“A good plan implemented today is better than a perfect plan implemented tomorrow” – General George Patton

The Caucus of Development NGO Networks (CODE-NGO), through its Center for Humanitarian Learning and Innovation (CHLI), held a three-part training entitled SCP-in mo, planuhin mo: A Service Continuity Planning for the CODE-NGO Members on June 16, June 30, and July 14, 2022.

In her opening remarks, CODE-NGO Commission on Institution and Capacity Building (CICB) Chair, Dr. Liza Lim, said that the training was a necessity because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and other environmental and political situations on CODE-NGO’s member networks (MNs). Dr.  Lim hoped that this activity would allow the MNs to identify capacities and skills that remain lacking, and ways to immediately respond to adverse conditions.

On the first day of the training, Mr. Mark Cervantes of CHLI discussed the basic SCP concepts and terminologies. He emphasized that disasters are a result of human negligence and inaction. An example of this would be ignoring warnings of impending pandemics, which scientists have already indicated in 2015. As our country continues to be vulnerable to natural hazards due to its geographical location, it is important to prepare for disaster risks, while also integrating considerations of pandemics in our plans and protocols.

This was then followed by the presentation of Mr. Joseph Andaya of CHLI on the first two steps of the SCP processes – particularly (1) Understanding My Organization; and (2) Risk Assessment. Mr. Andaya presented the purposes of having an SCP, how to draft the service continuity statements, and how to compute for the risk score of the different hazards that can disrupt their mission essential functions.

Steps 3-6 of the SCP processes were discussed by Mr. Andaya and Mr. Cervantes during the second SCP training session of June 30. These processes include how to analyze the impact of disruptions to organizations and the strategies to mitigate these impacts. They also presented various ways to run exercises and drills, and how to conduct audit and monitoring

On the last training session on July 14, six (6) participating MNs – AF, CORDNET, MINCODE, PBSP, PHILSSA, and WEVNET – presented their draft SCPs. The CHLI resource persons provided their comments on the draft SCPs so the participants can enhance their plans with their network. 

If your organization would like to have your own SCP training, contact the Center for Humanitarian Learning and Innovation or email chli@code-ngo.org