How to use the EWEA System
Executive Summary: This document explains in simple terms how to make the best use
of UNICEF’s on-line EWEA System. Guidance is provided with examples and screen
shots to enable the user at CO, RO or HQ level to contribute to improved emergency
preparedness. It should be noted that the requirement to create and update what used
to be called an “EPRP” will now be satisfied by using the on-line EWEA System. Thus,
the update of the assessment of emergency risks, the update of the key actions for
emergency response readiness with associated documents, and the update of planned
preparedness activities integrated into Country Office Annual/Rolling Work Plans, by
itself constitutes the equivalent of an updated online EPRP.
Link with planning cycle
This revised version of the EWEA system is meant to support good Emergency Risk
Informed Programming. Country Offices will therefore need to work on the system at least
twice a year:
First, at the beginning of the year when undertaking annual reviews and formulating
annual/rolling work-plans :
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Review emergency risks in the country and reflect this analysis in the Early-Warning
section/tab of EWEA
Review status of country office emergency response readiness in the key actions
section/tab of the system. Status of key actions needs to be regularly updated as the
CO improves its emergency readiness. After a period of 2 years key actions which
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have never been updated will no longer be valid. For countries with a low exposure to
emergency risks the first key actions are the most important and constitute a minimum
level of readiness, for countries with a medium/high exposure to emergency risks all
20 key actions must be updated regularly.
Based on the evolution of emergency risks, on the status of emergency response
readiness as documented in the key actions and building on lessons learned from
either emergency responses having occurred in the previous year or emergency
simulations, CO should plan and integrate emergency preparedness activities in
annual/rolling workplans and management plans. Preparedness activities should cover
overall office management (simulation, contingency planning, office wide EPR
training), programme and operations areas. The main preparedness activities planned
and included in annual/rolling workplans need to be recorded in the preparedness
section/tab of EWEA.
Second, at the mid-year review:
- Update the risk analysis (early-warning)
- Review the progress done in the workplan for priority preparedness activities
(preparedness)
- Review the status of readiness and complete those key actions that might not be up to
date (key actions)
Regional Offices need to work on the system also to provide the necessary support to COs:
- Early-warning section/tab: when an assessment is done by a CO, regional office has
accountability to provide analytical support to COs by commenting on the assessment.
Furthermore, when an alert is sent by the system, the regional emergency team has an
accountability to work on this alert and provide all the necessary support to the CO
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Preparedness section/tab: when COs highlight that they require support in some
preparedness activities, ROs are on the frontline to provide this support. Therefore the
regional emergency team shall review at least twice a year the status of preparedness
activities in COs to provide the support required as well as provide general oversight
of preparedness activities included in annual workplans. Support can also be sought
from HQ if needed
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Key Actions section/tab: ROs have an accountability to check for the quality of the
key actions uploaded by COs and to provide hands-in support to improve the quality
where required.
EMOPS has a responsibility to
- Manage the global system and provide technical support and advice where necessary
- Provide comments and analytical support on the early-warning assessments that show
significant change
- Monitor and report in collaboration ROs on the overall use of the EWEA system
throughout the organization with a particular focus on the CO level of emergency
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response readiness as documented by the key actions status which will feed into
UNICEF’s global performance management system into CO’s manager dashboards.
Review annually the classification of emergency risk exposure used to calculate the
level of emergency response readiness.
Access rights
Any UNICEF staff with a valid UNICEF email has access to the system.
Only the Early-Warning section/tab is access restricted because of potentially sensitive
information.
At country level:
There are 2 levels of access:
- Reader = the staff can read the page but cannot change it
- Editor = the staff can edit the country early-warning analysis.
The country Representative or Deputy Representative needs to approve the changes in the list
of persons with access to this web page. Then the local country IT team can implement the
changes into the database.
At regional level:
There are 2 levels of access:
- Reader = the staff receives the EW alerts from the COs but doesn’t receive the EW
requests for comments
- Adviser = the staff receives the EW alerts and the EW requests for comments
At global level:
There are 3 levels of access:
- HQ mail= the staff receives the EW alerts
- HQ taskforce= the staff receives the EW alerts and requests for comments
- Administrator= the staff has full access to all pages of the system, can do edits, and
can change parameters.
Early-Warning
At beginning of the year (EMOPS will send a reminder around end January), all COs are
requested to review emergency risks in the country so as to plan relevant preparedness
activities in annual/rolling work plans and annual management plans. Similarly to the former
EPRP, the process (1) assessing/updating emergency risks, (2) reviewing lessons learned
from previous emergencies/simulations and level of emergency response readiness and (3)
planning ensuing emergency preparedness activities to be included into annual/workplans,
needs be consultative and participatory so that staff members can really contribute to make
the UNICEF regular programme emergency risk informed.
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When this analysis is done, the most important risks shall be reflected in the EWEA system
which categorises emergency risks based:
- On a timeline: immediate (next 6 months), medium term (7-12 months), sudden-onset
- On a mobilisation level: level 1 means that CO expects to manage the emergency
response on its own or that capacities of Government are sufficient to manage the
emergency. Level 2 means that CO’s capacity will be stretched significantly and that
support will be required from RO and/or HQ. Level 3 is an organisation-wide
emergency (Indian Ocean Tsunami, 2004, Pakistan 2010).
- On the order of magnitude: based on the number of children and women affected.
For uploading the analysis onto the system, the staff member must have access rights as an
editor (cf earlier), for doing so,
1- he / she must press on “assess”
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2- Then edit / add the relevant threats and do the analysis (short, concise summaries of
no more than 8 lines, please)
3- Highlight if the situation has changed on not since the last assessment
4- Press submit button
An email is then automatically generated and sent to the RO taskforce for all submissions and
to HQ taskforce if there have been significant changes. RO/HQ staffs have 48 hours to
provide comments. The assessment is then made official and appears in the system.
Key Actions
This page is a list of key emergency response readiness elements that countries need to
undertake to be considered as prepared to respond to emergencies. This can be considered as
a checklist for CO emergency response readiness. All templates for these key actions are
available on this page by clicking on the icon in the “template” column.
IMPORTANT: responsibilities for updating and documenting the key actions needs to
be shared in the office among accountable management, programme and operations
staff members. This must not be the sole responsibility of the emergency specialists/focal
points! Recommended accountabilities for updating the system are mentioned in the
instructions at the top of all key action templates and should be documented in the
annual management plan.
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To update the status of a key action, the accountable staff member must press “edit” for this
key action and a menu will appear: the staff member can upload the filled-in template to
document the key action and check if the update is complete or still partial.
Relevant RO staff members should review the quality of the key action as part of their
oversight function, following the same process, and check if the key action has been quality-
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checked and insert comments if required. The EWEA system will then automatically send the
comments to the staff who had updated the Key Action.
The minimum level of readiness of COs will vary based on the different levels of emergency
risk exposure. Using OCHA’s Global Focus Model, EMOPS has developed a classification
on emergency risk exposure which is reviewed by Regional Offices before being finalized
(http://intranet.unicef.org/geneva/ewea2.nsf/0/0E4385550904A63D852578AF0042D26B/$fil
e/GFM%202011%20FINAL.xlsx ). This classification will be reviewed annually. Based on
this classification:
- The minimum level of readiness for low exposure countries consists in completion of
key actions 1 – 10
- The minimum level of readiness for medium/high exposure countries consists in
completion of all 20.
Furthermore, each key action is given a weight that differs between countries with a low
emergency risk exposure and those with medium/high exposure Full score for a key action
will be given if CO assessed the key action as complete, and half score if partially done. The
total score is then computed automatically on a maximum of 100 by adding all key action
scores achieved by a country. Countries scoring below 50/100 will be assessed as red (low
emergency response readiness). Countries scoring between 50/100 and 70/100 will be
assessed as orange (medium readiness). And countries above 70/100 will be assessed as green
(high readiness).
This score will be exported to the performance management dashboard and will represent the
country’s level of emergency response readiness in communications to senior management.
At any given time a CO can generate a Preparedness Status Report which summarizes all
information included in the system. The readiness score of the country will be given at the
top of the report.
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Regional offices and headquarters staff can get an overview on the level of readiness for one
country, one region or globally. This can be done by going to global – key actions and
choosing the area of interest. This can be copied into an excel worksheet and shared if
needed.
Preparedness
Based on the updated assessment of emergency risks and status of readiness, CO need to plan
appropriate preparedness activities, discuss with partners and integrate them in their
annual/rolling workplans. Preparedness activities include those for management which are
office wide (simulations, EPR trainings, Inter Agency Contingency Planning) and those for
specific programme and operations sectors. While the main objective is to integrate these
preparedness activities in annual/rolling workplans and management plans, CO are also
required to record the priority activities in the preparedness tab/section of the EWEA system.
This part of the system is divided on the basis of programme and operational sectors aligned
with the CCCs, plus a management section for office wide cross-sectoral activities.
Similarly to the Key Actions, responsibilities for inputting and updating preparedness
activities in the system needs to be shared among the accountable staff members and
documented in the CO Annual Management Plan.
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To update information COs need to press the “edit” button in the appropriate section (e.g
Programme – Nutrition) to be able to edit the page.
A new screen will appear and COs need to input where relevant a description of activities
with a timeframe, a budget for the cost of the activity, and specific support needed, and then
press “save”.
At mid-year review, the staff who updated the page shall go back to it and upload the
progress made since the initial uploading was done.
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CO management, regional offices and headquarters can at any moment in time look at all
preparedness activities planned in AWPs throughout the region / the globe, and provide
targeted support. This can be done by generating a custom report (next section).
Reports generation
The EWEA system is a monitoring tool to assess CO’s emergency risk assessment,
emergency response readiness and preparedness planned in annual workplans. To facilitate
this monitoring a custom report function was embedded in the system to generate specific
reports for either a specific threat, a specific key action or a specific preparedness sector.
Preparedness Status Report (equivalent of a summary on line EPRP)
Anywhere on the country pages, a CO can generate a Preparedness Status Report which is a
summary of the online EPRP.
This report is a summary of all CO information recorded in the system for a specific country.
Only the content of the key actions needs to be downloaded and printed separately. It is
suggested that after each update of the EWEA at the beginning of the year after finalization
of the workplan and after the mid-year review update, a preparedness status report including
all attached key actions be printed and distributed to the members of the CO emergency
management team in order for it to be readily available in case of emergencies.
Custom reporting
On the left hand side of the screen any staff can generate reports
based on the information in the system. The system allows one to
choose any region/country and any reporting criteria which may be
of use to the staff.
For instance a regional child protection adviser can generate a
report for all countries in the region on all preparedness activities
planned in child protection and on the readiness status on the child
protection key action for these countries.
Or, for a low-income country often prone to floods and tropical
cyclones, it is possible to generate a report on all preparedness
activities for all countries suffering the same risks. It is then
possible to see what type of preparedness activities are being done
in these countries to prepare efficiently to such emergencies.
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Readiness status report
As seen earlier, in global – key actions, any staff can generate a scorecard with the levels of
emergency response readiness of all countries in a region or globally.
Information support
Finally, the system has a document generation and document repository function.
Maps:
When going to Maps / request a map (cf screenshot), the system allows any staff member to
submit a rapid map request to UNOSAT. This map request can be for any map service that
can realistically be obtained by satellite imagery and serves emergency response, emergency
preparedness, disaster or conflict risk reduction, or recovery purposes (e.g., damages to
buildings, active fires, displaced persons, troops positioning, flooded areas...). As per the
UNICEF/UNOSAT agreement, after a screening of the request by OPSCEN, UNOSAT is
obliged to provide this service to the requesting staff member.
The staff member will be requested to fill out a form that will be checked by OPSCEN and
sent to UNOSAT. After 72hrs, UNOSAT will produce the map, send a link to the staff
requesting, and it will begin appearing in the EWEA system in the country - maps section.
Maps from other service providers are also posted on this page.
News services
Any news from several emergency news portals can be
accessed directly for a given region or country by pressing to
the latest emergency news button on this country or region’s
page.
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Key guidance and contacts
By pressing “emergency guidance” on the left hand side menu, COs or ROs can seek key
guidance and technical support contacts for preparing to emergencies.
Document repository
Finally, by clicking on CO/RO/HQ documents on the left-hand side menu, COs have the
possibility of creating institutional memory by uploading those emergency-related documents
that they feel are important. This also enables COs to search for other COs’ key documents
online.
For additional information, please contact:
Michel Le Pechoux
Chief of EWP Section, EMOPS
mlepechoux@unicef.org
+41 22 909 5610
Guillaume Simonian
Risk Reduction Specialist
gsimonian@unicef.org
+41 22 909 5644
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