Ethiopia Humanitarian Country Team (EHCT) Protection Strategy 01 August 2019 – August 2021 (Updated August 2020, endorsed October 28,2020)

The members of the Ethiopia HCT1 have developed this protection strategy to provide a vision and foundation for a strategic approach, to ensure the centrality of protection throughout the humanitarian response. While acknowledging the primary responsibility of the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) to protect the population within its territory, the EHCT also recognizes that “the HCT is ultimately accountable to the people in need.”2The EHCT commits to demonstrating the necessary leadership to fulfill the shared responsibility to protect civilian populations and their fundamental rights, in close collaboration with relevant actors – in particular, development and peacebuilding actors. While the protection sector will provide technical support for the strategy, the strategy re-affirms that all actors, led by the EHCT, have roles to play in ensuring that protection is at the core of the response Ethiopia Humanitarian Country Team.PSFINALOCT28.2020 and that all actions of the EHCT and its members are based on the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.3In August 2020, the members of the EHCT, through the EHCT Protection Strategy Monitoring Group, updated this protection strategy, noting that while on-going humanitarian protection issues including conflict, displacement, and access issues continue, serious new challenges have surfaced, most notably the COVID-19 pandemic. The strategy’s work plan has also been reviewed to ensure it is focused on the strategic role that the EHCT members and multi-sectoral actors can play in ensuring the centrality of protection, with measurable benchmarks, rather than being an iterative list of work plans of various fora.

Source:  Protection Cluster/UN High Commissioner for Refugees