At the global level, the aim of the cluster approach is to strengthen system-wide preparedness and technical capacity to respond to humanitarian emergencies by ensuring that there is predictable leadership and accountability in all the main sectors or areas of humanitarian response.
Similarly, at the country level the aim is to strengthen humanitarian response by demanding high standards of predictability, accountability and partnership in all sectors or areas of activity. It is about achieving more strategic responses and better prioritization of available resources by clarifying the division of labour among organizations, better defining the roles and responsibilities of humanitarian organizations within the sectors, and providing the Humanitarian Coordinator with both a first point of call and a provider of last resort in all the key sectors or areas of activity. The success of the cluster approach will be judged in terms of the impact it has on improving the humanitarian response to those affected by crises.
The cluster approach should eventually be applied in all countries with Humanitarian Coordinators. By definition, these are countries with humanitarian crises which are beyond the scope of any one agency’s mandate and where the needs are of sufficient scale and complexity to justify a multi-sectoral response with the engagement of a wide range of humanitarian actors. The cluster approach can be used in both conflict-related humanitarian emergencies and in disaster situations. It should significantly improve the quality of international responses to major new emergencies. Also, although not limited to situations of internal displacement, it should make a significant improvement in the quality, level and predictability of the response to crises of internal displacement and represents a substantial strengthening of the ‘collaborative response’.
