“L’humanitaire pris aux mots” (“Taking the humanitarian sector at its word(s)”) is the Groupe URD podcast (in French). Each short episode looks at the aid sector via key words. Each word is viewed from several angles and, for each episode, a specialist shares their point of view.

WORD NO. 3: ‘AGILITY’

1/3 | Aid agility: for better project management, with Charly Pierluigi (Groupe URD)

This new series of podcasts looks at the issue of agility in the international aid sector.

This approach, also known as “agile management”, is the opposite of “classic” project management methods, which have their limits, for example when the context or the action planned is too complex to foresee and anticipate everything in advance.

Because in difficult conditions, a lot really depends on the ability of people and organisations to adapt to change and respond effectively to uncertainty, which is what we call being “agile” here.

In this first episode, we asked our colleague Charly Pierluigi, Groupe URD’s Quality Coordinator, who regularly runs training courses on the subject, both in France and abroad, to tell us about the main characteristics of agility.

2/3 | Agility from the perspective of a development NGO, with Christian Blanchard (ASMAE)

This second episode in our series on agility aims to illustrate the concept in very concrete terms by looking at a development NGO that is increasingly having to adapt to rapid and far-reaching changes in context. We’ll see that these upheavals force it to move outside its usual field of action and confront it with humanitarian issues.

To talk to us about this need for agility, at both organisational and project level, we have the pleasure of hearing Christian Blanchard, Director of International Action for the NGO ASMAE Sœur Emmanuelle, whose aim is to bring protection and education to the most vulnerable children in France and seven other countries.

3/3 | Agility at the heart of a particularly complex project, with Hélène Ronceray (Action contre la faim)

To conclude this series on agility in the aid sector, we wanted to understand how an agile project works, i.e. a project that is designed from start to finish to act and react in the best possible way in a particularly complex and fluctuating context. The project in question was RESILAC, which stands for “Redressement Économique et Social Inclusif du Lac Tchad” (Economic and socially inclusive recovery in Lake Chad). Its aim was to strengthen the resilience of the areas of the Lake Chad Basin most affected by the security crisis and climate change. The project was implemented by an international consortium (Action contre la Faim – lead partner, CARE and Groupe URD) in partnership with the CCFD – Terre Solidaire network, Search For Common Ground and local organisations in the four intervention countries.

This is a particularly complex project because it is multi-country, multi-sector and multi-stakeholder, as it is being implemented by an international and multi-donor consortium. Not to mention the fact that it is part of a “triple nexus” approach combining “humanitarian aid, development and peace”.

To introduce us to this project, which has been run from 2018 to 2022 in Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria and Chad, we had the pleasure of interviewing Hélène Ronceray, the project manager and head of RESILAC’s regional office based in N’Djamena.