Deadline: 16 September 2025 | remote/home-based
Applications should be sent by email to [email protected] by midnight UK time on 16 September 2025, with a clear indication of applicants’ availability in terms of duration and hours per week. Only short-listed candidates will be contacted for an interview.
ALNAP will be in contact with short-listed candidates for interviews to take place in late September. If you have further questions about the volunteer roster, kindly reach out to: [email protected]
About ALNAP
The Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP) is a system-wide network organisation dedicated to improving the accountability and performance of humanitarian action by strengthening the humanitarian evidence base through sharing lessons, identifying key issues and, where appropriate, providing leadership to find collective approaches and solutions. ALNAP is hosted by ODI in London.
ALNAP is here to connect humanitarians to the evidence and learning they need, when they need it. For more information, please visit www.alnap.org.
About the HELP Library
The HELP (Humanitarian Evaluation, Learning and Performance) Library is the sector’s largest repository of humanitarian evidence and learning. The HELP was created to aggregate and preserve research outputs, evaluations and practical resources from across the humanitarian sector. The library is an open-access public good and currently hosts more than 20,000 knowledge and evidence resources from across the sector, and it continues to grow. In order to avoid the loss of valuable learning over time, we encourage humanitarian organisations and institutions to upload their learning resources to the library for others to access. The library hosts resources in 23 languages and various formats, including pdfs, videos, audio files, e-reports and data visualisations. The HELP library’s rich resource repository is used as a source of analysis to inform many research reports across the sector including ALNAPs flagship State of the Humanitarian System (SOHS) report and Global Humanitarian Assistance (GHA) report. The HELP further hosts thematic Collections on various topics (e.g. accountability and inclusion in humanitarian action; earthquakes; Ukraine conflict, etc), some of which are co-owned with other humanitarian organisations.
The HELP’s purpose is fourfold:
- Advance learning among the humanitarian community by facilitating discovery of and access to information about what works and what doesn’t work in humanitarian action.
- Contribute to the development of new research about humanitarian performance through archiving and facilitating discovery of learning resources.
- Preserve humanitarian knowledge and learning for future generations. A lot of humanitarian learning is lost through staff turnover, but the library retains crucial information about the humanitarian endeavour over decades and makes it possible to chart trends in the performance of humanitarian action.
- Host humanitarian knowledge and learning to support the efforts of humanitarian actors to fulfill their transparency commitments.
1. About the assignment
ALNAP is looking to build a pool of volunteers to contribute to the diversification, topicality and accessibility of the HELP Library. Volunteers are expected to identify and upload relevant learning resources for the HELP and its Collections using the Wagtail backend of the ALNAP website. Volunteers actively search for and suggest new resources, organisations and knowledge networks to facilitate improved humanitarian assistance through increased access and uptake of the wealth of existing and diverse learning and evidence. This is a non-remunerated assignment which will be undertaken remotely, i.e. from the volunteers’ respective residing country. Volunteers will need to use their personal workstation/laptops and internet connection.
2. Aim and Scope
Volunteers will be supported by the ALNAP Digital Knowledge Curator and the wider Communications team to enhance the HELP Library and its Collections.
Their volunteering tasks will include:
- Reviewing and completing user submissions to the HELP library on Wagtail, including tagging and describing digital resources appropriately to facilitate their organisation, searchability, and retrieval using metadata tags and taxonomy tags.
- Searching for new resources on ALNAP network members’ repositories and identifying previously untapped repositories, and uploading relevant resources to the HELP.
- Monitoring and flagging bugs and issues in the library’s functionality to the Comms team, proposing corrective actions as and where appropriate.
- Support ALNAP in sharing resources in innovative and audience-focused ways, e.g. through contributing new knowledge inputs to the HELP’s thematic Collections.
- Contributing to ALNAP’s thinking on exploring new technologies to minimise time-consuming tasks and maximise utility of the library, for example the use of AI to generate summaries, or automatically scrape resources from relevant archives, repositories, databases, and websites.
- Contributing to ALNAP’s thinking on the future evolution of the HELP Library including strategies to enrich the HELP repository in recognition of the wealth of learning that exists in the humanitarian sector, and to increase its accessibility and usability among diverse audiences
- Supporting the continuous update of HELP user guides on how to effectively search and locate HELP library resources.
Volunteers will be supported by the ALNAP Digital Knowledge Curator and will have the opportunity to collaborate with other colleagues across the ALNAP Secretariat.
3. Applicants’ profile
We are looking for students, recent graduates and other enthusiasts who have an affinity for knowledge management, (digital) communications and humanitarian action. At ALNAP, we aim for geographical diversity within our team and we particularly welcome applications from candidates from countries affected by crisis.
Requirements:
- Affinity and interest in key topics and trends in humanitarian action
- Written and verbal communication skills in English
- Strong analytical skills and judgment
- Strong attention to detail
- A proactive approach to the tasks with a high level of initiative, ability to balance different priorities, and willingness to learn and develop new skills
- Ability to contribute independently whilst knowing when to refer for advice
- Demonstrable interest in knowledge management
- Access to workstation/laptop and stable internet connection.
Desirable technical experience, skills and knowledge:
- Fluency in languages other than English, including languages spoken in crisis-affected countries (language level as per the CEFR to be clearly indicated on the CV).
- Familiarity with concepts, challenges and trends in humanitarian action
- Familiarity with database management and content management systems, e.g. Wagtail
- Experience in digital communications/on-line platforms
- Experience of working in a virtual network or remote team
4. What we offer
Opportunity to collaborate on and co-create a public good for the entire humanitarian sector
- Exposure to experts in ALNAP’s Secretariat
- Chance to build practical experience in a renowned network in the humanitarian system and knowledge architecture
- Networking opportunities with other ALNAP volunteers
- Flexible volunteering hours and time commitment based on individual availability
- Certification upon successful completion of the volunteer assignment
5. Timeline
Volunteers should be available to commit a minimum of 16 hours per month for a minimum of three months to this role. Volunteering days and hours are flexible and can be agreed upon with ALNAP’s Digital Knowledge Curator, and in a way that fits with the volunteer’s other commitments and time zone. Joint trainings for all new volunteers will be conducted at the start of a new volunteer cohort, for which the volunteers shall ensure their availability.
6. Application process
Candidates are expected to submit the following documents to [email protected]:
- CV outlining relevant experience (incl. language and software skills)
- A brief motivation statement (no more than 500 words), outlining how the candidate’s previous experience and skills align with the role and how they would approach this task.
- An indication of their availability (including hours per week, duration in months, and start date).