Advocacy & Communications

ICVA is committed to ensuring the voices of local actors and crisis-affected people are at the centre of global advocacy initiatives. Our work aims to ensure consistent NGO representation, and particular local NGO representation at humanitarian briefings, policy fora and dialogues with UN agencies, donors and governments, including UN Member State briefings. This paper outlines key considerations and practical tips for NGO speakers representing at UN Member State briefings in Geneva.

Click on the below link to read the Guidance in English, French or Arabic.

NGO FORA support programme flyer

ICVA’s three year “Policy, Advocacy & Communications Strategy” aims to enable the strategic changes prioritised by the ICVA 2030 strategy. 

The overall objective is to: 

Bring positive change: To enhance ICVA’s influence and impact in the humanitarian sector by amplifying its voice, increasing visibility, and fostering a vibrant, engaging presence that resonates with members, partners, donors, and the humanitarian sector.

The specific objectives are:

• ICVA will be more vocal. ICVA’s positions and expertise on principled and effective humanitarian action will be widely recognized and respected.
• ICVA and our members will be more visible and trusted, both within the humanitarian sector and the broader public sphere.
• ICVA will create a vibrant, engaging presence that attracts and retains a broad, diverse community.

This impact study evaluates the first three-year cycle of ICVA’s 2030 strategy, and the performance against the strategic priorities set for 2022-2024.

Authored by Adrio Bacchetta from Sandstone Consulting, its key findings include:

• ICVA is a key interlocutor in the highly complex ecosystem that is humanitarian action today.
• ICVA’s impacts can be connected to these ways of working. They include community building within the humanitarian system, policy change, strengthened knowledge and capacity, improved access to quality funding, equitable partnership agreements, more inclusive, fit-for-purpose coordination structures, among other things.
• Considering ICVA’s reach, convening power, access to all levels of the system, together with the calibre of their team, while direct attribution may be difficult, it is clear that a humanitarian system without ICVA would be much the poorer and the community more fragmented and less inclusive.
• ICVA has and continues to champion principled humanitarian action. A lot has been done, but these principles are under fire.
• ICVA has advanced climate change issues, related on one level to the Climate and Environment Charter for Humanitarian Organisations and establishment of the secretariat ICVA is hosting; on another level there has been deep engagement on the impact of climate change on humanitarian crises in regions most impacted (Africa and Asia-Pacific (AP)).

ICVA’s Forced migration work has:

• Interfaced with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Office for Migration (IOM), the World Bank (WB) Group and others to influence policy and practice using mechanisms that both address common areas of concern and build communities in the process.
• Created alliances with concrete initiatives such as the Global Refugee Forum (GRF) such as the multistakeholder pledge for locally led action linked to the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR). This global work has been complemented by regional and country work on mobility issues including in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA, e.g. Gaza, Syria, Yemen) in Asia (e.g. Afghanistan and Myanmar) and Africa (South Sudan) and Latin America (Cartagena +40 process).

ICVA’s Humanitarian Coordination work has:

• Delivered through multiple dimensions (hands-on, policy advocacy, training) to enhance principled and coordinated NGO interventions, with particular investments in negotiating access.
• The work on humanitarian principles has been extensive but the reality of some of the most politicised conflicts has exposed cracks in terms of adherence of warring parties to the humanitarian principles and law and the preparedness of the sector to speak out against it. ICVA can do a lot, but only as far as the members allow it.
• The team invested regionally and particularly at country fora level to improve the inclusivity and capacity of coordination. Compared to the last strategic period the number of surge interventions or hands on support increased which speaks to the trust the humanitarian community has in ICVA, though such interventions have tested ICVA’s capacity.

ICVA’s humanitarian financing work has: 

• Invested heavily in improving access to quality funding, particularly (but not only) in the area of pooled funding with one initiative leading to another in a positive flow. This work has contributed to a recognition of the positive impact of pooled fund mechanisms on localisation objectives, the potential for increased learning and innovation among Funds, as well as required areas for further improvement, including increasing access for local and national actors and more effective risk sharing.
• Delivered with regards to effective partnerships and risk management between UN actors, INGOs and local and national NGOs.
• Partnership terms and conditions have been adapted, and local and national actors in particular have been empowered through greater understanding of what equitable partnership terms and conditions are and what they are entitled to be demanding.