Issues being addressed:

• review of existing mechanisms for strengthening the response (e.g. ‘clusters’)

Panelists: 
Najla Chahda, Caritas Lebanon Migrant Centre (Lebanon)
Suzanna Tkalec, Catholic Relief Services (DR of Congo)
Margaret Green-Rauenhorst, Independent Consultant (Pakistan)

Question:  What do the realities on the ground, in many parts of the world, tell us about the state of protection?  Is protection “possible”?

PDF of  Session 5 Protection in Practice Discussion Notes

SUMMARY

Protection is possible, but we must be realistic about how much humanitarian organizations can accomplish—we are limited in the extent to which protection can be achieved.  We must recognize the theory of protection vs. the reality, and not let the pursuit of perfection be the enemy of the good.

The role of government in protection is complicated.  A primary role of states is protecting their residents.  This does not mean, however, that the government is necessarily able to provide protection in our context.  If the government is a party to conflict, there will be a problem delivering aid.  Some governments may feel threatened by foreign humanitarian actors and NGOs.  Even when they are not causing the problem, government or military involvement in managing registration and coordinating return can cause protection to become politicized.    

In some places there is active civil society but no interest in migrant issues.  In such places, the Church is often well situated and can be instrumental while other protection actors are not viable.  How can we maximize the role of the Church – make most of long-term local presence locally and use its position to influence government.  Relationships with governments are usually key to ensuring protection, how can we influence this?

Our relationship with local partners also key to whether or not we can provide protection – we need to strengthen coordination with Caritas partners and between Caritas and non-Caritas partners

There was much discussion of the UN cluster approach.  It can be useful and seems in general a good framework because it encourages enhanced communication and coordination.   The cluster approach has extraordinary capacity to coordinate and inspire; move humanitarian actors to a uniform approach; and has the capacity for facilitating/allowing groups to flourish and work in concert.  However, coordination could be improved, collection and use of data is inconsistent, and cluster monitoring is a major issue.  We need to refine our recommendations regarding protection clusters so we do not offer just a simple blanket endorsement but also define aspects of good cluster behavior.