Come and see CRJ at the HNPW in Geneva! 

This week, Claire Sanders and Emily Hough are at the Humanitarian Networks Partnership Week in Geneva. To explain what this is about, here’s a preview from CRJ 14:4.



Humanitarian responses often involve large numbers of national and international actors, frequently working in the same geographical areas towards the same goal of improving the effectiveness of emergency responses in affected countries. With the ever-increasingly complex situational demands, individual organisations cannot work in isolation to achieve common goals.

The Leading Edge Programme (LEP) was launched in 2015 as an informal, collaborative platform for humanitarian experts to meet and work together to identify and implement sustainable solutions to humanitarian response challenges. It is a year-round, collaborative, problem-solving platform governed by a strategic group, co-chaired by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). It is open to humanitarian networks, partnerships and focus taskforces, with the aim of setting clear objectives, unlocking innovative solutions and creating tangible outcomes.

The annual Humanitarian Networks Partnerships Week (HNPW) has been growing in size and importance. HNPW 2019 was attended by 2,200 participants representing organisations from all over the world. More than 75 annual meetings and consultations of 30 networks and partnerships were held throughout the week, along with 1,500 participants on Inter-Network Day.

The LEP is identifying priority issues for cross-network collaboration with previous participants and humanitarians and aims to address them with a concrete plan of action that will be agreed upon during the sixth HNPW, which will be held at the International Conference Centre in Geneva, Switzerland from February 3 – 7, 2020.



There are many advantages of attending and participating in the upcoming HNPW 2020. HNPW 2019 welcomed participants from 150 Member States and 400 organisations from UN agencies, funds and programmes, governments, military and civil protection, NGOs, the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement, private sector and academia.

With 30 networks and partnerships involved in 2019, more than 130 events took place throughout the week, including briefing sessions, annual network and partnership consultations, technical meetings and cross-network sessions. All HNPW participants are free to attend any of the network meetings’ open sessions.

In 2019, the event offered 1,500 participants 30 cross-network sessions co-organised by several organisations. Attended by several high-level representatives, the day’s opening and closing ceremonies were an opportunity to reflect on the challenges facing the humanitarian sector and the need for increased, year-round collaboration and networking. United Nations Geneva Director-General, Michael Møller and Assistant to the Secretary General and Deputy Emergency Co-ordinator Ursula Mueller, were among the guest speakers.          

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