Communication, community engagement and accountability (CCEA): Technical Training for Practitioners

Making humanitarian action more responsive, respectful and effective for people affected by crisis: a technical training for humanitarian practitioners

Download the course summary

How will this course benefit your work?

Communication is aid. Effective and inclusive CCEA will make your programmes more responsive to the needs of the people you are helping, enabling them to make informed decisions and participate in the response to the crisis affecting their lives.

Our Technical Training for Practitioners course provides a technical overview of the importance of CCEA, the basic activities needed to engage communities affected by crisis, and how to implement these activities in collaboration with others for greater impact.

Who is it for?

  • Staff who lead or design humanitarian and emergency relief projects: the course shows how designing clear communication and feedback systems into projects makes them more efficient, efficient and accountable.

  • Staff who are stepping up to manage a full range of CCEA activities across any area of humanitarian response.

  • Senior staff looking to develop their knowledge of CCEA: the course introduces the basic communication, engagement and accountability elements every project needs.

Course outline

  • Available as remote or hybrid training

  • 3 x 3-hour trainer-led seminars + 3 x approximately 2.5-hour sessions of self-guided learning + optional 1-hour tutorial

Session 1

Understanding the community

  • How communities and groups communicate.

  • Different ways to assess the community communication methods and preferences.

  • Resources and coordination needed

  • Working with partners on the ground.

Communicating with communities

  • Using media and communication to build understanding between communities and humanitarians.

  • Planning and implementing a communication campaign, including coordinating with other providers and using communication channels.

  • How feedback informs programming.

Session 2

Listening to communities: the importance of shared feedback

  • Comparative analysis of different feedback mechanisms.

  • Achieving greater impact by coordinating and sharing data from different mechanisms.

  • Improving feedback and accountability through participatory design by affected people.

Doing more together: the importance of coordination and shared accountability

  • Advantages of coordination for embedding CCEA into a response.

  • Coordination structures, use of advocacy, and the importance of partnerships in CCEA.

  • Understanding the concept of accountability to affected people.

Session 3

CCEA strategies: using coordination for better implementation

  • Planning, implementing and managing a CCEA plan in coordination with others.

  • Practical learning: how to combine skills learned in the previous sessions into an integrated working method.

Opportunities for development

  • Short session outlining opportunities for peer exchange and continuous learning on CCEA.

Optional: extra session on the use of social media in CCEA

Why CDAC Network?

CDAC Network has been delivering training, capacity strengthening and expertise in CCEA for more than a decade, including deploying CCEA experts for organisational and collective surge purposes. Our trainings are built on this extensive experience and expertise.

We also carry out in-depth learning reviews after large-scale crises, which have contributed to the design of this course.

How does CDAC approach training?

  • Taking a user-orientated approach, CDAC tailors the training according to the existing capacities and needs of the trainees.

  • The training takes place within a simulated humanitarian response, providing a safe environment for trainees to apply newly learned skills to a context that mirrors the real world.

  • Short, online sessions allow trainees to learn alongside their job – and, with the trainer acting as a mentor, to apply their new skills in their day-to-day work.

  • Diverse groups of trainees and use of collaborative tools encourage a capacity-bridging approach, where trainees share real-world solutions from a broad range of experiences.

  • The combination of practical learning with knowledge-sharing creates a lasting community of practice, reinforced by trainees having the opportunity to stay on the CDAC learning platform for at least a year, to continue sharing and learning together.

Can we adapt the training?

CDAC training is designed to be adaptable to the needs of trainees. This enables us to rapidly fill knowledge gaps in surge capacity; develop specific in-country skills; and bridge skills between the humanitarian and non-humanitarian worlds, such as for media and private sector professionals.

We can also develop and deliver totally bespoke CCEA technical training, tailored specifically to your organisation’s needs.

For more information, contact training@cdacnetwork.org