Humanitarian project implementation
- Page updated on18 de April de 2025
The next challenge begins when we receive the good news "we have been awarded the project", although sometimes everything starts before with a "we have positive feedback" with which we have to start preparing. The execution of the project is the time to perform the activities we had planned. If it is done well and the project was correctly designed, it will help us achieve the results we had planned.
Table of contents:
Start of project implementation
Sometimes it takes months from the time a project is designed until funding is granted to start implementing it. At that point many things have to be done to get the activities underway, from administrative formalities to a review of the work plan.
Once the administrative aspects have been resolved and the financing - or at least the first part of it - is available, the team of people that will execute the project must be assembled. Sometimes these are people who are already in the organization and who will now have an additional partial dedication to the new project, but it is also often necessary to hire specific personnel, including the project coordinator, who will assume the leadership of the project management. When the project is carried out by multiple actors collaborating together, it is also necessary to specify the internal coordination mechanisms, if they do not already exist.
In many cases it may be necessary to have a kick-off meeting, in which all team members and collaborating organizations review the work plan together and share initial responsibilities. There are activities that may require advance preparation or that are a priority and should begin to be implemented early on and others that may be planned for later. It is also important to develop monitoring and communication plans, among other things.
Types of activities
A project can have activities of many different types, such as:
- Distribution of goods to the population, such as hygiene kits, mosquito nets or cash transfers.
- Equipment of services, such as the provision of medicines and medical supplies to health centers.
- Direct provision of services, such as the deployment of mobile health care units, the organization of vaccination campaigns, or the mobilization of community agents for the diagnosis and management of malnutrition, among other possibilities.
- Actions of political incidence to influence public authorities.
- Staff training and coaching, either through training workshops, courses or in-service accompaniment, with direct technical support.
- Development of tools (digital or analogic) for data collection and analysis, for guiding personnel in the execution of other activities, for supervision, or for communication with participants in the activities, for example.
- Actions and campaigns for awareness-raising, information, behavioral change or community mobilization.
- Studies and consultancies, such as evaluations of health policies, in-depth analysis of some specific needs, or impact analysis of some component of the interventions.
- Operational research, to better understand the results of certain actions and adapt future activities.
- Construction and rehabilitation works of infrastructures.
- Organization of public events or coordination of working groups.
- Technical support and coaching for institutional strengthening.
- Et cetera.
There is a wide range of possible actions. Some are simpler, while others may require months of work and the involvement of several departments and teams. Throughout implementation, the level of technical and financial execution of activities and the achievement of results is monitored, as established in the monitoring plan. Although it is carried out simultaneously, it is explained in the section on monitoring, evaluation and learning.
Related blog articles:
Who does what in an international cooperation project
There are many people, with different professional profiles, roles and responsibilities, involved in the execution of a project. For example:
- Coordination and management personnel, who organize the teams, plan the joint work, follow up the execution of activities within the expected deadlines, identify and seek solutions for obstacles that arise, etc.
- Technical staff, with specialization in different sectors (such as public health or nutrition) and specific areas (such as advocacy or gender), who implement and supervise activities or provide support to those who carry them out.
- Field personnel, generally very numerous, who carry out distributions, surveys, awareness campaigns or other activities that, in general, usually require less qualification or simpler training.
- Community-based workers, who, without being professionals, receive training, supervision and technical accompaniment to perform important tasks such as the identification of families in need, diagnosis and treatment of common pathologies, public health and prevention campaigns, or even community epidemiological surveillance.
- Logistics and procurement personnel, responsible for purchasing equipment and materials for distributions, operating the vehicle fleet, or supervising construction work, among other things.
- Finance and accounting staff, who execute payments and keep track of the project's budget and financial execution.
- Human resources management staff.
- Security personnel, who monitor risks, analyze the evolution of the geographical context of intervention and direct security risk management measures.
- Monitoring, evaluation and learning staff, who follow the monitoring plan and coordinate the collection and analysis of information.
- Cleaning and security personnel.
- Et cetera.
Coordination among all these people, whether they are dedicated full time to a single project or have a more structural role within their organizations in their countries of intervention or at international headquarters, is fundamental. In addition, often in the same project people from multiple organizations collaborate and work together, with different procedures and work schemes.
English 
Español