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creation Date:

Oct 06, 2008

This link here below leads to the website of the Emergency Telecommunication Cluster (ETC), where detailed information about its structure, mechanisms and services is available. It is intended for humanitarian agencies, their partners and donors who wish to understand the way the ETC operates, the services it can provide in humanitarian crises and how to gain access to them. In particular, it focuses on the role and services provided by the World Food Programme, the provider of last resort for emergency data and security tele- communications in support of humanitarian workers’ safety and security.

 http://ictemergency.wfp.org

Background

In 2005 an independent review of the humanitarian response was undertaken which found that the international responses to humanian crises in some sectors have in the past benefited from having clearly mandated lead agencies, while others have not.  This has led to ad hoc, unpredictable humanitarian responses, with inevitable capacity and response gaps in some areas.  Following the review and important Humanitarian Reform initiative was undertaken by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) which aimed at improving the effectiveness or humanitarian response by ensuring greater predictability and accountability, while at the same time strengenthening partnerships between NGOs, international organizations, the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and UN agencies.  The "cluster approach" was adopted as one of the pillars of the reform, which is a mechanism that can help to address identified gaps in response and enhance the quality of humanitarian action.

In September 2005 the IASC designated global cluster leads - specifically for humanitarian emergencies - in nine sectors or areas of activity. The IASC Principles also agreed that the cluster approach should be applied, with some flexibility, at the country level.

The Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) was one of the nine clusters, and in December 2005 designated the following global cluster lead agencies: the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) as process owner. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) as service provider for common data communications and the World Food Programme (WFP) as service provider for common security telecommunications.  The designation also defined the roles, responsibilities and services to be provided by the three agencies at the global level.

However, after more than two years of practical operational experience it became clear that  the ETC response would be more efficient and effective if there was a single agency designated as service provider. Thus UNICEF and WFP agreed to consolidate ETC service provision with WFP becoming the sole service provider and the provider of last resort (POLR) both security and data communications. This transition came into effect as of June 1, 2009.