)'s previous week's remote session on "Data Responsibility in Practice: Examples of Impact in Humanitarian Operations".

Member: CartONG and CyberPeace Institute

7 May, 14:30-15:30 CEST

In Northeast Nigeria, where the humanitarian situation is complex and evolving, the ability to make informed decisions is crucial for effective response and recovery. 'Fostering Informed Decision-Making in Northeast Nigeria' is a collaborative initiative between iMMAP Inc. and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), focusing on the integration of critical operational datasets to enhance collaboration across various sectors. This initiative leverages iMMAP Inc.'s Spatial Decision Support Platform, a state-of-the-art tool designed to streamline data analysis and visualization for strategic decision-making. Attendees will gain valuable insights into the transformative role of unified operational datasets in shaping effective humanitarian response and sector-wide collaboration. The session will serve as an inspiration for similar data integration efforts globally, emphasizing the critical role of sophisticated data management tools like the Spatial Decision Support Platform in achieving impactful humanitarian and development work, as demonstrated by iMMAP Inc. and OCHA in Northeast Nigeria.

Member: iMMAP Inc.

7 May, 16:00-17:00 CEST

Localization of aid is a debated concept, and the evidence points out that progresses made up to now are far from the global objectives of the humanitarian & international development sector. In this session, we'll discuss how data management plays an important role for localization, whether it helps measure more accurately the challenges & progresses of local actors' actions, open new possibilities to transform relations between local and global actors, or allows to empower (or on the contrary control!) local actors on their agentivity and autonomy. We will also open the debate to the tough questions of power distribution, decolonization and reshaping the governance of our specific sector of data management for international projects. We will also present some examples of success stories. This session will finally be an opportunity to present and discuss the findings ad recommendations of CartONG's recent research about this question, and imagine possible collaborations and coalitions around it.

Member: CartONG

7 May, 16:00-17:00 CEST

Generative AI has been lately one of the turning points of Artificial Intelligence life cycle hype that can generate new content such as high-quality text, images, audio, simulations and others. Generative AI Models create an opportunity in humanitarian space for fast and efficient information retrieval in emergency responses and monitoring and predicting trends in humanitarian crises. In this technical session, we will explain the architecture behind GANNET, explore use cases together with professionals from international and local organisations, and how this generative-AI-based platform can support operational and strategic decision-making. We will introduce the demo of GANNET and receive feedback from the audience to continuously respond to humanitarian needs. The targeted audience will be organisations who are interested in exploring a practical implementation of generative AI in the humanitarian space and how to collaborate on the use of such AI tools both in local and international complex settings.

Member: Data Friendly Space

8 May, 9:00-10:30 CEST

Humanitarian organizations can’t deploy without data. Yet approaches to data often increase the visibility of those already included, and entrench the invisibility of those who aren’t - often a significant proportion of the affected population. Even when organizations recognize the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion at work, they don’t always have the practical tools and resources to act on it. Looking at challenges in operationalizing inclusion across programming, MEAL and advocacy, this session brings perspectives on various forms of marginalization to discuss how organizations can ask: what don’t we know, and who aren’t we seeing?

Member: CLEAR Global

8 May, 9:00-10:30 CEST

Climate change has become one of the main drivers of humanitarian needs worldwide. Informed decision-making, supported by scientific evidence and data, is essential for designing climate-sensitive humanitarian programmes, effectively allocating resources and prioritizing interventions. However, lack of data and the need for better collection and analysis of climate risk information, are mentioned among the main challenges humanitarian actors face in implementing the commitments of the Climate Charter. This is particularly true for Commitment 1: to enhance the response to growing humanitarian needs and support adaptation to climate and environmental crises. During the session, ACAPS will guide an interactive discussion around the climate change information and analysis gaps faced by humanitarian practitioners and decision-makers. The session aims to answer the following questions: What are the main information and data gaps that prevent humanitarian actors from implementing climate risk-informed programming? How can the gap between the scientific sector and the humanitarian sector be bridged when it comes to making climate analysis accessible? How can we ensure climate data and analysis becomes accessible to local actors?

Member: ACAPS

8 May, 11:00-12:30 CEST

Diaspora Emergency Action & Coordination (DEMAC) proposes to lead a panel focusing on diaspora response and adaptation to climate change-related hazards for enhanced coordination in risk disaster reduction, preparedness, anticipatory actions and humanitarian responses.

This session aims to foster a meaningful discussion among diaspora and humanitarian representatives, exploring potential synergies and identifying opportunities to support affected communities in effectively addressing the implications of climate change.

Member: DEMAC

8 May, 11:00-12:30 CEST

This 1.5-hour event is designed to depart from conventional panels and engage participants in intimate, direct conversations with frontline humanitarian negotiators. Through the innovative format of a Human Library, participants will have the unique opportunity to "borrow" human books — each a frontline negotiator with personal stories of challenges, strategies, and insights from some of the world's most complex crises. From navigating negotiations with armed groups to carving out humanitarian space in hard-to-reach areas, these live interactions will humanize the intricacies of negotiation, fostering a deeper understanding and connection beyond conventional panel discussions. This immersive experience is designed not only to bring the stories of these negotiators to life but also to facilitate a rich exchange of knowledge and ideas within the humanitarian community. By engaging directly with the negotiators, participants will gain actionable insights to enhance global humanitarian negotiation practices.

Member: Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation (CCHN)

8 May, 14:00-15:30 CEST

Hundreds of humanitarian aid workers each year fall victim to violent attacks, and as new and worsening armed conflicts fuel the need for ever larger humanitarian response efforts, the aid worker casualties continue to mount. Security risk management for humanitarian operations is a set of measures aimed at mitigating this risk as far as possible, to allow critical relief work to continue. A study released in January 2024 by GISF and Humanitarian Outcomes, assesses the current state of practice in humanitarian SRM, and whether it is fit for purpose in the changing landscape of humanitarian crises. Members of the research team and aid practitioners from current high-risk settings will come together for a panel discussion on the state of security risk management and where the sector can go from here. Following the panel discussion, audience breakout groups will weigh in on different humanitarian security topics.

Member: GISF

8 May, 14:30-15:30 CEST

Anticipatory action is vital in disaster risk management, enabling proactive measures based on predictive analysis to mitigate the impacts of forecasted hazards, thereby protecting vulnerable populations, enhancing preparedness, and building resilience against future crises. Comprehensive, rigorous and regular risk analysis is integral to ensure an effective anticipatory action. It forms the backbone of forecasting and early warning systems by identifying potential hazards and their likely impacts. This process, however, faces several significant challenges. The rigorous methodology required in risk analysis demands the processing and complex classification of vast amounts of diverse, constantly evolving data, making it a cumbersome and resource-intensive process. This complexity, coupled with the absence of a unified tool that ensures access to all the relevant and structured data necessary to inform risk analysis, often results in the exclusion of local organizations with limited capacity and data literacy from effective anticipatory action, despite their essential role on the ground.

Member: Data Friendly Space

8 May, 14:30-15:30 CEST

In the session 'Strategic Digital Innovations in Iraq's Health Sector,' attendees will explore the collaborative efforts of iMMAP Inc. and UNICEF in transforming Iraq's health sector. Focusing on the integration of Geographic Information System (GIS) technology, this partnership aims to modernize Iraq's health infrastructure, with a special emphasis on the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI). The session will discuss the challenges faced by the Iraqi health system due to prolonged humanitarian crises and how digital innovation is being leveraged to enhance access to immunization and other health services, particularly in vulnerable communities. Insights will be shared on the project's impact, lessons learned, and the potential for GIS technology in revolutionizing healthcare delivery in challenging environments

Member: iMMAP Inc.

8 May, 16:00-17:30 CEST

Anticipating and responding to rapid onset hazards has always represented a challenge for the humanitarian sector. Climate change is intensifying the frequency and intensity of some of these hazards, such as flooding, heatwaves, storms, and wildfires, it is enhancing the weather variability, and its triggers shifts in seasonal patterns. This enhances the weather unpredictability and limits the reliability of seasonal forecasts, challenging anticipatory analysis and action.

Through an expert panel of humanitarian decision makers and operational actors, the session will focus on what makes the difference in funding allocation and operational decision making and prioritization when it comes to rapid onset disasters and explore how rapid anticipatory analysis can support the process.

Member: ACAPS

9 May, 11:00-12:30 CEST

In this session, organized by MapAction, we will discuss the main challenges around data quality for emergency response, preparedness and anticipatory action. All phases of a data project will be covered, from data collection to visualization.

The target group includes all humanitarian partners that collect, process, store, publish or use data in their activities, whether or not they take data quality into account on their process.

Our panellists include ACAPS, Flowminder and other partners (final list to be confirmed), all of them organisations with expertise on data, we will discuss the challenges they each face and the strategies they have put in place to overcome them.

Member: MapAction, Flowminder

27 Apr (14:00-15:00) CEST

This session explores the realities of climate-affected communities, focusing on their information ecosystems and decision-making roles. It aims to empower communities in navigating climate impacts by bridging local and global perspectives. The session, based on a report, challenges the status quo by emphasizing the importance of local solutions in a global crisis, highlighting the value of small data, and emphasizing the need for validation of local perspectives within the broader climate conversation. Key findings of the report underscore the necessity for context-specific information, the persistence of mistrust in external actors, the demand for actionable information from diverse sources, the psychosocial effects of climate change, and the importance of local connections to power and resources. This session will call for action to advocate for inclusive climate communication channels that engage diverse actors, especially those within affected communities.

Member: Internews

9 May, 14:00-15:00 CEST

Since early 2023, ACAPS is working on the development of a new Software as a Service (SaaS) product. Solutions Platform for Humanitarian Information Analysis (SOPHIA in short) is a suite of software modules designed to help humanitarians navigate the complexities of daily data collection. With SOPHIA, ACAPS brings together the organisation’s many years of data collection experience and processes, materialising them into a standalone product. Through partnership with international software development company, SOPHIA incorporates design ideas and functionality choices that are successfully implemented in fintech, AI healthcare, education, and media tech sectors. This session will take you through the journey we embarked on when we started working on SOPHIA. We will briefly talk about:

• the product discovery and its initial design driven by the daily challenges our analysts face,
• SOPHIA’s impact and cultural change of data collection at ACAPS,
• our vision of SOPHIA roadmap for 2024–2025.

Member: ACAPS