Resilience and Nexus Action Learning Network_2022

Introduction

The Resilience Nexus Learning Action Network (RNLAN) is a collaboration between Somali Resilience
Program (SomReP) and Somali Response Innovation Lab (SomRIL) which brings together field-tested
best practices for resilience-building and contextualizes it through a human-centered design method
in partnership with local academia and government to develop easy-to-scale training products to
support awareness creation and extension service delivery. SomReP mobilizes field-tested industry
best practice, while SomRIL crowds-in learning specialists and local design artists to develop human-
centered learning products tailored to leaders, managers and frontline staff members as well as
scale best practice through a network of partners and learning forums. The RNLAN aims to build the
institutional and technical capacity of local NGO/CSOs and private sector to deliver and support
resilience-building interventions to the highest standard in transparent and accountable ways.
Finally, the RNLAN aims to scale knowledge of and build consensus for key components of inclusive
resilience throughout the BHA funded C4FC project (Community-led Capacity Strengthening for
Fragile Contexts) which has been running in Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan since 2021 and has
been supporting to build the capacity of 31 local humanitarian organizations and humanitarian
workers to respond to and prepare for crises.

Platform for Learning & Action

The RNLAN is a unique collaboration of international and government humanitarian and
development partners and academia working with governments to develop and teach
contextualized best-practices targeting civil society and private sector. The network’s focus on
building local institutional capacity, as well as the technical skills through the development of co-
created improvement plans, bringing together formal training with contextualized tools, one-on-one
technical support and backstopping, mentorship and learning-by-doing facilitates learning-to-action,
driving home knowledge through practical experience. As local partners’ capacity improves across
all domains, they are equipped to lead humanitarian and development actions themselves. Learning
products are shared on open-source Kaya Platform, co-created with local academic partners and
integrated into their curriculums and disseminated at coordination forums, including Food Security
Cluster, NGO Consortium and others. The RNLAN’s broad geographic and sector reach is a scalable
network of frontline development facilitators and humanitarian responders.

Target Groups

The RNLAN targets multiple end-users:
• Local academic/learning institutions: providing technical assistance to build their capacity
to develop and contextualize multi-level stakeholder resilience-building and behavior change
teaching products, enhance local learning networks with tools, strengthened linkages for
knowledge exchange and collaboration with local, regional and international learning
partners, as well as local governments to develop certifiable and scalable training
curriculum. The RNLAN’s local learning product development collaborators include Sadar
Institute and City University in Somalia, International Institute for Livestock Research (ILRI),
Simad University, and Somali National University.

• SomReP NGO Members: equipping SomReP members and implementing partners with
contextualized training material for frontline extension service agents and technical
backstopping to ensure quality, standardized implementation;

• Government Partners: co-create and contextualize learning products, provide technical
backstopping and mentorship through a learn-by-doing approach to build experience with
and knowledge of contextualized extension service delivery methods, as wells as support
consensus building regarding key tenets of inclusive resilience building and impact
measurement across government departments and national and subnational entities;

• LNGO partners: crowd-in local knowledge to strengthen learning products to develop
human-centered, community training and engagement methodologies taught through adult-
learning methods for headquarter (HQ), mid-level and front-line staff members, as well as
co-implemented institutional capacity analysis;

• Private sector: RNLAN partners with private actors to raise awareness of humanitarian
sector needs, mobilize technical expertise to co-create contextualized products and services,
marketing strategies and delivery methods to enable last-mile solutions targeting
marginalized communities and groups to support resilience building;

• Humanitarian/development community: RNLAN develops multi-lingual and multi-capacity-
level learning content to strengthen understanding of resilience planning and interventions,
as well as support behavior change important for inclusive resilience. The RNLAN partners
with key coordination platforms such as the Food Security Cluster, NGO Consortium, and
others to support awareness creation and strengthen humanitarian capacity;

Current Curriculum

The RNLAN aims to equip aid practitioners with foundational skills to facilitate participatory and
inclusive community-led assessment, analysis and planning processes to strengthen community and
household’s capacity to adsorb shocks and adapt to climate change.

• Community-Driven Resilience (CDR): Overview of key community-led resilience building
concepts and standard intervention typologies;

• Gender Climate Vulnerability Assessment (GCVCA): Community-level participatory and
inclusive analysis to analyze how climate change and shocks result in differential impact for
women and men which in turn informs community-led adaptation strategy development
process;

• Community-Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM): Introduces community-led disaster
risk management planning processes and is designed to facilitate communities to map
hazards, assess own capacities to respond and develop resilience building strategies,
prioritizing interventions and productive assets development and creating livelihood-specific
Menus of Action with pre-planned anticipatory and response actions to mitigate the impact
of shocks;

• Community Action and Adaption Plans (CAAP): Builds on existing community action
planning, and brings local stakeholders together to analyze GCVCA findings and create
tangible, but flexible resilience building strategies and contingency plans for anticipatory
action and response to enable communities absorb shocks and reduce their vulnerability to
climate change. Contextualized communication products support community-led and NGO
resource mobilization to build productive asset base and strengthen basic service delivery;

• Early Warning Systems Development (EWS): Introduction to key aspects of community-led
early warning systems, including development of hazard indicators and triggers, community
and external response actors and response actions, own resources governance, awareness
of and linkages to community-to-community and community-to-state systems to enable
two-way communication and coordinate response.

• Inclusive Community-Based Disaster Targeting and Protection/Safeguarding
Mainstreaming (ICBT&P/S): A comprehensive training to support NGO community entry and
engagement with modules covering Do-No-Harm, Communication with Communities,
including Complaints Response Mechanisms, protection mainstreaming, and safeguarding
awareness;

• Gender Equity and Social Inclusion (GESI): A suite of analysis and planning tools to support
agencies, communities, groups and households to analyze dynamics and barriers to
participation and inclusion, identify solutions and co-create strategies to address
inequalities, improve access to services, and transform systems.

• Gateway to Grants (G2G): Training in US Government grants acquisition, management,
contract compliance to strengthen the ability of national agencies to access USG finance;

• Design Thinking / Adaptive Management – A practical, hands-on course on Design Thinking
for humanitarian settings, to equip local partners (primarily) with the framework and tools
for complex problem solving so that they have the ability to pivot quickly for better adaptive
management of their work.

Next-Step Curriculum

The RLRN will equip actors with knowledge and skills to support community and livelihood groups to
bridge the humanitarian-development and peace nexus and facilitate them to graduate to higher
levels of resilience capacity and influence for more effective and inclusive systems within which they
exercise the capacities.

• Farmer and Pastoral Natural Resource Management (P/FNRM): An approach to land
management in open systems, targeting rural populations with modules for agro-forestry
through tree pruning, soil and water conservation, identification of beneficial species and
grazing plan development;

• Climate-Smart Good Agricultural Practice (CS-CAP): A comprehensive approach that
promotes and strengthens sustainable agriculture production systems in order to help
communities to adapt to and mitigate climate change effects for increased food security.
The practices include soil/water conservation techniques, mixed-cropping, use of short
maturing and drought tolerant crop varieties, pasture management, post-harvest crop
storage & handling, integrated pest management methods and producer group/association
formation for collective production and marketing;

• Permaculture: An approach to land management that encourages restoration of balance to
environment using practical ecological methods for multiple scales so that the land is able to

sustainably yield food, energy, shelter and other products for households andcommunities.
The approach supports landscape, farm, community and households by analyzing how to
efficiently and sustainably exploit natural resources, including soil, water, wind, sun and
topography in order to improve living and hygiene condition, enhance nutrition, and support
income in target community including IDP in crowded urban environments.
• Integrated Peace and Conflict Sensitivity (IPACs) An approach that involves political-
economy analysis of local actors to understand power structures and dynamics to support
implementers navigate conflict and unjust systems. IPACs informs Local Capacities for Peace
(LCP) to engage whole communities to identify dividers and connectors and to analyze
flashpoints for conflict to enable communities develop own strategies to mitigate the causes
of conflict, but also identify people, structures, and mechanisms to enable peace resolution
should conflict arise;

• Community Voice in Action (CVA): A suite of advocacy tools and methods to support
marginalized groups, women, PWD and youth to hold mandate holders accountable and
petition for basic services;

• Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV): A suite of tools and methods to support
agencies, communities and households understand the causes and effects of GBV, how to
prevent and mitigate it, its link to gender empowerment and guidance on how to conduct
SGBV risk analysis and formulate mitigation strategies, including linkages to local health,
psychosocial and justice services providers;

• Engaging Men and Boys for Gender Equality: An analysis and planning approach to engage
men and boys as agents of change in our programs with strategies to mainstream gender
awareness creation into different sector interventions;

• Village Savings and Loans Association Formation: Equips NGO practitioners to train groups
of women, youth, and agricultural producers VSLA methodology, including leadership and
governance training and development of loan and saving procedures and social fund. Equips
community members to create self-managed and capitalized savings groups to meet their
financial needs;

• Financial Literacy Training: Equips NGO practitioners with skills to facilitate MSMEs
engagement with financial service providers, cover topics such as loans/debt management,
savings-making & my money grow, investments, personal financial management,
remittances and transfers, insurance services. Business owners are equipped with all round
financial management skills and raise awareness of financial services available through
either informal or formal financial market systems;

• Business Skills Training: Equips NGO practitioners with knowledge to raise awareness of and
mentor existing and potential MSMEs, economic groups with end-to-end entrepreneurial
skills to start or enhance their enterprises. Program covers topics, such as starting a business
and business planning, small business management, business expansion and customer
service;

• Cash Academy: World Vision’s certification course for design and management of cash
interventions, including market monitoring, integrating multi-purpose cash across sectors,
modalities of cash delivery, and targeting of the most-vulnerable;

• Resilience Measurement and Seasonal Assessment Methodology: An M&E training to
support data collection and analysis using the SomReP-own Annual Resilience Measurement
resilience impact measurement approach.