VEHA
Guidance
Guidance
Virtual Environmental and Humanitarian Adviser Tool – (VEHA Tool) is a tool
to easily integrate environmental considerations in humanitarian response. Field Implementation guidances are useful for the design and execution of humanitarian activities in the field.
Accountability to communities is fundamental to the Core Humanitarian Standards (CHS) and for gathering important feedback on whether shelter activities are making people more or less environmentally resilient. Accountability mechanisms can help to understand and respond to community concerns regarding natural resources, environmental fragilities, and hazards. Feedback can be used to change or strengthen the environmental sustainability of shelter activities. Feedback can also be used to inform the content of IEC resources on developing more environmentally sustainable shelter and settlement responses.
Involving and being accountable to the affected communities by following inclusive, participatory, and accountable procedures is also standard good practice in information management at the response or local level. This includes careful data protection based on principles of confidentiality, privacy, and security and at all times ensures the protection of the displaced population.
Members of the humanitarian response should be trained by gender, protection, and GBV specialists so that everyone knows their role and good practices.
Training should ensure that team members understand appropriate ways to engage with communities, possible sensitivities they might face, and how to respond to them. This also allows for practical awareness and effective communication with disabled persons.
Air pollution
Soil pollution
Water pollution
Deforestation
Desertification
Eutrophication
Climate Change
Loss of biodiversity and ecosystems
Natural Resource Depletion
Soil erosion
Noise pollution
Visual Intrusion
Increased intensity of storms/hurricanes
Increased drought/flood
Community accountability and engagement improve understanding of environmental vulnerabilities, hazards, risks, impacts, and dependencies. This includes:
1. Understanding shelter requirements and potential environmental impacts or vulnerabilities
2. Understanding what resources people are using for shelter
3. Assessing what environmental resources are available and being used and any potential conflict over resources
4. Understanding community environmental dependencies and fragilities
5. Learning about environmental coping strategies and recovery strategies
6. Understanding existing sources and causes of pollution and pollution causing behaviors
7. Obtaining feedback about the impacts of shelter activities on the environment
8. Feedback about environmental hazards and risks
9. Feedback about the changing impacts of climate change.
Accountability to communities and engagement using a range of communication channels creates many opportunities to understand environmental vulnerabilities, hazards, risks, and impact and to use this information to strengthen the environmental sustainability of shelter activities and also strengthen the ways in which communities engage with and protect the environment upon which they depend. This includes:
1. Understanding people’s shelter requirements during a crisis and collating information on how this may impact or be vulnerable to the environment
2. Understanding what the resources people are using for shelter: shelter repair, temporary shelters, new build, resources for host families; spontaneous camps taking over the public, private or disused buildings or sites
3. Assessing what environmental resources are available and being used (firewood, water, plants, animals,) and identify any potential resource-scarcity conflicts
4. Understanding community environmental dependencies and fragilities at different shelter locations and surrounding areas
5. Learning about community environmental coping strategies and recovery strategies, such as unsustainable use of natural resources
6. Understanding existing sources and causes of pollution and pollution causing behaviors/social norms
7. Obtaining feedback about the impacts of shelter activities on the environment. Continued local community engagement should contribute to the overall success of recovery and reconstruction efforts
8. Feedback about environmental hazards and risks communities are facing
9. Feedback about the changing impacts of climate change.
Accountability and community engagement mechanisms should be designed to include environment, including:
1. Consultation on shelter needs and information on how they may impact or be vulnerable to the environment. Ensure that chosen communication channels are widely accessible by different groups of the community
2. Consultation on resources being used for shelter so that these can be addressed in shelter activities. Educate people on alternative more sustainable materials or improved shelter designs
3. Assess what environmental resources are available for use. Use this to anticipate resource-scarcity conflicts
4. Community consultation on environmental dependencies and fragilities at different shelter locations and surrounding areas, identifying potential support
5. Consultation on community environmental coping strategies, traditional knowledge, and recovery strategies
6. Consultation on sources and causes of pollution and pollution causing behaviors / social norms. Using these to inform the design of awareness campaigns and behavior change practices where appropriate
7. Accountability regarding the impacts of shelter activities on the environment
8. Feedback from and accountability to communities regarding environmental hazards and risks and responses
9. Feedback about the changing impacts of climate change such as increased temperature extremes, rainfall intensity, or storm intensity.
Accountability and community engagement mechanisms should be designed to include environment, including:
1. Assess people’s shelter needs during a crisis and collate information on how this may impact or be vulnerable to the environment so that this information can be used to strengthen the environmental sustainably of shelter design and ensure shelters are resilient to environmental hazards.
Ensure that chosen communication channels are widely accessible by different groups of the community; for example, should radio be the chosen method, ensure every household has a radio, or develop a camp-wide mechanism so that radio towers can be heard. This will directly impact your resource management and mobilization activities, as a certain choice of communication channel will imply buying more radios, printing more papers and pamphlets, etc.
2. Understand the resources people are using for shelter: shelter repair, temporary shelters, new build, resources for host families; spontaneous camps taking over the public, private or disused buildings or sites so that these can be addressed in the design of shelter humanitarian assistance activities. Educate people on alternative more sustainable materials or improved shelter designs
3. Assess what environmental resources are available for use (firewood, water, plants, animals,) to understand whether this use can be sustainable or alternative sources should be sought. This should also allow your organization to anticipate resource-scarcity conflicts, propose mitigation and prevention strategies and optimize the resources available, both human and environmental
4. Understand community environmental dependencies and fragilities at different shelter locations and surrounding areas, this may include cultural and heritage uses for land; agricultural use; use for supplementary food or herbal medicines. Communities can then be supported appropriately such as negotiating land tenure agreements; establishing agreed sustainable conservation practices; protecting vulnerable areas
5. Learn about community environmental coping strategies and recovery strategies, such as dependencies on vulnerable flora or fauna, such as the capture and sale of endangered species, dependencies on cutting timber or abstracting other resources to supplement household income.
6. Understand existing sources and causes of pollution and pollution causing behaviors / social norms such as waste piling and burning, open defecation, slash and burn land clearance. Some practical and behavioral factors may be difficult to address through communication and may require more experiential learning, such that which may occur in a workshop or training where participants get to practice a construction technique and receive feedback. Preferences for and access to communication channels may also be different by ethnicity, socio-economic status, geographical differences, and gender.
Develop training and workshops for the agency’s staff and the local community on the environmental risks and impacts identified to orient daily behavior regarding soil preservation, water consumption, energy-saving benefits, etc.
7. Obtain feedback about the impacts of shelter activities on the environment, such as cutting off drainage channels, depleting natural resources, causing flooding or fire risk, or lack of cultural acceptance.
Establish a schedule for in-place group activities and choose environmental themes to be discussed in some of these activities. While some environmental impacts may not have been estimated on the onset of the response, they can be developed and such conversation circles can act as a feedback mechanism;
8. Feedback about environmental hazards and risks communities are facing such as landslides, floods, droughts, disease spread, crop pests, and diseases. Develop community-led projects to address priority environmental risks, which complement the shelter and settlement response
9. Feedback about the changing impacts of climate change such as increased temperature extremes, rainfall intensity, or storm intensity.
Between 2017-2018, the NFI-Shelter Cluster carried out a project in Bentiu IDP camps, in South Sudan aimed at improving the living conditions in the site
through the use of community-made, fuel-efficient stoves, resulting in better fuel collection and meal preparation practices. The project focused on increasing the resilience and capacities of the affected populations by using a cash-based modality.
This project was recognized for significant community engagement, and in particular, the role of women as key drivers of its success.
All information was communicated through the radio, community leadership, block leaders, door-to-door visits, posters, and general meetings. Although the selected stove design was already familiar to the affected population, a community-led communication campaign was undertaken to further highlight the associated health and fuel-efficiency gains.
As part of the monitoring and evaluation of the project, a complaints response mechanism was set up at the outset of the project. Information on criteria to qualify for a cash grant after completion of the stove was disseminated through block leaders and construction assistants.
The managing agency trained 10 construction assistants in each block of the camp, of which 98% were women. After this training, the construction assistants were able to provide support, repair, or even build the stove. This represented a potential source of livelihood for the future.
Wider impact: By adopting a community-led approach, the project sought to strengthen resilience and self-sufficiency, engaging in partnership with local leaders and entrepreneurs, as well as other stakeholders such as women and youth.
SOUTH SUDAN 2017–2018 / CONFLICT
A.7 / SOUTH SUDAN 2017–2018 / CONFLICT (IDP)
From: http://shelterprojects.org/shelterprojects2017-2018/ShelterProjects_2017-2018_lowres_web.pdf
% of local communities participation in in-place training and workshops;
# of sector activities led by affected communities
# of tensions/conflicts and disruptions resulting from sector activities being identified and solved during the project life.
Mitigation of environmental damage;
Environmental enhancement.
Communications channels and constant flow of information between humanitarian respondents and local communities;
In-place technical workshops and training, to booster community engagement;
Information exchange sessions;
Humanitarian capacity to assess best methods of community engagement, identify obstacles to the general surveying of the affected population;
Basic resources as far as information dissemination are concerned;
Establishment of a feedback cycle and mechanism to monitor response success throughout its lifecycle.