Iasc cluster approach evaluation, 2nd phase april 2010

Executive Summary
Introduction
Method
Background
Findings
Conclusions
Recommendations

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Mainstreaming problems
Broad support for leadership 
at country level
Agriculture and Nutrition clusters in Haiti and the Food Security Cluster in South 
Kivu (DRC). Moreover, many clusters have full-time coordinators at national, but 
not at sub-national level, where the main coordination tasks arise, leading to an 
increase in bureaucracy and a focus on processes. 
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   These  variations  are  related  to  problems  of  mainstreaming  the  leadership  role 
within organizations. Despite recent efforts to enhance it, mainstreaming remains 
incomplete.
20
 Thus, for example, agency representatives at country level do not 
usually have cluster responsibilities in their terms of reference. They often have a 
development background and are not well informed about cluster activities (which 
creates problems when they are supposed to represent clusters at Humanitarian 
Country Team meetings), and managers often resent the time their staff spend on 
coordination. These mainstreaming problems reflect an at least initial reluctance 
of some agencies to embrace the cluster approach, but also general problems of 
translating  headquarter  decisions  to  country  and  field  operations.  If  political 
will  exists,  organizations  with  a  strongly  hierarchical  culture  may  achieve 
mainstreaming  more  easily,  but  this  “command  and  control”  culture  may  also 
impede their capability to act as facilitators. 
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   Other  international  humanitarian  actors  at  country  level  broadly  accept  and 
appreciate the leadership role exercised by UN agencies and, where applicable, 
their  co-leads.  While  many  NGOs  were  initially  skeptical  about  the  cluster 
approach,  they  now  widely  support  dedicated  leadership  roles  at  country  level 
and  have  toned  down  their  criticism  at  global  level.  This  is  less  often  the  case 
where UN agencies lack competence or capacity, for example when they operate 
outside their areas of core competence, are not represented at field level, or when 
financial  issues  create  conflicts  of  interest.  Co-lead  and  co-chair  arrangements 
with governments and NGOs are also broadly supported, though they can create 
or exacerbate difficulties of information flow and often lack clearly defined roles 
and responsibilities.
21
20   Humanitarian actors at the global level have recognized the lack of mainstreaming of cluster lead 
responsibilities at the country level as a problem and the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) has 
established a task team on mainstreaming. As a result of this work, cluster lead organizations have among 
others sent a “Joint letter from Cluster Lead Agencies to their Directors / Representatives at Country Level” 
in October 2009 (available at http://ochaonline.un.org/OchaLinkClick.aspx?link=ocha&docId=1145136, 
accessed February 2010). Similarly, phase 1 of the cluster evaluation, for example, recommended creating 
more formal commitment to the cluster approach at the highest executive level.
21   A guidance note on co-lead arrangements is currently being developed at global level, but has not yet been 
finalized. For a summary of the positions and recommendations of NGO “co-facilitators” in DRC, see 
Humanitarian Reform Coordinator, January 2009.