Study-Unit Description

Study-Unit Description


CODE IRL5053

 
TITLE Management in Humanitarian Action

 
UM LEVEL 05 - Postgraduate Modular Diploma or Degree Course

 
MQF LEVEL 7

 
ECTS CREDITS 5

 
DEPARTMENT International Relations

 
DESCRIPTION The study-unit will cover a set of basic practical issues related to humanitarian action:
- Basic introduction to management of humanitarian operations
- Basic introduction to management of development projects
- Personnel management (including intercultural issues and security issues) in humanitarian organizations
- Financial management, fund-raising, budgeting, accounting, and reporting
- Project cycle management
- Self-evaluation and external evaluation
- Management of external relations
- Dealing with trauma and cultural adjustment issues.

Study-unit Aims

The study-unit aims to:
- make students aware of the full range of practical and professional constraints that must be tackled in any humanitarian or development intervention.
- provide students with a set of practical skills to tackle such issues
- ensure that students have the necessary set of skills to be "deployable" directly in field missions.

Learning Outcomes

1. Knowledge & Understanding: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to:

- develop and co-manage (initially under supervision) small-scale project or intervention
- recognize the complexity personnel management issues involved in humanitarian and development interventions
- recognize the financial management issues involved in humanitarian and development interventions
- identify how and to what extent a proposed project can be evaluated

2. Skills: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to:

- manage (initially under supervision) practical interventions from conceptualization to evaluation
- prepare a budget
- prepare a funding request
- prepare a project proposal

Main Text/s and any supplementary readings

This unit is less oriented towards the analytical readings and more towards gaining insights from practitioners, their experiences and lessons they have learnt. The guest lecturers are also supposed to suggest readings for their individual lectures.

However, for mainly illustrative purposes, these are the types of readings that will be assigned (recommended readings):

Christine Williamson "Personnel management and security" Humanitarian Exchange Magazine Issue 47 June 2010

Peter Salama The Psychological Health of Relief Workers: Some Practical Suggestions Humanitarian Exchange Magazine Issue 15 November 1999

David Loquercio, Mark Hammersley and Ben Emmens "Understanding and addressing staff turnover in humanitarian agencies" Humanitarian Practice Network Paper No. 55 July 2006

European Commission 2005 ECHO Manual, Project Cycle management.

 
ADDITIONAL NOTES Co-requisite Study-units: As prescribed within MA in Humanitarian Action

 
STUDY-UNIT TYPE Lecture and Seminar

 
METHOD OF ASSESSMENT
Assessment Component/s Assessment Due Sept. Asst Session Weighting
Portfolio SEM1 Yes 100%

 
LECTURER/S Francisco Maldonado Peralta
Lorenzo Violante
Natalia Pascual

 

 
The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints.
Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice.
It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2023/4. It may be subject to change in subsequent years.

https://www.um.edu.mt/course/studyunit