Meeting minutes: Sphere India -URS Sub commitee members Nov 27 th 2006

Meeting of Sphere India-URS sub-committee members

A meeting was held on 27th November 2006 to discuss Sphere-Unified Response Strategy (URS) at Seeds India Office, New-Delhi.

Participants

Ms. Shakuntala Suhag - UNDMT
Ms. Shirley Mcquenpatterson -UNICEF
Ms. Anisa Draboo -Oxfam GB
Mr. Sanjeev Bhanja - EFICOR
Mr. Ramesh Babu -EFICOR
Mr. Pankaj Kumar - Oxfam GB
Mr. Manu Gupta -Seeds India
Mr. Anshu Sharma -Seeds India
Mr. Vikrant Mahajan -Red R India (guest invitee)
Mr. Arjun Khajuria - Sphere-URS Focal Person


Views and discussion

Mr. Anshu Sharma, introducing the members with recent developments with reference to URS secretariat.

• First meeting of URS since June-July 2006 other than the emergency meetings
• Since then URS Focal Person (Arjun Khajuria) on board
• A Sphere-URS blog and country–wide emailing list set up for streamlined information sharing
• The recruitment of an IT/GIS person to support the URS secretariat underway
• URS to focus on three priority states of Assam, Bihar and Orissa
• A district level piloting approach would be adopted in the focus states
• Seeds India to provide organizational support to the project and host the secretariat. Manu Gupta would also be present in future Sphere-URS meetings as special invitee and will be engaged with programme aspects of URS at SEEDS.

Mr Arjun Khajuria

- A 15 minutes presentation introducing URS, its need, varying perception of URS, approach in year one, what would piloting URS mean and expected outcomes was made.
- Subsequently, the draft copy of the Sphere-URS concept note was shared with the members and certain parts discussed.
- The action plan from December 06 to March 2007 was shared with the members.
- Inputs and feedback form the sub-committee members was welcomed on the draft copy of the concept note.
- Cooperation and linkages were sought from the sub-committee members.



Mr.Pankaj Kumar

• Expressed views on the selection criteria of the pilot districts in Orissa
• The type of hazard for which URS would concentrate in Orissa

Mr. Sanjay

• URS should seek to optimize the role of Panchayats and Zilaparishad in disaster response

• State level legislative frameworks on disaster management to be used as a reference

• Local NGOs with development profile to be more effective in disaster management

• Preplanning and framework at local level among communities and NGOs with reference to disaster response to be agreed upon

• URS should include the concerns of women, children and other sections of the society like the differently-abled and set certain policies.


Ms. Shakuntala Suhag

The advocacy for the concerns of women, children, adolescents, differently adbled and old aged people in disaster response policies should be started from an operational level and grass root level.

Ms. Shirley Mcquenpatterson

URS intends to impress the need for including the concerns of women, children, differently abled and aged groups with Sphere member organizational heads so as to have an long-term and policy level influence in disaster planning, preparedness and response.

Mr. Vikrant Mahajan

Introduced the background and concept of developing E-learning tool for Sphere Standards


The meeting ended with unanimous agreement on the approach and the workplan. The draft of the Sphere URS guidelines, hard copies of which were shared in the meeting, is to be emailed to members and their inputs sought on the same. Based in the inputs from members and field inputs from Arjun’s work in Orissa and Assam, a revised draft will be circulated subsequently.