NOHA Advanced Training - From Threats to Protection: Building Safety Strategies with Communities - June 8-12, 2026 - Warsaw, Poland

In humanitarian settings where communities face complex and overlapping threats, effective protection requires moving beyond sectoral responses to approaches that centre people’s own understanding of safety and security. How do we ensure communities lead the analysis of threats they face? How do we co-design protection strategies that build on existing coping mechanisms rather than replacing them? How do we coordinate local and international actors around a common plan of action that aims to reduce risk exposure and places protection at its centre? How do we operationalize comparative advantage in practice — ensuring that each actor contributes what they are best placed to do? And how do we use the power and resources that come with international presence more consciously and responsibly, in genuine partnership with local actors?

COURSE SUMMARY:

This training is part of the work of the Consortium for Civilian Safety and Security. Together with ODI Global and Nonviolent Peaceforce, and with the generous support of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and focuses on participatory methodologies for analysing safety and security concerns with affected communities, co-designing protection strategies with them, and fostering effective coordination and cooperation among local and international actors — putting localisation into practice.

The aim of this course is to equip humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding workers with the practical skills and tools to:

• Facilitate participatory analysis workshops with crisis-affected communities
• Apply a threat-based approach that starts from how people experience and describe risks
• Use the risk equation framework to design strategies that focus on preventing, reducing, and mitigating harm while ensuring that assistance activities are not omitted
• Coordinate multi-actor responses based on comparative advantage and complementarity
• Co-design and validate Plans of Action with communities as equal partners
• Operationalise comparative advantage in practice using concrete tools to design strategies together with local and international actors, ensuring each contributes what they are best placed to do

The methodology presented is grounded in the People-Centred Approach and has been tested and refined across multiple humanitarian contexts over several years.

COURSE DETAILS:

Mode of Delivery:

The training draws on principles of adult education and is highly experiential:

• Practical exercises and simulations to apply the methodology
• Participants practice all participatory tools (Pair-Wise Ranking, Threat Tree, Protection Onion, Watermelon, Solutions Table, Matrix Planning)
• Role-playing exercises where participants experience tools from both facilitator and community perspectives
• Peer learning and collaborative problem-solving
• Case studies drawn from real humanitarian contexts
• Interactive sessions combining conceptual foundations with hands-on application

Course Length

Duration:  5 days (40 hours)

Follow-up support is available on demand, including coaching, training of trainers, and accompaniment during the first implementation of the methodology in the field.

Dates and Location:

Dates:  June 8–12, 2026

Location:  Warsaw, Poland

Award:

Certificate:  NOHA Certificate

Language of Instruction:

Language:  English

AUDIENCE:

The course is designed for humanitarian aid workers with experience in:

• Protection programming and coordination
• Community engagement and participatory approaches
• Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP)
• Area-based programming
• Community-based protection
• Social cohesion and peacebuilding
• Programme management in conflict-affected settings

Development actors, local NGO staff, and coordination specialists working on protection-related issues are also encouraged to apply.

OVERVIEW:

This training provides a complete methodology for community-based safety and security analysis and planning. Participants will learn the methodology on how to facilitate the full four-stage process, from preparation through to a validated Plan of Action co-owned by communities and support actors.

Foundations:

Protection as Safety and Security  This foundational module reframes protection from a community perspective, understanding that for people facing crisis, protection means safety and security in everyday life: staying alive, moving without fear, keeping families together, maintaining livelihoods, and preserving dignity. Participants examine the risk equation framework and how it guides analysis and planning.

Guiding Principles for Community-Based Analysis  Participants explore eight principles that form the ethical and operational foundation: area-based approaches, people as partners and experts, meaningful participation, inclusion with an intersectional lens, centrality of protection, partnerships and complementarity, outcome-orientation, and accountability.

The Four-Stage Methodology:

Stage 1: Prepare the Ground  How to select focus areas using evidence-based criteria, form Coordination Actors Groups with complementary capacities, notify authorities, prepare inclusive participant samples, and train facilitation teams. Participants practise area selection and partner mapping exercises.

Stage 2: Engage with Intention — Day with the Community  The heart of the methodology. Participants learn and practise all five participatory analysis tools:

• Pair-Wise Ranking — to identify and prioritise threats
• Threat Tree — to analyse causes and consequences
• Protection Onion — to map influential actors
• Watermelon — to understand coping strategies
• Solutions Table — to capture community-proposed solutions

Simulation exercises allow participants to experience tools from both facilitator and community member perspectives.

Stage 3: Shape the Plan of Action  How to debrief, consolidate community input, conduct SWOT analysis, and use Matrix Planning to map potential actions across four modes (Advocacy, Engagement Strategies, Strengthening Capacities/Reducing Vulnerabilities, Remedial). Participants practise triangulating community feedback with secondary data and professional analysis.

Stage 4: Co-design the Plan of Action  How to return to communities for validation, present decisions transparently (including what cannot be done and why), facilitate risk assessment and success indicator discussions, and finalise the Plan of Action as a shared commitment.

Cross-Cutting Themes:

Coordination, Localisation, and the Nexus  How this methodology operationalises localisation by positioning local actors as co-owners, applies comparative advantage principles, and supports humanitarian-development-peace nexus approaches at the local level.

From Plan to Action: Implementation Considerations  Bridging from the validated Plan of Action to Stage 5 feasibility assessment and implementation, including monitoring community-defined success indicators.

TRAINING OUTCOMES:

As an outcome of the training, participants will:

• Understand protection as safety and security from a community perspective and the logic of the risk equation framework
• Understand the eight guiding principles and see how to apply them in their own programming contexts
• Gain a solid understanding of how to select appropriate focus areas and form effective Coordination Actors Groups
• Learn and practise all five participatory analysis tools, understanding their purpose and flow
• Understand how to consolidate community feedback and use matrix planning to design strategies with protection outcomes
• See concretely how to return to communities for transparent validation and co-design
• Understand how to coordinate multi-actor responses and operationalise comparative advantage in practice
• Gain a clear methodology for working with communities to co-design Plans of Action that build on their capacities
• See how to adapt the methodology to different contexts (urban, rural, displacement, conflict)

Note: This training provides the conceptual understanding and initial practice with the methodology. Confidence and mastery develop through accompanied field implementation  which is available as follow-up support upon request.

TRAINING ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION:

The assessment pattern reflects the training’s learning outcomes and demonstrates that participants have acquired the knowledge and understanding required in practice:

• Pre- and post-training knowledge assessment
• Practical exercises with peer and facilitator feedback
• Simulation exercises to practise facilitation of participatory tools
• Development of a context-specific adaptation plan for participants’ own work settings
• Continuous feedback and guidance throughout the course

ORGANISERS:

The NOHA Network on Humanitarian Action is an international association of universities that aims to enhance professionalism in the humanitarian sector by promoting humanitarian values and providing certificated high-level courses. This course is part of the work of the Consortium for Civilian Safety and Security, consisting of NOHA, ODI, and Nonviolent Peaceforce, and made possible by the generous support of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

TRAINING FACILITATOR:

Marta Pawlak is a protection specialist with extensive field experience in community-based protection approaches. She developed the Community-Based Safety and Security Analysis and Planning methodology through years of field practice and engagement with communities across multiple humanitarian contexts. Her work began at the ICRC where she contributed to developing community-based protection approaches, and she has since refined this methodology through sustained engagement with practitioners and people living in conflict-affected settings. Marta teaches the People-Centred Approach module for the CAS on Accountability to Affected Populations at the University of Geneva. She is the author of Community-Based Safety and Security Analysis and Planning: A Methodology Manual (2026), published as part of the Proactive Protection initiative.

TRAINING CONTENT:

Foundations:

• Protection as Safety and Security
• Guiding Principles for Community-Based Analysis

The Four-Stage Methodology:

• Stage 1: Prepare the Ground
• Stage 2: Engage with Intention — Day with the Community
• Stage 3: Shape the Plan of Action
• Stage 4: Co-design the Plan of Action

Cross-Cutting Themes:

• Coordination, Localisation, and the Nexus
• From Plan to Action: Implementation Considerations