PHREE-Way is a global action-learning consortium of organizations working together to expand education and strengthen capacity for disaster risk reduction and humanitarian action towards sustainable development and human security. The founding and initial members include international non-governmental organizations, research and training support organizations, and universities. All members adhere to human security, sustainable development, and humanitarian imperatives, as well as globally-recognized ethics and standards.

Mandate

The mandate of PHREE-Way is to sustainably increase access to world-class quality actionable risk reduction and humanitarian action education, training, tools, information, and knowledge. PHREE-Way's extended support to individuals, organizations, and communities working and living in high-risk and emergency settings is intended to exert a powerful and positive system-wide effect. This will require research and development initiatives in addition to direct capacity-building activities.

Moreover, it has specific potential for significantly strengthening the capabilities of under-resourced professionals and practitioners in at-risk areas, especially--though not exclusively--in developing countries. This applies particularly to those whose continued access to relevant and reliable information and knowledge is seriously constrained. This model of broadening and deepening access to capacity-building opportunities complements and adds value to other related global and regional initiatives currently underway.
 

Membership

The members of PHREE-Way are nongovernmental organizations, research and training support agencies, and universities. These groups collectively have the capabilities to increase current levels of support and advocacy for practitioners and professionals actively engaged in developmental risk reduction and humanitarian action. Moreover, by harnessing combined resources and working in collaboration, it is intended that consortium members will further develop these existing capabilities to better support their under-served colleagues in disaster-prone contexts and emergency settings.

The present members are: the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC), CARE, the Center for Humanitarian Cooperation (CHC), the Disaster Mitigation for Sustainable Livelihoods Program (DiMP) of the University of Cape Town, the Feinstein International Famine Center at Tufts University, GAN-Net, the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (Mexico City), the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Mumbai), the University of Washington in Seattle, and World Vision. In addition, two members of the Advisory Group, DiMP and CHC, have been charged to act as a Secretariat responsible for organizational and administrative matters. Efforts will be made to ensure that future members appropriately reflect the vast diversity of experience and practice encompassed in the consortium's mandate and will strive to find a balance between Southern and Northern hemisphere capabilities, needs, and interests.
 
Criteria and processes for further expansion of membership after early success is achieved will be formulated. Strategic engagement with non-member stakeholders from across sectors, including professional associations, intergovernmental organizations, civilian and military governmental agencies, faith-based organizations, and business associations, among others, will be a core element of the PHREE-Way’s work.

Governance

The members constitute an Advisory Group whose role is to guide the consortium as it develops. The Advisory Group is supported by a Secretariat led by the Center for Humanitarian Cooperation and the Disaster Mitigation for Sustainable Livelihoods Program (DiMP) at the University of Cape Town.

In the initial developmental stages, the Advisory Group will support and further develop action learning and communication activities of PHREE-Way. The group will be lean and nimble and have the human and technical capacities to play this role for the first phase of consortium development.

The Advisory Group will:

• further develop the consortium’s governance arrangements

• oversee the formulation and implementation of a strategic plan to ensure the relevance and financial viability of the consortium
• establish and guide working groups to ensure that practical outputs are achieved
• manage and update internal and external communications mechanisms
• convene a meeting for all consortium members on a bi-annual basis
• communicate consortium activities of current and new working groups
• engage other relevant bodies and entities interested in supporting, partnering with, or funding the consortium

The Advisory Group will be first and foremost accountable to the mandate and members of the consortium, as well as to the highest global standards of integrity.

Action Learning Programs and Projects

Action learning agendas will be developed jointly between practitioners and researchers/trainers in order to make risk-reduction and humanitarian work both easier and better.

Guidelines and criteria for the initiation of additional action learning programs or projects will be formulated for discussion at the next bi-annual consortium meeting. The risk reduction and humanitarian action learning projects are not an exclusive domain and may overlap with other projects, programs, and players. PHREE-Way does not seek to duplicate other important efforts to learn and develop good practice, but rather will play a sector conduit and multiplier-effect role by complementing current good practice and providing global connecting points with these tools and materials. In addition, this global consortium will contribute to and promote action research and good practice to a wider audience.

Communications

In this early phase, meetings of the entire consortium will be held bi-annually. A pre-meeting was held in Atlanta, hosted by CARE in September 2005, followed by the founding meeting held in Seattle, hosted by the Marc Lindenberg Center at the University of Washington. A meeting of PHREE-Way was held in Cape Town, hosted by DiMP at the University of Cape Town on September 20-21, 2006. The working principle is to hold every other meeting in the “South” and “North” respectively. Conference-call meetings of the Advisory Group will be held on a regular basis.

A PHREE-Way intra-net portal is being established to facilitate communication between the Advisory Group, the Secretariat, and prospective working groups. It is expected that an external website will be launched as soon as support funding becomes available.

Financial Resources

Resources are needed for these meetings, for secretariat capacity, and to support ongoing or new action learning program/projects. It is proposed that well-resourced members contribute $5,000-$10,000 dollars in cash or kind for initial seed funding, and less-resourced members contribute a minimum of $1,000-$2,500 in cash or kind. Cash contributions to the entire consortium will be held and distributed by the Center for Humanitarian Cooperation for the time being when necessary in accordance with a budget developed and approved by the Advisory Group. Additional funds will be raised from donors, particularly foundations, but also individuals, governmental and intergovernmental agencies, as well as corporate sponsors. Individual members should not invoke the PHREE-Way consortium to raise funds that are solely for their own use.

Appendix I:

Principles that will guide our initiative

• We will promote joint action-learning efforts
• We will seek communities of cooperation
• We will promote Disaster Risk Management as a basis for sustainable development
• We will foster open sharing within/outside the consortium
• We will work in collaboration with and seek to add value to related initiatives
• We will create linkages among Northern and Southern groups
• We will enhance ethical and professional commitments
• We will improve on our performance expectations
• We will build and maintain the required infrastructure
• We will build strong relationships among practitioners, researchers, and trainers
• We will adopt a multidisciplinary approach
• We will commit to knowledge dissemination
• We will advocate researcher/practitioner efforts
• We will expand the building capacities of less-resourced groups
• We will convene cross-sectoral interactions
• We will practice action-research jointly
• We will adopt a concerted approach to donors
• We will provide humanitarian practitioner perspective to the academic sector 
• We will build human capacity
• We will explore opportunities to expand beyond our current mandate
• We will promote access to research infrastructure   

Challenges/opportunities we will face

• How to sustain internal commitment
• How to ensure adequate infrastructure to advance a global agenda
• How to build bridges across potential divides (North/South, practice/research)
• How to measure the quality and quantity of our performance 
• How to ensure effective governance and energetic leadership
• How to act as a mainstreaming multiplier agent
• How to communicate with other initiatives that our work complements
• How to ensure adequate funding to guarantee financial viability