"Initiative is doing the right thing without being told."
This space is dedicated to individual members' initiatives aimed at facilitating the exchange of experiences on social protection in crisis contexts. It is open to any members of this Online Community. For more information, please contact us!
Weekly Informal Hangout (UPDATE: paused for now)
Zehra Rizvi and Cecile Cherrier co-host a Weekly Informal Hangout on Wednesdays at 16:00 GMT on Zoom, which provides an opportunity for practitioners from across the globe to share ideas, concerns and experiences in an open and supportive environment.
Simple ground rules: No agency hats, confidential space, no set agenda, informal. It’s open to anyone.
We take it as it comes and have had a range of conversations (and the occasional rant) on topics such as what's next for social protection in crisis contexts, data management/privacy, coordination, delivery, challenges in conflict settings, what we’re working on so that we don’t duplicate (and indeed can collaborate); we’ve also had a few impromptu ‘clinic’ calls—someone has come with an issue and we’ve put our brains together to find possible solutions. And yes, we are there to talk about the linkages between social protection and humanitarian (cash) assistance, but more broadly about social protection in crisis contexts.
- Contact the initiators to ask questions, share suggestions, or offer help!
Collection of Personal Stories
Cecile Cherrier, Celine Julia Felix, and Zehra Rizvi launched an initiative aimed at better collecting, disseminating, and reflecting on stories and practical insights from the field.
Going beyond Case Studies, Good Practices and Do’s & Don’ts already captured in guidance documents and webinars, we are looking for personal case stories of initiatives you were directly involved in (as a policymaker, field practitioner, donor, consultant, or else) that have generated breakthroughs or yielded valuable insights towards expanding social protection to crisis-affected populations.
These stories may be associated with a Covid-19 response or may not be. They may be related to social protection systems, or to humanitarian interventions linked to a national social protection system. They may be cases of:
- Insightful failure, where a social protection response to a crisis, or a humanitarian intervention linked with a national social protection system, hasn’t gone as smoothly as you might have wished, but yield new insights worth sharing with peers;
- Fruitful failure, where you and your team initially failed at what you had planned, but only to discover a new way of doing things for greater results;
- Innovation, where you and your team managed to do things differently to expand social protection to often hard-to-reach crisis-affected populations.
We understand that some of these stories may not be easy to disseminate as is. We developed a questionnaire that gives you the opportunity to share them confidentially. This questionnaire is available in both English and French. If possible, we invite you to leave your contact details so that we may contact you for further information and follow-up. Your name or other identifiers will not be attached to the stories you will share so that your confidentiality can be maintained unless you explicitly allow us to do so. We also commit to anonymize your stories as needed.
We will kick off this initiative during Side Event 5 on ‘Fail Forward: Building foundations for innovation’ on Wednesday 7 October at 12:00 pm GMT, during the Global e-Conference on ‘Turning the COVID-19 crisis into an opportunity: What’s next for social protection?’ organized by socialprotection.org on 5-8 October 2020.
How to join the initiative:
- Share your personal case stories in this online survey (also available in French).
- Contact the initiators to ask questions, share suggestions, or offer help!
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You can present and advertise your own initiative here.
If you only have a vague idea of what your contribution could be in this Community of Practice, we'll be happy to help you turn it into a great new initiative.
Interested? Simply contact us!
