The ability to swiftly deploy qualified staff is essential for us to deliver a high quality, timely and predictable emergency response. We have four surge staff pools to draw from when responding to emergencies.
1. EMPACT (Emergency Protection, Assistance, and Coordination Team) consists of senior emergency responders who have been selected based on their qualifications and experience and covers both programme and support functions. Currently, EMPACT has 10 members with expertise in: Logs/Procurement, Finance/Administration (HoFA), General Emergency Responder/Emergency Coordinator, Protection, WASH, Shelter, Cash Transfer Programming, Distributions, Camp Management. They are in principle ready to deploy within 72 hours.
When not responding to Corporate Emergencies and new start-ups, the roving emergency responders can be deployed to fill positions within existing emergency operations based on requests from Country and Regional Offices or based on priorities as defined by the HQ Emergency Unit and the Senior Management Group. The roving emergency responders are financed through the CO or RO budgets or the RRS. EMPACT is managed and administered by the Emergency Unit in Copenhagen.
2. Pool of Emergency Responders is a pool of humanitarian professionals who are not on contract with DRC, but who have indicated their interest in short term deployments (initially up to 3 months) to DRC emergency operations.
The pool consists of approximately 100 professionals who have been accepted as emergency responders through interviews with the HQ Emergency Unit. The Pool of Emergency Responders is used to fill gaps in emergency responses; it is not meant as a substitute for regular recruitment by country operations. When requested, the emergency team shares CVs of relevant candidates with ROs and/or COs, who may choose to then employ the candidate with or without further interviews.
3. The DRC Stand-by Roster mainly deploys experts to the UN but can also deploy candidates to DRC emergency operations. The Stand-by Roster has its own administration in HQ. As with the Pool of Emergency Responders, their availability for deployment is not guaranteed.
The collaboration between the Emergency Unit and the DRC Stand-by Roster is informal and a number of experts are members of several of the surge mechanisms.
4. HQ Emergency Unit – in special circumstances HQ Emergency Unit staff can also be deployed to field locations on short-term missions.
Combining all four mechanisms often allows us to mobilize a full team of experienced and highly qualified emergency responders that can start or scale up an emergency operation anywhere in the world at very short notice.
How to request
Requests for surge staff deployments should be sent to the HQ Emergency Unit through our online request form.
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