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.
Coordination is a critical component of any shelter and settlement response. The state of the environment has a direct impact on the welfare of communities affected by the crisis.
Environmental considerations thus need to be taken into account in almost all aspects of the Coordination of humanitarian response. Due to their inherent links with other sectors, environmental issues cannot be dealt with on their own, nor by a single sector, therefore, environmental guidelines dealing with specific sectors must be used in conjunction with those developed for other sectors.
Coordinated planning allows for the formulation of strategic objectives, what needs to be done to meet them, how much it will cost, and information sharing and collaboration on their delivery. This project plan can address environmental impacts concerning natural and manufactured resources, staff, transport, waste, pollution, access to basic services, and more. During this phase, environmental considerations should be integrated by ensuring they are well adapted to the context, well understood, and shared with the whole humanitarian community.
When planning an intervention, relevant stakeholders must be contacted in order to ensure a harmonized and needs-based response. Discussion points should generally include the team’s intentions, target beneficiaries, type of assistance being provided, and the timeframe for the intervention. Through this exercise, your organization should identify the environmental risks and begin to design mitigation and prevention strategies, taking into account its capacity and resources available.
In the planning phase of a shelter and settlement response, you or your organization might be one of many working together. Establishing committees based on a subject area of the response sector can help to ensure a high level of participation in the management to deliver aid to those who are most in need and share the environmental, financial, and resource burden. An effective committees system should provide access to local knowledge, facilitate the collection of accurate data for the provision of aid, foster community ownership, and empowerment, enable more efficient programme delivery, and ensure that programmes are tailored to local needs and circumstances.
Efficient coordination can also boost the protection against GBV, by identifying the priorities and most vulnerable areas, groups, and sectors of the response program.
Coordination is required to avoid duplication, resource and materials depletion, and unnecessary waste, but also to ensure consistency of response activities and attitudes.
Coordination with other sectors is also essential to ensure that the response meets a broader set of needs than just shelter.
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
Cultural acceptance
Impact on mental health
Lack of shelter coordination commonly leads to the following environmental impacts:
1. Poor site selection, exposing people to environmental hazards
2. Poor site selection leading to harm to flora, fauna and ecosystems and people’s health
3. Inconsistent materials sourcing, leading to natural resource depletion and pollution
4. Lack of aligned designs and specifications leading to waste and inefficiencies
5. Poor solid waste management, leading to pollution and disease spread
6. Poor site clearance, construction, infrastructure, services, operation, and maintenance leading to pollution
7. Missed opportunities to strengthen the local environment
8. Missed opportunities to strengthen communities
Lack of shelter coordination regarding environmental sensitivities, potential impacts, and sustainability, between different humanitarian actors, commonly leads to the following environmental impacts
1. Poor site selection, exposing people to environmental hazards such as drought, flood, landslide, disease spread
2. Poor site selection leading to harm to flora, fauna and ecosystems and people’s health, from damaging watercourses, destroying species, cutting trees, and pollution
3. Inconsistent approaches to materials sourcing, leading to significant natural resource depletion, unnecessary pollution, and encouraging illegal or damaging sourcing by suppliers
4. Lack of aligned designs and materials specifications leading to waste and inefficiencies between suppliers, contractors, responders, and communities
5. Lack of coherent connected solid waste management, leading to pollution, stockpiling, burning, air pollution, and disease spread
6. Inconsistent and poor site clearance, construction, infrastructure, services, operation, and maintenance leading to air, water, and soil pollution
7. Missed opportunities to strengthen the local environment against drought, flood, landslides
8. Missed opportunities to strengthen local communities through increasing the abundance of natural resources, reducing waste and pollution, increasing their knowledge and skills around the environment, and building alternative renewable energy, solid waste management, or other green economy livelihoods.
1a. Share information and good practice on environmental sustainability and site selection with the shelter cluster
1b. Involve environmental actors in coordination mechanisms
2a. Coordinating to ensure agencies undertake environmental impact assessments and share findings for different types of site
2b. Include environment as an agenda point in cluster meetings
3a. Develop joint sustainable plans for materials sourcing
4a. Aligned designs and materials specifications to reduce waste and inefficiencies
4b. Promote consortia between humanitarian and environmental agencies
5. Develop a sector solid waste management plan
6. Inconsistent and poor site clearance, construction, infrastructure, services, operation, and maintenance leading to air, water, and soil pollution
7. Assess and strengthen shelter, infrastructure, and the local environment against environmental hazards
8. Build community resilience through increasing natural resources, reducing waste and pollution, increasing their knowledge and skills
9. Advocate for the environment as a key criterion in country-based pooled funds
10. Ensure the integration of environment in every stage of the Humanitarian Programme Cycle and of the Humanitarian Response Plan
Shelter coordination regarding environmental sensitivities, potential impacts, and sustainability can be strengthened with some of the following activities:
1a. Engage with the shelter cluster and share information and action on environmental sustainability including good practice site selection; understanding environmental vulnerabilities and hazards
1b. Involve environmental actors in coordination mechanisms and ensure that they understand coordination architecture and mechanisms and their roles and opportunities for engagement and influencing;
2a. Avoid poor site selection leading to harm to flora, fauna, ecosystems, and people’s health, from damaging watercourses, destroying species, cutting trees, and pollution by coordinating to ensure agencies undertake environmental impact assessments and share findings for different types of site.
2b. Include environment as an agenda point in meetings for other sectors to raise questions or concerns related to the environment – do not expect that the one environmental agency in the room to cover the entire issue;
3a. Identify and address inconsistent approaches to materials sourcing, in order to reduce natural resource depletion, unnecessary pollution, and illegal or damaging sourcing by suppliers. Request support from environmental field advisers (e.g. from agencies’ rosters or the Standby Partnership Programme) where specialist support is required
4a. Align designs and materials specifications to reduce waste and inefficiencies between suppliers, contractors, responders, and communities
4b. Promote consortia between humanitarian and environmental agencies
5. Develop a cluster solid waste management plan, asking all agencies to sign up to its commitments and share it widely within their organisations
6. Identify and address inconsistent and poor site clearance, construction, infrastructure, services, operation, and maintenance leading to air, water, and soil pollution
7. Assess and strengthen the local environment against drought, flood, landslides, and other environmental hazards
8. Build community resilience through increasing the abundance of natural resources, reducing waste and pollution, increasing their knowledge and skills around the environment, and building alternative renewable energy, solid waste management, or other green economy livelihoods
9. Advocate donors to make the environment a key criterion in country-based pooled funds
10. Ensure the integration of environment in every stage of the Humanitarian Programme Cycle and of the Humanitarian Response Plan
You can also incorporate environmental matters into the 4 phases of the Global Shelter Cluster (GSC) coordination Toolkits, by:
1) Using the Activation and Rapid action phase to understand environmental impacts, their effects, and way to mitigate them;
2) Ensure environmental criteria and standards are taken into consideration in the emergency phase
3) Developed environmental enhancement activities into shelter Early recovery / more durable phase
4) Foster environmental approach into the Long term cluster set up and phasing out
Stage 1 Activation and Rapid Actions
• Ensure Assessment and needs analysis is framed using the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) approach (refer to assessments and needs analysis sub-activity)
• Integrate environmental concerns into the Cluster and SAG ToRs (using initial reading on situation context analysis, environmental impacts).
• Identify local/national environmental source of information/analysis (competent national authorities, university, partners…)
• Define key environmental sensitivity messages to be included in flash appeal (refer to resources mobilisation sub-activity)
• Define environmental information to be collected and report on (including template and format into Shelter Cluster Information Management and tools)
Stage 2. Emergency Phase
• Integrate environmental concerns into TWiGs ToRs – with specific environmental output(s).
• Develop environmental key messages to be included in the fact sheet (refer to communication and accountability sub-activity)–using initial assessments findings.
• Define and integrate environmental criteria for shelter-specific activities and use them to develop the related standards (refer to activity by sub-sectors).
• Integrate Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) into your detailed assessments (refer to Conducting surveys and research sub-activity)
• Integrate environment into PDM tools, Reports, and analysis ( refer to Monitoring and evaluation activity)
Stage 3. Early Recovery / More Durable Phase
• Environmental indicators into technical documents are systematised and reported into HRP with specific outputs in standard funding cycles.
• Ensure long-term environmental impact, mitigation, and prevention strategies are included in the gap analysis (refer to Transition, recovery, and exit activities).
• Environment is considered into hazards definition of contingency planning with impact and risk definition together with mitigation, prevention measures.
Stage 4. Long-term Cluster Set-up and Phasing Out
• Include natural resources management plan into the Strategic Operational Framework together with all workstreams of the cluster.
• When applicable, developed environmental enhancement activities to be incorporated into the day-to-day business, such as crop planting activities, development of sustainable waste management systems, establishing a Recycling, Reuse and Repurpose system within the affected community, etc.
The 2010 HAP report entitled Committee Assessment shared lessons learned from a methodology of committees system designed for deciding how to work with camp committees in the onset of a multisectoral response. The report concluded that working with camp committees can help to ensure a high level of participation in camp management and that aid reaches those who are most in need.
The report indicated that an effective camp committees system should ideally provide access to local knowledge, facilitate the collection of accurate data for the provision of aid, foster community ownership, and empowerment, enable more efficient programme delivery, and ensure that programmes are tailored to local needs and circumstances.
Key report findings include the successful experiences of:
a) building direct contact and collaboration between the NGO and wider camp population, in addition to contact via the committee– in order to share key information directly with the population, and understand needs and views of different groups;
b) establishing ongoing monitoring of the camp committees as part of project monitoring;
c) clarifying roles, responsibilities, and code of conduct of the committee, including what the agency expects from the camp committee, and what the camp committee;
d) communicating clearly the roles and responsibilities of the committee to the camp population;
e) establishing complaints and response mechanisms;
f) developing guidelines for staff on how to work with the committee(s).
# of environmental impact assessments conducted addressing shelter and settlement issues in the region;
Approval by the local community and popular engagement of local organizations with the coordinated response plan;
# of coordinated meetings throughout the response and the short term achievements;
Incidence of conflicts and disruptions resulting from shelter and settlement coordination activities;
Prevention of environmental damage
Mitigation of environmental damage
Environmental enhancement
There’s a great need for involvement and partnerships with local NGOs and actors, with prior experience in shelter and settlement responses in the areas;
Human capital and other resources should be designated for desk-based secondary data collection and research;
Humanitarian response leaders should make an effort to build a relationship with national and regional authorities.