Training & capacity bridging

Capacity bridging is at the core of CDAC’s commitment to ensuring the participation and intentional inclusion of communities in humanitarian decision-making.

Capacity bridging is the equitable, two-way sharing of knowledge and skills across individuals and institutions to enable optimal communication, community engagement and accountability (CCEA) competence and capabilities at scale throughout the humanitarian system. It is a shift away from concepts like ‘capacity building/development’ towards a more inclusive and less hierarchal concept that recognises and values the existing capacities of local and national response actors and their related national humanitarian architecture.

The people and place in each country context are the foundational building blocks for CDAC’s CCEA work. CDAC therefore works to ‘bridge’ capacities between those within the country and international actors to fill critical gaps in CCEA knowledge and skills, and supports this process through providing training and coordination.

Download an introduction to the CDAC Capacity Bridging Initiative

Please contact training@cdacnetwork.org for more information about each training and any related costs.

CDAC’s training offer

Coordinator Training: equips coordinators with the soft skills and administrative knowledge needed to support CCEA at the inter-agency or inter-cluster collective level and build more resilient and cooperative partnerships. Read more

CCEA Technical Training for Practitioners: gives programme leaders a technical overview of CCEA activities and how to implement them in collaboration with others for greater impact. Read more

Bespoke CCEA technical training: training tailored specifically to your organisation’s needs. Examples include CCEA training developed and delivered for work involving public health, cash, and climate resilience. Contact training@cdacnetwork.org

Communication is Aid: free, online, self-guided course that uses interactive scenarios to introduce the basic principles of CCEA in under three hours. Read more

Surge capacity

In a sudden-onset emergency or rising crisis, CDAC can help with surge CCEA capacity:

  • CDAC can bridge the gaps in skills and knowledge that surge teams may have in engaging and communicating with communities. Our experts are available to advise and, if needed, help develop the CCEA systems needed for a response. 

  • We provide rapid pre-deployment training in CCEA, as well as remote mentoring to help deployed staff embed and apply new skills and learning. 

  • Our training has been designed to be taken ‘on the job’, so surge staff undertaking CCEA activities for the first time can learn the skills they need as they need them.

  • We produce rapid snapshot reports on CCEA to assist the start-up of a response. Our capacity-bridging platform approach particularly links the surge capacity of international actors with local expertise already responding.

Read more

Terms of reference templates

To help speed up deployment time and support understanding of the range of functions needed in crisis situations, the CDAC Network developed generic terms of reference (ToRs) for collective CCEA:

  • Technical Officer: agency-focused role to improve agency performance on CCE/AAP

  • Coordinator: inter-agency role facilitating a working group or similar platform on CCE/AAP

  • Senior Advisor: inter-agency role supporting the humanitarian architecture and senior management in the development of a collective approach to CCE/AAP