Integrating Early Recovery

During and immediately after a crisis, urgent action is required to save lives. At the same time, from the start of humanitarian, time critical interventions which lay the foundations for sustainable recovery and a speedy return to longer term development are also imprerative. Integrating early recovery means that successful practices for the integration of Early Recovery in humanitarian response are context specific, with key variables depending on: the type of crisis, the capacity and leadership role played by clusters and governments, the existing resilience of affected communities, and the pre-crisis engagement of the international community.

Early Recovery cuts across all sectors whether in conflict or natural disasters, or refugee or IDP settings, concerning displacement, return or reintegration. In 2015, 47% of all projects submited in humanitarian response plans were related to early recovery (Global Early Reocvery Overview 2015). Early Recovery is a broad process that relates to development concerns and issues in a humanitarian setting. This could mean maintaining stability as much as possible in the midst of a crisis (supporting market systems, livelihoods, returning lost assets rapidly to affected communities, conflict sensitive programming). It means bringing national and local authorities into the response as early as possible. This provides the platform for recovery to start rapidly after the crisis and for communities to be more resilient to a crisis.

The global Food Security Cluster closely collaborates with the Global Early Recovery Cluster.