3.3. The cluster approach and health clusters

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To improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of humanitarian response to crises and increase the capacity of the principal humanitarian response sectors, the Interagency Standing Committee (IASC), as a coordination entity that includes the agencies of the United Nations System and other international organizations active in humanitarian assistance, established the thematic cluster system.

A cluster is a grouping of international humanitarian actors involved in a specific sector (water, health, shelter, etc.), and includes all the relevant operational humanitarian actors in the sector, which may be UN agencies, International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement organizations, and/or other civil society groups that commit to participating in agreements for coordinating humanitarian response.

The cluster is activated when an emergency is so extensive and complex that it involves response by a great number of actors on the ground. Nine sectors of activity have been defined for the purpose:

Sectoral groups and leading agencies

     
 
Sector or area of activity
 
     
     
 
Leader
 
     
     
 
Technical areas
 
     
     
  1.  
     
     
  Nutrition  
     
     
  United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)  
     
     
  2.  
     
     
  Health  
     
     
  Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) (in the Americas)  
     
     
  3.  
     
     
  Water, sanitation, and hygiene  
     
     
  United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)  
     
     
  4.  
     
     
  Emergency shelter  
     
     
  International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC)  
     
     
  Natural disaster situations  
     
     
  Conflict situations  
     
     
  United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)  
     
     
 
Horizontal areas
 
     
     
  5.  
     
     
  Coordination and management of camps  
     
     
  United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)  
     
     
  Internally displaced populations due to complex emergencies  
     
     
  Internally displaced populations due to natural disasters  
     
     
  International Organization for Migration (IOM)  
     
     
  6.  
     
     
  Protection  
     
 
     
  Internally displaced populations due to complex emergencies  
     
     
  United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)  
     
     
  Internally displaced populations due to natural disasters  
     
     
  UNHCR, UNICEF and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)  
     
     
  7.  
     
     
  Early recovery  
     
     
  United Nations Development Program (UNDP  
     
     
 
Common service areas
 
     
     
  8.  
     
     
  Logistics  
     
     
  World Food Program (WFP)  
     
     
  9.  
     
     
  Telecommunications in emergencies  
     
     
  Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs(OCHA)/UNICEF/WFP  
     


The cluster should serve as a mechanism for:

  • Collaboration among participating organizations in conducting assessments and analysis, and to ensure the presence of an effective and integrated health information system.
  • Consistency of response priorities, objectives, and strategies, based on facts and common standards and protocols, and on the adoption of all of these by the members as a basis for their own activities.
  • Coordinated action by all members to implement strategies that have been agreed on, make effective use of available resources, identify and remedy gaps in services, promote sustainable recovery, and solve urgent health problems as they arise.
  • Collaboration between members to monitor, evaluate, draw lessons learned, and increase capacity and preparedness in the different sectors.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, PAHO/WHO serves as the leader of the health cluster, providing support to the ministry of health authorities and international humanitarian actors in matters of health. It should ensure that international humanitarian actors support national efforts, develop and maintain appropriate contacts with the relevant central government authorities and local authorities, as well as local civil society organizations that deal with health-related activities. The operation of the health cluster varies with the different countries’ situations:

  • Where the ministry of health is in a solid position to lead an integrated humanitarian response in health, the cluster should be organized to support the efforts of the host government. This should be the typical case after a natural disaster.
  • In other cases, especially in conflict situations, the willingness or capacity of governmental or State institutions—including the ministry of health—to lead or contribute to humanitarian activities may be compromised, which means that the cluster can assume a more active role in mediating between the host government and the international humanitarian actors involved.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the ministry of health usually coordinates the health cluster, with support from PAHO/WHO as the cluster lead.

Go to: Health sector interventions and operations siguiente leermas