- Forthcoming Issues -

Issue 28 – to be published in May 2007 – will include a feature section on

Strengthening Southern protection and assistance capacity

The FMR editors would welcome practice-oriented submissions – highlighting best practices, innovative programmes and overcoming obstacles – relating to one or more of these themes:

• strengthening the capacity of States to protect refugees and asylum seekers
• who owns and drives capacity building?
• can Northern agencies relinquish control?
• measuring impact of capacity building
• Northern evaluation and monitoring of Southern partners: necessary and sensitive?
• are Northern governments building Southern capacity to control migration, not protect refugees?
• ensuring information from Southern NGOs feeds into policy debates
• what role for Southern agencies in the cluster approach?
• fostering South-South dialogue
• dangers of recreating Northern civil society culture in the South
• advocating Southern accession to international and regional legal instruments
• impact of capacity building at beneficiary level
• UNHCR / Southern NGO partnerships
• Southern NGO support for urban refugees
• increasing presence of  national refugee/IDP-assisting NGOs in global humanitarian networks
• burdens of donor accountability requirements: prospects for donor harmonisation, supporting core costs, predictable disbursements
• building financial management capacity
• protecting national NGOs and their staff
• reducing donor dependence
• capacity-building as a process, not a once-off initiative

We are particularly keen to receive articles from Southern NGOs. Deadline for final submission of articles, March 1, 2007. Information for FMR authors is at: www.fmreview.org/writing.htm. 

Issue 29 – to be published in August 2007 – will include a feature section on

The implications of UN humanitarian reform

The November 2006 report of the UN Secretary-General’s High Level Panel on UN System-wide Coherence in the Areas of Development, Humanitarian assistance and the Environment, Delivering as One has provoked considerable debate in the humanitarian community. The FMR editors would welcome practice-oriented submissions, reflecting a diverse range of opinions, which address one or more of the following questions:

• Is the objective of improving humanitarian response enhanced or endangered by the ‘one UN’ proposal?
• Can UN humanitarian agencies retain principles of impartiality and neutrality under a ‘one UN’ approach?
• What does partnership between UN and non-UN humanitarian agencies mean in practice?
• What are the potential impacts of the UN coherence agenda on ongoing efforts to improve humanitarian partnerships?
• Given that some UN agencies have shown greater willingness and/or capacity than others to cooperate with NGOs can there be consistency in approaches to partnership?
• Is there a risk that the Cluster Approach and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) will be sidelined?
• How can humanitarian organisations ensure that their responses are motivated by the humanitarian imperative and that humanitarian principles guide their work?
• How far can humanitarian organisations cooperate and coordinate with political and/or military actors without their motivations being called into question?
• How can organisations that see humanitarian action as being broader than just life-saving ensure they are viewed as independent and impartial, particularly in situations like Iraq and Afghanistan?
• Given that Principle 6 of Good Humanitarian Donorship is to allocate funding on the basis of need, how can humanitarian organisations and donors work together to ensure this Principle is realised and better humanitarian outcomes achieved?
• How can we avoid the ‘command and control’ approach to coordination, especially when there is a large number of local, national and international humanitarian actors?
• What role should the private sector play in contributing to humanitarian responses?
• How effective are recent reforms to the selection and training of UN humanitarian personnel, particularly in-country Humanitarian Coordinators?

Deadline for final submission of articles: May 15, 2007. Information for FMR authors is at: www.fmreview.org/writing.htm. Please write to us as soon as possible if you are interested in contributing or have suggestions of colleagues who may be able to.