ToR and Work plan

Set up coordination ToR and workplan

When starting their assignment, the WASH cluster coordinator should first understand the general in country humanitarian coordination structure. He/she should then define the Terms of Reference of the coordination platform, based on the IASC reference document on cluster coordination and the local context. He/she should then establish his/her work plan for the coming year.

Define coordination architecture, governance & principles

Standard coordination architecture and governance system were defined by the IASC in the "2015 IASC Cluster Coordination Reference Module". They are described in the below diagram, but need to be adapted to each country and context.

In general, the following principles should be followed regarding coordination architecture:

• National WASH Cluster Coordinator (WCC) should have a direct reporting line to the UNICEF Country Representative and also report to the OCHA’s inter-cluster coordinator, who relay the information to the HC/HCT
• Subnational WCC reports to the local UNICEF Chief of Field Office and to the national WCC
• The relation with national government varies from one country to another. In some cases, a representative from the government at the WASH Cluster is nominated, from Water Resource, Health or Public Services’ Ministry. Depending on its capacity, national government will oversee the whole coordination, participate in the cluster decision making process, or will just be an observer
• Partners/members of the GWC are accountable to the WASH Cluster as per their commitments made at global level. Some other partners are just observers (MSF, ICRC)
• WASH partners are encouraged to take on a shared coordination leadership role, by fulfilling a cluster co-facilitator role at national level, or cluster coordination role at subnational level. This can be done on a voluntary basis, or by dedicated staff funded by a donor

Set up national and subnational coordination platforms' ToR

The governance system, responsibilities and accountabilities of the cluster/sector should be formalized by the establishment of Terms of Reference (ToR) for each national and subnational platform. ToRs must be endorsed by UNICEF as CLA, and they should be framed in terms of clusters’ core functions. Template and example of ToR are available in this page.

Set up coordination platform's work plan

Achievement of cluster functions, including GWC minimum requirements, have to be prioritized and phased over a certain period, depending on the emergency phase and the context. A coordination work plan must be established and regularly updated by the WCC. It should include general IM tasks , as well as main subnational platform products, although IMO and subnational platforms should have their own more detailed frameworks and work plans. The work plan must integrate all the inputs from the WASH coordination platform to the local HPC product (HRP, HNO etc.). In the case of a first phase emergency, or the creation of a new coordination platform, work plan can be based on the list of GWC Minimum Requirements. When situation becomes more stable, a more exhaustive work plan can be developped based on the exhaustive list of 2019 GWC coordination tasks list.xlsx. Template and example of work plans are proposed on top of this page.