Since the 2005 introduction of the UN-led humanitarian reform process, there has been awareness of the need to better involve NGOs, particularly national and local NGOs in the 3 pillars of reform (cluster coordination, humanitarian leadership and humanitarian funding).

CAFOD has been involved in supporting its partners and country offices which are working in humanitarian response to engage in the 3 pillars of reform: participation in country based and global clusters, humanitarian leadership and pooled funding. Working with a consortium of 6 other international NGOs and an NGO coalition, through a project initially funded by DfID, CAFOD has co-published a number of reports examining how the international system functions and calling for changes to improve effectiveness, predictability, speed and to ensure that populations in need receive humanitarian assistance. This work has also involved promoting effective means to represent the views of crisis-affected populations through evidence-based advocacy, a focus on downward accountability and improving the impact of humanitarian action. CAFOD is currently lead agency in Ethiopia for the second phase of the project, now funded by ECHO.

A presentation by CAFOD's Senior Humanitarian Policy Adviser, Anne Street, to Caritas Czech Humanitarian Conference, 31 March 2012.

A speech by CAFOD’s senior humanitarian policy adviser, Anne Street, to the European Union’s Committee on Humanitarian Aid and Food Aid, delivered on 11 April 2012.

CAFOD's Anne Street and other members of the Conflict Sensitivity Consortium discuss the importance of applying "conflict sensitivity" when responding to an emergency.

Organisations working in conflict-affected areas are increasingly aware that their actions could have unintended impacts on the context within which they are working. This Guide illustrates real examples of applying “conflict sensitivity”. It provides practical advice for anyone aiming to improve conflict sensitivity, whether in the field of development, humanitarian aid or peacebuilding work. CAFOD is a member of the Conflict Sensitivity Consortium.

This report uses the European Consensus on Humanitarian Aid (adopted in 2007) as a policy framework to examine adherence to humanitarian principles on the part of the European Union and its Member States.

This statement draws on the experiences of UK relief, development and peacebuilding agencies in a number of contexts affected by poor governance, conflict and fragility. It highlights both the need to protect and build on existing commitments whilst also working to make aid more effective in contexts of poor governance, conflict and fragility.

In June 2011, the European Commission (EC) launched its proposal for the future European budget. The proposal looks into the challenges of the changing global environment and sets priorities for action both inside and outside of the EU to address them. The EC proposal attributes additional funding to external action, including humanitarian aid. This paper examines the proposal and makes recommendations for its implementation from an NGO position.

This paper, co-authored by CAFOD's Anne Street and published by the Humanitarian Practice Network, maps the current state of conflict-sensitive practice in emergencies and identifies good practice which can be built upon.

Based on 5 country mapping studies, this report analyses the state of global humanitarian reform efforts from an NGO perspective. It finds significant progress in humanitarian financing, with the creation of the global Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and at the country level the Common Humanitarian Funds, the Emergency response Funds and Humanitarian response Funds. Improvements were also found as a result of the introduction of the cluster approach. Accountability to crisis affected populations was patchy and improvements in humanitarian leadership was particularly weak. The biggest gap was identified as the marginalisation of national NGOs from a process which was originally conceived by and focused on the international community.

Based on a presentation given by CAFOD’s Senior Humanitarian Policy Advisor, Anne Street, in Geneva in October 2010, this paper summarises NGOs experiences with the pooled funds in DRC, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Afghanistan.

In October 2010 DfID announced an independent review of its emergency response work. The review which was chaired by Lord Paddy Ashdown invited submissions from humanitarian practioners. Read CAFOD’s submission to the HERR here.