OCHA - United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Published purpose

The Protection Standby Capacity (ProCap) project was established in late 2005 to support operational protection response. This support is in addition to humanitarian agencies’ responsibilities to increase their capacity through their normal staffing and recruitment processes. ProCap reinforces the strategic and operational protection response for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and other vulnerable groups in emergencies and protracted humanitarian situations, and supports the capacity-building objectives of the global protection cluster. The Gender Standby Capacity Project (GenCap) was established in 2007 as an inter-agency surge capacity roster, whose pool of experts can be deployed on short notice to support humanitarian actors at the country-level. GenCap aims to build capacity of humanitarian actors at the country level to mainstream gender equality and gender-based violence response and prevention programming into all sectors of humanitarian response. GenCap’s overall goal is to ensure that humanitarian action takes into consideration the different needs and capabilities of women, girls, boys and men equally. With CIDA support, ProCap will respond to gaps in protection skills and knowledge in the field and the need for experienced staff to support the humanitarian protection response. This support reflects Canada's commitment to the protection of civilians, particularly those that are most vulnerable (e.g. women, children, IDPs) in conflict situations and natural disaster contexts. With CIDA support, GenCap will respond to gaps in gender equality capacity in the field, with the goal of strengthening the overall humanitarian response. This will be achieved primarily through strengthening the GenCap roster (through recruitment and training of experts) and the ongoing deployment of GenCap advisors to humanitarian country teams.