This role was an emergency deployment immediately after the Nepal earthquake. I was deployed alongside the FACT team to support NRCS in the development of the recovery plan, ensure the effective integration of relief activities, and facilitate the first in-country meeting of RC/RC partners to review initial relief operations and endorse the recovery plan.
I was initially deployed by the British Red Cross for a month, and returned for a second stint after a couple of weeks on a direct IFRC contract to work closely with RC partners to put operational flesh on the bones of the partnership processes.
This was a very hopeful process – there was enormous willingness amongst RC partners to learn from some of the challenges of previous large operations and to work better in coordination and ensure that NRCS maintained overall ownership of the process. Time will tell if that optimism was justified.
The plan required individual RC components to take responsibility for supporting NRCS in named districts to provide a complete recovery response in targeted VDCs. This process, driven by a participatory multi-sector needs assessment, would include compulsory components (such as infrastructure support and community mobilisation) and needs-driven components, as determined by the identified needs. Partners with specific technical or sectoral interests or capacity were invited to work in coordination with others to ensure that the full range of needs were appropriately met.