Numerous evaluations and studies have found that there is a lack of expertise in protection of civilians and gender issues during responses to humanitarian emergencies. Because of this, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), the main international humanitarian coordination body, established the Protection Capacity Standby Project (ProCap) in 2005 and the Gender Standby Capacity Project (GenCap) in 2007. The two projects now send experts to emergencies so as to provide guidance to humanitarian teams on protection and gender issues. ProCap experts mainly focus on strategic and operational protection response for vulnerable groups, while GenCap advisers work on gender-equality programming as well as responses to, and prevention of, gender-based violence. Since their inception, ProCap and GenCap have supported over 60 humanitarian country-teams with 120 expert missions.

Project objectives

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which administers both projects, has asked GPPi to evaluate the effectiveness of ProCap and GenCap. The evaluation aims to see if the projects are meeting their objectives (view the terms of reference). It will also provide recommendations on whether and how the projects should be continued. GPPi will review the effectiveness and sustainability of the ProCap and GenCap deployments, as well as the projects’ leadership, management and administration. To this end, the evaluation team will conduct an extensive document review, a survey of key stakeholders, interviews in Geneva and visits to three countries that have hosted GenCap and ProCap experts.

For more information on this project, please contact Julia Steets.