Overview

The PHAP Professional Development Program (PDP) is composed of a series of educational opportunities for professionals engaged in humanitarian assistance and protection. The PDP offers a unique opportunity for mid-career professionals to develop strategic and managerial skills; deepen their understanding of applicable legal, policy, analytical, and operational frameworks; and expand their informal networks. By engaging on emerging challenges and issues, the PDP also aims to enrich discussions and debates around humanitarian action and improve the professionalism of international responses to situations of armed conflict, natural disasters, and other humanitarian crises.

The Professional Development Program builds upon the experience of PHAP's close partners (HPCR and HPCR International) over the last nine years, during which time the two organizations developed a cogent training and certification program on humanitarian law and policy, in cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and a number of local partners. Under the new format, PHAP will expand the offerings  of the PDP to include  additional pathways for professional development and to further promote the engagement of PHAP members into the design of the curricula, development of case studies and other training materials, and participation as instructors.

PHAP Pathways for Professional Development

A key aspect of the Professional Development Program has been the recognition of the central role of the individual and of the individual’s interest in the design of his/her own professional development. Parameters of the pathways entail the following:

• PHAP professional development pathways provide access to required knowledge along a cogent thread from generic to specialized issues;
• The pathways include both online and onsite activities, the former being driven toward the acquisition of essential knowledge, the latter toward sharing of experience and common critical reflections;
• The pathways are based on both an incremental approach to acquiring knowledge in a particular sub-specialty and the possibility of pursuing parallel tracks among different specialized fields;
• The pathways are intended to answer the needs of a large number of PHAP members to acquire essential knowledge and skills and to assist the those members with the most direct professional egagement in a particular sub-specialty to acquire targeted expertise and recognition to advance their careers;
• Overall, the main objective is to create a standard of excellence in professional development to be recognized by third party experts, organizations, and employers.

Over the coming years, PHAP plans to offer a series of pathways addressing all the key areas of professional interests of its members, starting with the current pathway on Humanitarian Law and Policy.

*The themes of the future Pathways are still to be confirmed, based on input from the PHAP membership and recommendations from the PHAP Training & Certification Committee and Board of Examiners. The Pathway themes shown here should be seen as illustrative examples, as potential themes for consideration. These examples are inspired by the results of a recent survey of humanitarian professionals conducted by the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University in collaboration with RedR UK, which found that, "in terms of core knowledge, survey respondents highlighted Needs Assessment, Safety and Security Issues, International Humanitarian Law and Monitoring and Evaluation as most important." (See "Professionalising the Humanitarian Sector: A scoping study," by Peter Walker, Feinstein International Center, Tufts University and Catherine Russ, RedR UK, April 2010, page 31.)

**The final stage of the pathway on Humanitarian Law and Policy, the "capstone exercise," will be described in more detail when the complete outline of the requirements for the new PHAP Professional Certificates in Humanitarian Law and Policy are available.