CULTURE | Triage & Consequences: Humanitarian Simulation Game
November 2013 | Humanitarian Bazaar Magazine | A Humanitarian Bazaar original brought forward from our HELO Magazine archive. The game was created by our team for trainings at Columbia University in New York in 2011.
CULTURE | Triage & Consequences: Humanitarian Simulation Game
A Humanitarian Training Simulation Based on the Case of Abyei, Sudan
With one hundred days left before Sudan holds its referendum on southern independence, Humanitarian Bazaar founder Daniel J Gerstle is leading a Sudan-context humanitarian simulation exercise for Columbia University graduate students up in the Catskill Mountains of New York.
Based on Daniel’s prior work as an aid worker in Sudan, Somalia, Chechnya, and other crisis zones, the exercise puts participants in a simulated crisis situation where there is no right answer, where there are not enough resources to save everyone. The objective is to get people – not just aid workers, but also global thinkers, students, people considering activism, human rights advocates, soldiers, traders – thinking about how to help the community as a whole while having to make extreme choices which could mean saving some while letting others suffer. Creativity, curiosity, and dark humor are essential for making this game fun while informative!
Triage & Consequences works best with people supported by some knowledge about Africa and at least one seasoned humanitarian aid worker. Feel free to try it out or augment it to run it with your humanitarian-thinking crowd where you live, and credit us. This is a living document so any suggestions are welcome (write them in below) and come back here for changes if you plan to run the game where you are! You could also ask Humanitarian Bazaar to run the course formally if you’re looking to give people a real sense of the difficulty of humanitarian response, which applies to everything from a California wild fire to a Thai monsoon to a wartime aid project in Afghanistan.
PART ONE: ASSESSMENT (30 minutes)
WELCOME. We welcome the group to the setting of Abyei, Sudan, a poor, dry, oil town facing serious tension and nearby conflict due to uncertainty about whether the town and its resources will be ruled by the Arab-dominated northern government or Dinka-dominated southern government or both. After a break out of violence on the outskirts of town, the semi-urban area has received a huge influx of displaced families. The crisis threatens all. If time allows before hand, the event facilitator should invite players to take a look at these sites to have some context before playing the game. The greater the contextual knowledge, the more interesting the game will run: Reuters-Alertnet’s Briefing on South Sudan, the UN’s humanitarian news aggregator on Sudan, the Sudan Tribune, and The Sphere Project.
GAME START. Welcome to the humanitarian simulation! It plays much like a game with a facilitator with 3 teams of 4 players each. However, the groups work toward the common good rather than competing directly. If there are more than 12 participants then we can easily double up on roles. The game has four parts of 20-30 minutes each including moving around time, so could run 80-120 minutes with or without a break. Longer would be preferable for breathing room. The game has four sets of cards.
HUMANITARIAN SECTORS. Hand out the first set of 12 cards, labeled “Humanitarian Sectors.” Each player (or set of players if the group is larger than twelve) selects a card. For orientation reasons, the player can simply call out the sector name for the game facilitator to make sure everyone knows what it means, can describe it themselves with an example, or can read the context scenario detail written on the card. These sectors are not assigned to an individual but simply need to be introduced with some context. The humanitarian sectors written on the cards are: Water/Sanitation, FoodSecurity/Nutrition, Shelter/Non-FoodItems, HealthServices, Security/RuleofLaw, ProtectionofVulnerable/Gender, Education, MentalHealth, FamilyReunification, HumanRightsAdvocacy, Energy, and TechnologyTransfer.
PLAYER ROLES. Hand out the second set of 12 cards, labeled “Player Roles.” In this case, the facilitator can ask who wants certain roles or simply hand them out for random assignment. The cards give the person a role and a team. When people have their card they should break out into three teams of four made up as follows: A. Donor Team (UN, donor government, private donor, human rights advocate); B. Aid Team (INGO, NGO, local government, military); and C. Local Team (Internally-displaced families, nomads, hosts, business community).
FUNDS. Hand out the third set of 12 cards, labeled “Funds.” Basically, each player gets one card which equals 1 million dinars of cash to spend on humanitarian aid in the game. Therefore, each team, collectively has 4 million dinars to prioritize for aid.At this, point, each team should take just five minutes to discuss which 4 of the 12 sectors are the most vital given that each sector – for the purposes of this game – can only be fulfilled if fully funded at 1 million dinars each. Once each team has its top four, all three teams will reconvene and present which four of the twelve sectors they would fund if there were no other choice and why.
WILD CARDS. Now the facilitator will control the final set of 12 cards, labeled “Wild Cards.” Once all three teams are reconvened and have discussed which 4 of 12 sectors they would prioritize for funding and why, they are invited now to all work together. Ah, isn’t that nice that three teams totalling twelve players have 12 million dinars pledged to fully fund all the sectors? Not so fast! The facilitator will choose players by volunteer, random, or targeting (facilitator’s choice) to select a random card from the set. In this Assessment part of the game, cards will be pulled until the group has experienced the first 3 (of the 7) incidents hidden in that set. The incidents are have the following significance: Five (5) cards are blank, each of the remaining 7 read one of the following: “You’ve been killed in an attack!” (in which case the player loses 1mD and is out for the game and will take the role of observing and preparing to lead Part Four, the debriefing); “Vehicles and equipment have been torched in attack!” (the player loses 1mD); “Goods in the storehouse have rotted!” (the player loses 1mD); “Someone stole mass amounts of equipment!” (the player loses 1mD), “Cholera surge!” (the player loses 1mD); and “You’ve been kidnapped for ransom!” (x2) (the player loses 1mD and must join a different team for the rest of the game).
FINAL ASSESSMENT. Now that the collective resources have been reduced to a fund pledge of 9 million dinars, it is up to the Local Team to argue their case within ten minutes for which 9 of the 12 sectors are the most vital to the local population and why. The Donor and Aid teams are highly encouraged to disagree and debate them to bring out the reasoning behind the decision.
PART TWO: CONSOLIDATED APPEAL (20 minutes)
CRISIS SURGE. Now that the three groups have come to an agreement more or less on which are the top 9 of 12 sectors, the facilitator will announce that a new wave of crisis has struck, so the decision-making will be made much quicker from here on out. And now another wild card strike! The facilitator will have more players who have not yet pulled wild cards to take cards until 2 more incidents are revealed. The incidents play out the same as described above in #6.
RALLYING FUNDS THROUGH THE CAP. The facilitator makes sure everyone understands how the UN’s consolidated appeals process works. Each of the 12 players should take an active part in the discussion of prioritization. Now, however, with 2 more incidents cutting the total funds available for the crisis to 7 million dinars, the Donor Team must now step up and make the case in five minutes for which 7 of the 12 sectors are the priorities for the crisis. Has much changed? Have people begun to sort the sectors into primary and secondary?
PART THREE: FIELD COORDINATION (20 minutes)
FIELD REALITIES. Now that the group has come to an agreement on which are the top 7 of 12 sectors, it’s time to deliver the services to the field. Yet crisis strikes again. The facilitator will hand out the remaining wild cards until the final 2 incidents and their consequences are played.
FINAL CALL. Now that the assessment and appeals have been completed, and the groups have survived 7 total field incidents, it is time for the Aid Group to make the final case in five minutes for which are the top 5 of the 12 sectors and why. Which of the final 5 argeed on by the group are the same top priorities of the SphereProject.org and it’s minimum standards in disaster response? Which sectors were selected outside Sphere? Were they cross-cutting? What are the consequences of triaging everything else? Is crisis response always a no win scenario or are their predictable barriers?
PART FOUR: DE-BRIEF (Remaining time available)
EVALUATION & REPORTING. Now the facilitator will point out the player who pulled the “You’ve been killed!” card. The dead player, having observed the groups will be asked to either lead the discussion or facilitate the discussion on what went well, what was realistic, what was unrealistic, and more. If the creator of the cards included detail, the dead player can even count the reveal the final toll of the crisis.
CLOSE. At this point, the group should strongly encourage people with field work or similar experiences to offer concrete examples of dilemmas in prioritizing aid. Discussion should be brought back to the context of central Sudan in the lead up to the refendum on southern independence. And finally, any remaining time would allow newcomers to ask veterans any questions about humanitarian aid.