This programme is funded by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), delivered by Save the Children UK in collaboration with Save the Children Country Offices in Türkiye and Northwest Syria. It is a transformational humanitarian response led by the Humanitarian Leadership Academy and delivered with the Innovation Hive, Alameda, ACAPS, Cash Collaborative Delivery network (CCD), and partners.
Türkiye-Syria earthquake response: one year on
On 6 February 2023, two earthquakes of magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 hit Türkiye and Northwest Syria. Two more earthquakes followed on 20 February, accompanied by thousands of aftershocks.
The earthquakes affected 11 provinces in the southern and southeastern parts of Türkiye, killing approximately 50,000 people and destroying around 298,000 buildings (OCHA 17/05/2023). The affected provinces were home to 14 million people, including around 1.8 million Syrian refugees (IOM 06/03/2023). Five weeks after the two earthquakes, severe flooding hit Adiyaman and Sanliurfa, making it even more difficult to access affected areas and provide humanitarian support (ACAPS 25/03/2023). The earthquakes have affected approximately nine million people and forced about three million to relocate.
In Northwest Syria, the earthquakes killed 5,900 people, injured more than 12,000, damaged at least 10,600 buildings, and destroyed 1,870 (OCHA 28/04/2023). The earthquakes struck a part of Northwest Syria most affected by the conflict, as well as Gaziantep in southern Türkiye, a key hub of the humanitarian response to Northwest Syria.
The funding raised by the DEC enabled an opportunity to implement a transformational humanitarian response for Türkiye-Syria Earthquake Appeal. Save the Children, Humanitarian Leadership Academy (HLA), Alameda, The Innovation Hive, Collaborative Cash Delivery Network (CCD), and our external partners are delivering projects under SHIFT programme to support this response.
Humanitarian Leadership Academy strengthens the capacities of local responders through providing learning in leadership and civil society strengthening, and various technical expertise trainings. The HLA conducts research on transformational response and provides consultancy services.
We have worked in Gaziantep in Türkiye, and Amman in Jordan delivering our capacity strengthening trainings for local responders and staff from the Save the Children Türkiye Country Office. By explicitly targeting these local humanitarian actors with a wide range of humanitarian experience and expertise, we have been able to ensure that different aspects of the response (technical expertise, senior leaders, volunteers, civil society organisations) are strengthened. Due to safety and access issues, we delivered additional training sessions for local partners in Türkiye and Syria remotely.
During the first year of the earthquake response, we trained 18 local responders from Northwest Syria Education Cluster. The Education in Emergencies (EiE) Fundamentals training session was conducted in Arabic in Gaziantep. Local graduates of the Education in Emergencies Certificate of Advanced Studies programme co-facilitated the EiE Fundamentals training.
- We delivered face-to-face Humanitarian Operations Programme (HOP) training in Amman for humanitarian actors from Türkiye and Syria. 22 participants, representing Save the Children country offices in Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen and Jordan, attended this training.
- We facilitated three remote training sessions targeting 69 participants from local Syrian organisations located in Gaziantep, focusing on the topics of staff wellbeing, safeguarding, and mentoring & coaching.
We are planning more trainings for local responders in the upcoming months.
Response Learning Hub
To support volunteers and humanitarians working on the Türkiye-Syria earthquake response, we compiled free resources on a Response Learning Hub.
Responders can access a range of learning and training resources in relevant areas including Humanitarian Essentials; Public Health; Nutrition, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH); Mental Health and Psychosocial Support and Child Protection in Emergencies.
We also developed microlearning pieces, such as the translations of voiceovers in Turkish for our Skill Pill animations.
Content on the Hub is available in Arabic and Turkish, and we keep translating learning resources regularly as the response continues.
Organisational Development Hub
Save the Children and HLA developed this free online hub to support partner organisations in the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe (MENAEE) region with resources for organisational learning and capacity-strengthening needs. The resources are organised in nine pathways – competencies identified by partners as priority areas for organisational development capacity strengthening: Programme and Strategy, Governance and Structure, Finance and Grants, Supply Chain; Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL); Security, Human Resources, Media and Communications, Project Management.
ACAPS are an independent analysis-provider helping humanitarian workers, influencers, fundraisers, and donors make better-informed decisions and respond more effectively to disasters by providing timely and independent needs analysis, data, training, and methodological tools while advocating a more evidence-based response to crises.
ACAPS have created and published analytical products and datasets to support the response. During the first six months of the response, ACAPS produced 5 Flash analyses, 4 Thematic Analyses, 3 Anticipatory analysis and datasets to enable a more evidence-based, localised response and ensure that humanitarian assistance reaches those most in need.
Alameda is an international institute for collective research rooted in contemporary social struggles. They provide research funding, publish research, and share learnings to steer political and theoretical debates on the critical challenges of our time.
Alameda started a strategic research project on the engagement in labour markets of Turkish and Syrian people directly affected by the earthquake. The aim of the project is to improve understanding of the contextual socio-economic challenges faced by those displaced due to the earthquake. This will be done in partnership with researchers from Syria, Türkiye, and Lebanon.
Cash Collaborative Delivery network (CCD) is a network of NGOs that are hosted by Save the Children UK that work on evidence-based collaborations for impactful, responsive, locally-led, and people-centric design & delivery of Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA). They are working on streamlining and harmonizing due diligence and passporting in the earthquake response in Türkiye and Syria.
CCD and DEC agencies are adopting a harmonised due diligence process to reduce the administrative burden on downstream partners and promote a streamlined process. Save the Children, World Vision, Action Against Hunger and Concern have now confirmed participation in the CCD's due diligence and cash capacity assessment harmonisation project.
- The approaches taken by the Collaborative Cash Delivery Network in response to the earthquake disaster in southern Turkey and parts of North-West Syria focused on facilitating collaborations within civil society and improving operational coordination among members. CCD established Communities of Practice (COPs) and carried out scoping missions to consider CCD’s offer to members during the relief phase, explore sustainable exit strategies for humanitarian action and build on existing projects. Finally, CCD implemented a pilot project focused on harmonising partnership approaches and assessments with the overall aim of generating evidence, learning, and scalable and adaptable models for a more accountable and effective cash response. CCD hopes to develop joint capacity building and passporting of assessments in later phases of this project, allowing local NGOs to take on larger shares of the programme cycle and form partnerships more easily.
The Innovation Hive (formerly The Bubble) accelerates future-focus experiments which deliver scalable impact for children, and sustainable new income streams. For Engine 2, they are delivering their Systems Studio model which looks at providing grants, financial investments and other bespoke non-financial support, including professional advice and services, to impact-driven entrepreneurs, to help them cope after crisis.
In partnership with CIVIC Ltd, the Innovation Hive undertook a comprehensive scoping of the opportunities for investment and support to social entrepreneurs in the earthquake-affected regions of Türkiye and North-West Syria. The regions where we conducted our scoping include Hatay, Adiyaman, Azaz, Aleppo, Istanbul. Through our work, we spoke to over 120 entrepreneurs and community leaders and have a database of around 150 social entrepreneurs to contact in the next months of the response.
- Our strategy is to target community entrepreneurs and community leaders with micro-grants, access to expertise, and a peer community. Our aim is that the entrepreneurs will then form an alliance which is working towards a holistic transformation of towns/cities that have been severely damaged by the earthquake. The people we are targeting are locally rooted, enterprising, civic-minded leaders who are responding to the immediate humanitarian challenges and beginning to organise to drive the rebuilding of their homes/towns/cities. This plan will therefore enable us to join the dots between diverse humanitarian actors and local stakeholders - hosting community spaces, convening community meetings etc. It will also create safe spaces for local stakeholders to inform both immediate response efforts and longer-term planning for rebuilding. And lastly, it will offer products/services to the local community, while starting to rebuild the livelihoods of that have been lost through the earthquake e.g., creating earnings through their business - revenues lost due to the earthquake damage.
Gwil Purchase, Innovation Lead
This story pack was produced by the Humanitarian Leadership Academy in January 2024. Last updated: 05 February 2024.
Further information
For enquiries related to SHIFT programme, please get in touch with the HLA Programme Management team:
Deputy Director - Impact & Influence
Pawel Mania
P.Mania@savethechildren.org.uk
Programme Team Lead
Amr Kamel
Amr.kamel@savethechildren.org
Programme Advisor
Fiona Tan
F.Tan@savethechildren.org.uk
Research & Evaluation Specialist
Elisa Sandri
E.Sandri@savethechildren.org.uk
Communications Officer
Oksana Dobrovolska
O.Dobrovolska@savethechildren.org.uk