Survivor and community-led response (sclr) is a way of working which recognises that crisis-affected people are the first and last responders in any disaster. Sclr provides a means for aid actors to strengthen the scope, scale and impacts of this autonomous self-help and build on its collective nature.
By rebalancing the relationship between locally-driven responses and external support, sclr allows humanitarian aid to better strengthen the communal resilience of affected people, whether in sudden-onset or protracted crises. It is designed to complement, not replace, existing humanitarian programming.
Sclr uses a range of mechanisms (including appreciative inquiry, rapid transfer of microgrants and networking of knowledge and capacities) to enable large numbers of self-organising groups to quickly identify and implement their own self-help initiatives. The approach can go to scale while retaining relevant levels of accountability, compliance and cost-effectiveness.