United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Mar 2011
InterWorks conducted a UNHCR Situational Emergency Training (SET) workshop in Nairobi, Kenya from 14-18 March 2011 for UNHCR, Government Counterparts, and NGO staff participants from Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Sudan. The workshop was a cross-sectoral 5-day training course in the primary technical sectors involved in large international humanitarian emergency response operations. The course was designed for both generalists and specialists working or intending to work at the field level in international humanitarian operations. As such, the course focused on the level of technical detail that all field personnel should be expected to know about each of the sectors covered, regardless of their own particular specialty or field of expertise. The primary content sectors covered were: Basic Human Rights and Refugee Protection; Shelter and Site Planning; Nutrition, Food and Distribution; Water Supply and Sanitation; and Coordination of these critical sectors into a rational overall response. The workshop was designed to expose participants to the recurrent problems in international response in the sectors covered, and to provide classroom practice in applying the standards and indicators covered in each sector. Key learning points were illustrated through table-top simulations and exercises, role plays, and hands-on planning practice wherever possible. The workshop was revised to include the East African context and to redirect the content focus towards the potential refuge influx from South Sudan into neighboring countries that may result this summer as consequence of the formalization of that country’s independence.