Iraq 2023 - Save the Children Sweden HUM Project 2021-2025 During 2020, Sida's Unit for Humanitarian Assistance conducted an overview of ongoing strategic partnerships in order to ensure that partnerships were established with the most relevant and effective humanitarian actors to carry out Sida's Humanitarian Strategy. As a result of the overview, Sida has decided to appraise a new contribution and enter into a new strategic partnership agreement with Save the Children Sweden (SCS) for the period 2021-2025 (see archive number 2021-000057).

The total initial contribution to SCS in 2024 amounts to SEK 97 317 333. 

The overall objective of the intervention is to contribute to the promotion of three Breakthroughs in the way children are treated in the world: Survive, Learn and Be Protected. These are part of the Save the Children movement's Vision for 2030 and are defined as remarkable and sustainable shifts from current trends that Save the Children aspires to work to achieve for children. Their respective objective is the following:

1. Survive: No child dies of preventable causes before their fifth birthday. 
2. Learn: All children learn from quality basic education.
3. Be Protected: Violence against children is no longer tolerated. 

One of the main comparative advantages of Save the Children is its competence in addressing protection-related concerns. For this reason, Centrality of Protection has been proposed as the thematic frame, making the Be Protected Breakthrough particularly central for its interventions during the agreement period. 

Finally, in addition to these three Breakthroughs, the proposed contribution also aligns with Sweden's newly adopted "Strategy for Sweden’s humanitarian assistance provided through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) 2021–2025". Detta beslut och tillhörande beredning avser en ny insats (Beslut om insats, Insatshanteringsregeln 2.9 §) mellan Sida och Rädda Barnens Riksförbund (Rädda Barnen) för avtalsperioden 2021-2025. Beslut och tillhörande beredningar avser dessutom stöd till Rädda Barnens humanitära verksamhet under 2021-2024 (stöd för avtalsåren 2025 är avhängligt Sidas godkännande av Rädda Barnens fullständiga ansökan för respektive år enligt att-satserna ovan). 
Aktuellt beslut omfattar finansiellt stöd till Rädda Barnen om 97 317 333 SEK under 2024. 

Målet med insatsen (2021-2025) är att bidra till tre "Förändringar" (Breakthroughs) som identifierats inom Save the Children-rörelsen som del av dess vision för 2030. Dessa är att barn ska:

1. Överleva - inga barn dör av orsaker som kan förebyggas innan de fyllt fem år. 
2. Lära - alla barn får del av kvalitativ grundläggande utbildning. 
3. Vara skyddade - våld mot barn tolereras inte längre. 

I ljuset av Sveriges "Strategi för Sveriges humanitära bistånd genom Styrelsen för internationellt utvecklingssamarbete (Sida) 2021-2025" kommer särskilt den tredje Förändringen - vara skyddade - att vara central, eftersom ett av strategins huvudmål är "Förbättrad förmåga att tillgodose skydd och assistans för krisdrabbade människor". Rädda Barnen kommer dessutom i hög utsträckning att integrera skyddskomponenter i sin multisektoriella assistans inom ramen för insatsens tema "Centrality of Protection". Detta tema syftar till att på ett holistiskt sätt minska skyddsrelaterade risker och svara upp mot skyddsrelaterade behov hos barn i kombination med andra projektkomponenter, snarare än att betrakta skydd som isolerat från andra delmål. Vision, Humanitarian Policy and Humanitarian Plan
The overall objective of the intervention is to contribute to the promotion of three Breakthroughs in the way children are treated in the world: Survive, Learn and Be Protected. These are part of the Save the Children movement's Vision for 2030 and are defined as remarkable and sustainable shifts from current trends that Save the Children aspires to work to achieve for children. Their respective objective is the following:
Survive: No child dies of preventable causes before their fifth birthday. 
Learn: All children learn from quality basic education.
Be Protected: Violence against children is no longer tolerated. 
For the upcoming agreement period 2021-2025, SCS has identified several aims under each breakthrough that it seeks to promote with Sida's humanitarian funding.
All Country Offices within Save the Children are to be held accountable for their contribution to the Breakthroughs through a combination of programming, promotion, advocacy, funding and public mobilization. This is assessed to require integrated expertise in health, nutrition, education, child protection, child poverty and child rights governance. The work will be undertaken by SCS as part of both its development and humanitarian programming. 
The humanitarian sphere of work related to the Breakthroughs is anchored in the Save the Children movement's Humanitarian Policy - Our Approach to Humanitarian Action, adopted in 2019. It stipulates that Save the Children aims to deliver humanitarian assistance that is timely, appropriate, effective and accountable to the most vulnerable children, their families and communities. Furthermore, during 2021, the work is guided in particular by its Humanitarian Plan 2021 - Children Cannot Wait. The plan is structured around four pillars, of which the first three align with the three strategic Breakthroughs: Child Survival, Access to Education, and Child Protection. The fourth pillar is Avoid Negative Coping Mechanisms, which sets out the aim for Save the Children to promote increased income opportunities, CVA for basic needs, in-kind food when CVA is not appropriate, as well as government social protection schemes. The overarching ambition of the Plan is for Save the Children to respond to the humanitarian needs of 15.7 million people, including 9.4 million children, in 2021.
Finally, to achieve the Breakthroughs, Save the Children emphasizes the importance of standards in its programming. For this reason, its Humanitarian Policy commits the organization to ensure that its programming consistently aligns with and integrates the Core Humanitarian Standards (CHS), the Sphere standards, the Inter- Agency Network for Education In Emergencies (INEE) minimum standards, and the Child Protection Minimum Standards (CPMS). 
Centrality of Protection 
In 2019, a Centrality of Protection policy and strategy was endorsed in line with the Interagency Standing Committee (IASC) Principles Statement on the Centrality of Protection in Humanitarian Action (2013). Through the statement, protection became recognized as the purpose and intended outcome of humanitarian action. For Save the Children, the commitment to Centrality of Protection is built around six policy statements: 
1. Ensure capacity of humanitarian staff to understand, recognise and respond to violations of International Humanitarian Law/International Human Rights Law/International Refugee Law/International Criminal Law and uphold humanitarian principles in humanitarian crises.
2. Adopt a conflict-sensitive approach to the centrality of protection.
3. Systematize the approach to child protection analysis and integration in humanitarian crises.
4. Commit to the identification, response, monitoring and reporting of grave and other serious child rights violations.
5. Define the organizational position and develop an appropriate response when identifying the erosion of the international legal framework for upholding child rights in humanitarian contexts.
6. Strengthen interagency collaboration, including as a Cluster Lead agency, and use that to promote child rights within the humanitarian protection architecture.
For SCS's Sida-funded Humanitarian Program 2021-2025, Centrality of Protection has been proposed as the thematic frame, making the Be Protected breakthrough particularly central for its interventions. It would entail a broader conceptualization of protection than during the agreement period 2017-2020, which had the thematic frame Children and Armed Conflict, with a specific focus on Protecting Children in Conflict. The key difference would be moving beyond preventing protection risks faced by children through child protection-focused interventions, towards integrating the mitigation of protection risks into all SCS's sectors of work whenever relevant. The ambition is to promote a more comprehensive and holistic approach to addressing child protection concerns in contrast to doing so in isolation.
Initial Allocation 2021
In alignment with Save the Children's ambitions related to its Vision for 2030 and the three strategic Breakthroughs, its Humanitarian Policy, its Humanitarian Plan, as well as Sida's Humanitarian Strategy, SCS has submitted a Full Project Proposal to Sida for 2021. Sida has reviewed these proposals and drawn the conclusion that they align well with the abovementioned priorities as well as the proposed Centrality of Protection thematic frame. Below, a short description is provided for the proposed projects to be supported by Sida as part of the initial allocation 2021. The activity period for each project is 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022, which corresponds to the 2021 work year. 
I. Annual Projects (in line with the most recent Humanitarian Response Plans)
Iraq - SEK 15,000,000
Three years after the end of Iraq’s conflict against ISIS, the impacts of fighting remain high. In 2020, more than 4.1 million people were in need of some form of humanitarian assistance, and it is estimated that over 2.3. million individuals will be in need of protection services in 2021. Moreover, 1.3 million people are estimated to be internally displaced, many of whom facing additional vulnerabilities as a result of the Government of Iraq's announcement in October 2020 that all camps and informal locations for Internally Displaced People (IDP) are to be closed.  
Save the Children has significant experience of addressing humanitarian needs in Iraq. In their activities, they include capacity strengthening for the Department of Labour and Social Affairs and other local actors working with child protection-related issues. Furthermore, Save the Children has a strong localization focus, with 40 % of the funds designated for the proposed intervention planned for to be forwarded to the three local implementing partners: Harikar; Al Sorouh for Sustainable Development Foundation; and Sahara Economic Development Organization. 
Save the Children has previously reported good results from their interventions in Iraq and has contributed to the reduction of protection risks that vulnerable girls and boys and their caregivers face. Moreover, Save the Children is co-lead in the Child Protection sub-cluster and has a role to play in the future transition to development interventions in this area of work.
The project would be implemented in Ninewa (Mosul), Diyala (Mugidadia) and Dohuk (Sakho) with IDPs, recent returnees and vulnerable host communities as the targeted groups. The overall objective is to support the most vulnerable conflict-affected and displaced to survive and be protected through integrated protection, mental health and psychosocial support services, livelihoods and health actions. In alignment with the three Strategic Objectives of the draft HRP for 2021, this would be done by, inter alia, providing case management and positive parenting support services (benefitting 3,420 children and youth), multipurpose cash grants (1,320 children and 660 adults), life skills trainings (300 youth), promoting health awareness (3,000 children and 10,000 community members) and capacitating local actors to lead protection-oriented responses (520 persons). 
Mali - SEK 7,000,000
Of the estimated 13.5 million crisis-affected Malians, around 7.1 million are projected to be in need of humanitarian assistance in 2021 - an increase of 39 percent compared to 2020. Of these people, 3.5 million are estimated to be children. The worst affected region is Mopti, where approximately 42 % of the country's 311,193 IDPs reside (55 % of whom are women), food insecurity is pervasive and severe protection risks exist. The dire situation is mainly a result of different types of ongoing armed violence, but is compounded by poverty, weak state presence and climate change.
In alignment with the first three Strategic Objectives of the 2020 HRP, the proposed intervention targets 8,940 people living in Koro and Bankass circles in Mopti region (4,700 children and 3,790 adults). It is an integrated protection intervention with a strong focus on promoting sustained outcomes. The objective is to restore the psychosocial well-being and addressing the basic needs of populations affected by the armed violence as well as to strengthen the protective environment in the region. This would be done through the provision of protection and education services, cash assistance during the lean season, and the implementation of the protection cluster's Centrality of Protection action plan.
Of the budget, 60 % is designated for direct implementation by Save the Children, and the remainder for a planned partnership with a local organization. The partner organization is yet to be identified, and Sida is currently in dialogue with SCS related to this risk and potential contingency planning.
Capacity building and material support is also planned for to local state actors and community groups for them to sustain the protection support structure in Mopti following the finalization of the project. This includes developing an exit plan to be implemented during the last three months of the project (January to March 2022). 
Mozambique - SEK 6,000,000
Ever since cyclone Kenneth struck the Cabo Delgado province in northern Mozambique in April 2019 causing widespread destruction, humanitarian needs have continued to increase. The main reason for this has been the parallel escalation of an armed conflict in the province that dawned in 2017. Between March and November 2020 alone, the number of IDPs quadrupled from around 110,400 to nearly 530,000. In total, over 1.3 million people are projected to be in need of humanitarian support in the province during 2021.
Sida has provided support to Save the Children for responding to humanitarian needs in Cabo Delgado since cyclone Kenneth in 2019 and is diversifying its partner portfolio from 2021. The proposed support for Save the Children aligns specifically with the third strategic objective of the 2021 HRP - addressing protection risks and needs of crisis-affected people. As such, it is foremostly a focused rather than an integrated intervention, and targets 33,346 people (13,338 children) in the districts of Chuire, Metuge, Montepuez and Pemba. 
The intervention is planned for to be implemented in partnership with CARE International throught he COSACA consortium, which has been operating in Mozambique since 2007. It is focused around two Outcomes: child protection (led by Save the Children) and gender-based violence (led by CARE International. The overarching aim is to ensure crisis-affected people are protected and better able to withstand protection risks of current and future crises. Activities include case management support for unaccompanied and separated children as well as children exposed to Gender-Based Violence (GBV), and the provision of Psychosocial Support Services at Child Friendly Spaces. 
South Sudan - SEK 10,000,000
In South Sudan, approximately 80 % of the population of 11.8 million live on less than USD 1 per day, with an estimated 8.3 million to be in need of humanitarian assistance and 7.7 million to experience food insecurity (IPC 3 or worse). One of the worst affected states is Jonglei where the armed conflict intensified in 2020, and where needs were compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic as well as floods. The latter in particular, and volatile weather and climate change in general, pose significant threats to many South Sudanese as the majority of the population rely on subsistence farming. 
The objective of the proposed intervention is to improve food and income security of crisis affected people - including IDPs - in Bor South and Nyirol Counties of Jonglei State. The total number of people targeted is 52,183. The intervention would be integrated with an ongoing education project with the aim of building a safe and protective environment for children, which is currently receiving development support from Sida. This would foremostly be done by preventing dropout rates through cash assistance and livelihoods trainings, and by meeting nutritional needs of children under the age of five in order to prevent them from suffering physical or cognitive damages ahead of enrolling in school. The humanitarian project would be multisectoral - food security and livelihood, nutrition, child protection, mental health and psychosocial support, and with indirect links to education. 
The project would contribute to the three Strategic Objectives of the 2020 South Sudan HRP: reducing morbidity and mortality; facilitating safe, equitable and dignified access to basic services; and enabling vulnerable people to recover from crisis, seek solutions to displacement and build resilience to acute shocks and chronic stresses. Save the Children would partner with the local organization Christian Recovery and Development Agency (CRADA) in Nyirol for part of the food security and livelihood component, and cooperate with the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Health, County Health Department, and Ministry of Gender.
Syria - SEK 10,000,000
About to enter its tenth year, the war in Syria has devastated the country, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to live in overcrowded camps with insufficient services and imminent protection risks. In two of these camps located in northeast Syria - Al Hol and Roj - over 64,400 people live. In Al Hol, 94 % of the residents are women and children, and 53 % are below the age of 12. Around 60 % of children are not receiving education, with Covid-19 having further exacerbated this situation. In Roj, 64 % of the residents are below 18 years old, many similarly missing out on education opportunities. 
A barrier analysis conducted by Save the Children in mid-2020 indicated lacking access to services as a major concern, in particular for vulnerable groups such as girls and children with disabilities. The proposed intervention would address this issue through the provision of integrated protection, mental health, psychosocial, and education support reaching a targeted 1,700 children, 140 caregivers and 22 education facilitators. Activities include providing case management and psychosocial support services, making referrals, supporting child protection committees and promoting protective education opportunities. 
The intervention would contribute specifically to Strategic Objective 2 - enhance protection and Strategic Objective 3 - increase resilience and access to services, of the 2020 HRP for Syria, published in late 2020. Being one of few NGOs with access to operate in the camps, Save the Children would be conducting all implementation, while seeking to advocate with camp authorities on child-related issues and strengthen community structures such as child protection committees and parent teachers associations to promote resilience. 
Yemen - SEK 15,000,000
OCHA estimates that 24.1 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance (as of December 2020), which corresponds to around 80 % of the entire population. One of the governorates most severely affected by the war is Hajjah, with frontlines in Abs, Mustaba and Aslem where people suffer from severe deprivations and increased protection risks. In February 2019, for example, 62 % of cases of recruitment and use of children and 37 % of child casualties verified across the country were from Hajjah. In addition to the hostilities, displacement and lack of access are the main drivers of humanitarian needs, in particular food insecurity. Moreover, 5.5 million children were estimated to be in need of education assistance in 2020, with 161 schools in Hajjah unfit for use and girls being two times more likely th be withdrawn from school than boys. 
The proposed support is for an integrated food security and livelihoods, child protection and education intervention to 7,800 people (no double counting) in Abs district and Hajjah city. This will be done by, inter alia, providing multipurpose cash grants to adolescents and caregivers to cover basic needs, most of whom would also receive complementary vocational training with the aim to improve their livelihoods resilience. With regards to child protection, moreover, support services would complement education efforts by targeting children attending temporary learning spaces with psychosocial support and case management when needed. 
Save the Children's operations have previously suffered severely from restricted access - in 2019, merely 13 % of targeted beneficiaries for a Sida-funded project were reached in four northern provinces (including Hajjah), prompting Save the Children to shift its operations to southern Yemen in 2020. The outlook is currently that Save the Children would be able to conduct the intervention as planned for 2021, but Sida will need to engage in close dialogue with SCS during the year to ensure operations are running smoothly and that Sida is promptly informed otherwise. 
Finally, Ansar Allah, largely in control of north Yemen, has been subjected to a terrorist designation by the US as of 19 January 2021. Sida, Unit for Humanitarian Assistance is therefore in close contact with its partners on the potential impact of the designation on the humanitarian situation in the country, as well as the SCS’s specific activities and presence. Moreover, a risk analysis is being developed by each partner to identify challenges and mitigation measures.
II. Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) - SEK 25,000,000
Part of the annual humanitarian budget is set aside for sudden onsets of humanitarian crises and as well as deteriorations of major ongoing ones. For these situations, Sida has a Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) that makes it possible to allow for the release of disbursed (but unallocated) funds for SPOs within 24 hours in order for them to swiftly respond when humanitarian needs suddenly emerge or severely deteriorate.
SCS has been assessed by Sida to have a strong capacity to respond to sudden onset crises in complex humanitarian contexts. For this reason, it is proposed that SCS receives SEK 25 million in RRM support for 2021. 
 
 
III. Capacity Building and Method Development Support
Strengthening Humanitarian Access - SEK 3,409,000
As raised above, the latest Annual Report of the UN Secretary General on Children and Armed Conflict outlined an increase of 453 percent in incidents of denial of humanitarian access in 2019, representing a total of more than 4,400 incidents. In recent years, the respect for norms governing armed conflict and humanitarian action has eroded, which undermines the ability of humanitarian organizations to reach people in need of assistance and places the onus on communities themselves to ensure access to assistance and services. Moreover, access restrictions are sometimes further compounded by counterterrorism and sanction measures preventing engagement with actors that might be in partial or direct control over areas where humanitarian needs exist. 
The objective of this intervention is to address these issues by strengthening access for humanitarians and communities in hard-to-reach areas. It is divided along three objectives: 
1. Promote systematization of how Save the Children staff and partners engage in dialogue with armed actors. This includes providing, inter alia, capacity-building support for field workers and frontline teams in structuring their humanitarian negotiations. 
2. Facilitate communities to access services. 2021 would be the first year of a two-year effort to assemble knowledge and understanding and develop guidance to promote community-led child protection. The ambition is for this to then be piloted in selected constituencies during 2022 (no such funding for year two proposed for in this Appraisal Memo). 
3. Measuring the impact of denial of humanitarian access to children, including the effects of counterterrorism legislation. This would be done as a research project in partnership with Watchlist and the Fordham University's Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs (IIHA) and be used for advocacy purposes.
This proposed project aligns with several objectives of Sida's Humanitarian Strategy's, in particular "Humanitarian assistance and protection activities reach people in hard-to-reach areas" and "Humanitarian actors have safe, unhindered and sustained humanitarian access to reach crisis-affected people". 
Interagency Child Protection Programming - SEK 2,184,000
In a constantly evolving humanitarian landscape there is a need to ensure humanitarian actors respond to crises with quality and reach. To this effect, humanitarian standards are central instruments. Departing from this notion, the project aims to strengthen quality, accountability and efficiency in interagency child protection programming. It is based on two components: the Child Protection Minimum Standards (CPMS) and Cash and Voucher (CVA) assistance. 
First, together with the Sphere Protection Principles, the CPMS provide for a foundation of advancing Centrality of Protection in humanitarian programming, which was incorporated in the CPMS during 2019. However, funding for child protection is limited and prioritization of Centrality of Protection across sectors is oftentimes lacking. The proposed project seeks to address this by supporting innovation and local leadership through the CPMS Innovation Fund - granting financial support to national and local actors to lead implementation of the CPMS. Moreover, advocacy is planned for at the global level on how multi-sectoral actors' commitment to the Centrality of Protection can be realized and trickle down to programming at the country level. 
The second component seeks to strengthen the use and evidence base for CVA in interagency child protection programming, which in part is a continuation of activities funded by Sida in 2020. It includes (i) the finalization and dissemination of an integrated CVA and Child Protection Monitoring, Evaluation, Assessment and Learning (MEAL) toolkit, (ii) undertaking a desk review on CVA for child-headed households and unaccompanied children, and (iii) finalizing guidance on conditions and capacities required to work with child protection using CVA. 
This proposed project also aligns with several objectives of Sida's humanitarian Strategy's, including "Reduced risk of violence, threats and abuse for crisis-affected people", and "Increased effectiveness and efficiency of the humanitarian system in line with Grand Bargain commitments". 
IV. Global Surge Deployments - SEK 800,000
In 2017, a review was undertaken of the surge structure across the Save the Children movement, which resulted in a decision to transition it from a decentralized model where surge teams were hosted by different Members, to a centralized model hosted by SCI under what is called a Global Humanitarian Surge Platform (GHSP). The purpose was to increase the quality, speed and effectiveness of the global surge capacity, reducing the complexity of deployment procedures and increasing the visibility of supply and demand of staff. The GHSP was formally established in 2019, and managed 342 deployments in 2020. 
The objective of Sida's proposed support to the GHSP is to ensure that Save the Children's humanitarian responses have access to rapidly deployable skilled and experienced staff needed to deliver high quality and timely humanitarian responses. During 2021, an estimated ten deployments of four weeks respectively are expected to be funded through Sida's support. 
V. Operational and Technical Support - SEK 5 000 000
This support is provided to SCS's HQ in Stockholm in order to engender high-quality management of - and compliance with - the draft Agreement during 2021. The support is divided between "Operational Support", "Thematic and Quality Support", "Grants Management & Monitoring", and "Financial Management and Donor Relations". 
Sida's assessment of this support is provided in more detail in section 5.1. below.