It is an honour and privilege for me to be with you today.

IOM is honoured to rank fifth among 19 organizations that
receive NORCAP secondments and I am here today to express sincere
appreciation for our excellent partnership with NORCAP.

Since we received our first NORCAP secondment in Afghanistan in
2001, we have received 67 secondments in 12 countries, notably
Haiti (36); Zimbabwe, East Timor, Pakistan, Angola and elsewhere.
Therefore, we very much view NRC and NORCAP as a strategic
partner.

Let me thank the Norwegian Refugee Council, NORCAP, and of
course the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the kind
invitation to participate in this important event -- an event that
allows us to take stock, debate, and together support NORCAP -- the
world's most frequently used emergency standby roster -- in
outlining the way forward in terms of standby partnerships to
improve our emergency response. A word of thanks is also due to
UNHCR, our traditional partner, for making that first request 20
years ago in 1991 to Norway and Denmark.

I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the
Norwegian Capacity programme on their twenty year anniversary, and
to express admiration for NORCAP's two decades of providing their
partners, and those in need, with tremendous expertise, swift
deployments, and critical skills – all within days of the
onset of humanitarian emergencies. This is no small feat, and IOM's
immediate life-saving responses to humanitarian crises in recent
years have greatly benefited from such NORCAP secondments.

Of course, a fundamental element – perhaps the most
important element of a response – is the very availability of
human capacity. You can’t help if you’re not there; and
the technical experts with the skills and experience underpin any
successful response.

I have three points that I would like to make in my brief
presentation:

1. The impact of Stand-by Arrangements on the timeliness and
   quality of our emergency responses;
2. The challenges inherent therein; and
3. What we think we’ve learned i.e. the lessons
   learned.

I. IMPACT OF STAND-BY ARRANGEMENTS ON THE
TIMELINESS AND QUALITY OF EMERGENCY RESPONSE

IOM values highly the qualified human resources made available
by standby partners. In addition to NRC/NORCAP, IOM’s standby
partners include CANADEM, DFID, DRC, ZIF, SIDA and RedR Australia.
There are several areas of particular impact on our operations that
I would identify:

1. Standby arrangements help IOM to fulfil cluster
   responsibilities early in the response. Cluster coordination needs
   to happen immediately – in the case of Haiti, NORCAP support
   allowed IOM to be fully operational in different technical areas
   from the outset.
2. Standby arrangements reduce administrative bottlenecks that
   delay staff deployments; Standby arrangements allow us to have "the
   right people in the right place, at the right time with the right
   means."
3. Standby arrangements reduce interagency "turf-battles" and
   competition by providing staff who are perceived as competent and
   non-biased in handling partners. It only makes sense, as those
   colleagues are not career staff members and are generally well
   respected within their field of expertise. I have no patience or
   tolerance for "turf-battles" and with standby arrangements; we
   don’t have to be concerned.
4. Standby arrangements help us fill skills gaps in IOM’s
   Human Resources inventory i.e. particularly in specialized areas
   such as Camp Managers -- an area of expertise in which very few
   organizations have acquired over the years.

II. CHALLENGES

At IOM, we have identified several challenges with respect to
Standby Arrangements, however, I would emphasize that mobilizing
secondments from NORCAP has never constituted a challenge, rather
the procedures are simplified and your personnel fit for swift
emergency deployment.

1. 1. How to handle multiple simultaneous
   responses and the changing nature of emergencies -- all requiring
   the same HR profiles for a limited period of time represent a
   growing challenge, as evidenced last year with several simultaneous
   major crises, such as Haiti's earthquake and Pakistan’s
   flooding, both receiving secondments from NORCAP, and this year
   with Libya, Cote d’Ivoire, and famine in the Horn of
   Africa?
2. Donor Fatigue. Uneven donor funding makes it difficult to
   undertake future planning and secure resources to keep staff
   employed. In such context, staff retention can be difficult once
   large emergency operations slow down i.e. right now in the Horn of
   Africa.
3. Staff absorption. There tend to be periods when specific HR
   profiles may no longer be needed, thereby making it difficult for
   IOM, or any organization, to absorb outgoing professionals, and
   therefore retain expertise. (e.g. IOM's OCV operations)
4. Each crisis is different, requiring different responses. For
   example, Movement-based operations (such as this year's response to
   the Libya crisis) compared to camp management and emergency shelter
   operations (e.g. Haiti and Pakistan last year) require different
   numbers of staff, and different skill sets.
5. Outsourcing in the Future. Five years from now: outsourcing, or
   partnerships?
6. National Capacity Building as the best means of providing
   sustainability to our stop gap measures.
7. Outreach to potential non-traditional stand-by entities and
   organizations.

Most of the challenges, thankfully, can be addressed through
partnerships and staff secondments, which represent an essential
tool for IOM to reduce gaps in its response capacity. Let me turn
to my third rubric, lessons learned, to highlight three particular
lessons from IOM’s perspective

III. LESSONS LEARNED

1. The NORCAP system has developed a flexibility to adapt to
   various institutional cultures. This allows your personnel to work
   seamlessly across the humanitarian system (For example, during my
   visit last year to Haiti, I couldn’t tell the difference
   between IOMers and the 37 NORCAP secondments – the
   integration was that good!) In this regard, IOM would welcome
   further exchanges with NORCAP on its specific experience with IOM,
   so that we may further improve our own humanitarian response
   capacity.
2. We have learned from working with NORCAP that we, IOM must do a
   better job of addressing our own institutional deficiencies. Joint
   capacity building initiatives such as those that were undertaken in
   Haiti ( camp management training , Site Planning) allowed IOM and
   the cluster it led to respond in a timely manner to emerging needs,
   while creating in-situ the necessary capacity to maintain
   continuity and consistency in the humanitarian response.
3. We must continue to develop rosters – and seek to include
   more members on the roasters from the South. We need greater
   geographic and gender balance in our rosters.
4. The value of seconding entire teams for certain technical
   areas, rather than a succession of individuals. We explored this
   approach in Haiti in 2010; and the team approach helped to ensure
   continuity of effort. This is true in any large-scale and/or
   protracted crises where the humanitarian response is not limited to
   the first few weeks immediately following the onset of a disaster
   but continues over a prolonged period of time.

CONCLUSION

Let me close by re-stating our appreciation of NORCAP and its
contribution to the humanitarian system.

I have only touched briefly on the rich partnership we enjoy.
One of the many roles of partners is to think creatively together
about how their combined efforts may improve the lives of those
they intend to assist. I am therefore happy to be here today to
demonstrate how this has been accomplished through NORCAP's support
to IOM. I look forward to continue close cooperation in pursuit of
our common humanitarian goals.