Deployment

Field deployments are real

Deployments are real, in a way that evaluations and training courses are not.

They are not very common, especially at a senior level: humanitarian agencies understandably try to maintain in-house surge capacity to meet urgent needs.  But these are the most interesting, the most challenging – and in many ways the most important.

They are also the place where the wide range of experiences provided by my consultancy portfolio can really be of benefit.  As a consultant, I change environment much faster than I did as a manager – I experience diverse operational environments and I work inside different institutions.  I learn.  Lots.

In addition to sudden onset emergency deployments, I have included slow-onset programme design and early recovery needs assessment and analysis roles in the list below.

Deployment and analytical tools

Large and complex emergencies require a fairly sophisticated approach to information management.  It’s a huge waste of effort to deploy an assessment team to a remote village, if the only output is a detailed assessment of a single village.  We need to understand the context, identify gaps in our knowledge, and visit that village because it is likely representative of others, and helps to fill those gaps.  We can’t go everywhere, and we must extrapolate – at least in the early stages – or we cannot plan effectively.  Time spent on secondary data analysis and the construction of an appropriate framework is time that pays huge dividends.

The following infographics were developed to try to explain my thinking processes when exposed to a new environment, with  uncertain quality of information, big gaps in our knowledge, and an urgent need to produce data that can be used to influence programme design.  Click on any image for a full size version.

deployment consultancy contracts:

Nepal Earthquake: Recovery Advisor

2015 – Nepal Earthquake Recovery Advisor / Coordinator – for IFRC
Role: Provide technical advice and coordination support to Nepal Red Cross, develop the recovery plan and gain buy in from RC Movement partners. Facilitate Movement Wide partnership meeting.