History / Genesis

The ability of the humanitarian community to react in emergencies could be vastly improved by providing a platform that allows all partner organizations to share information and to host common forms of contracting and engineering systems. This shared platform will eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy and allow humanitarian organizations to focus more on beneficiaries.

The concept of creating a shared platform has been considered by an expert group of engineers as part of the 1st WES Regional Workshop organized by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), which took place in Limassol, Cyprus, from May 9-13, 2016.

Following discussions between the World Bank, the World Food Program (WFP), the SDC, the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) and the Global WASH cluster, a general need for common approach to contracting and engineering services was identified. Setting up this common approach will be of significant benefit to the delivery of construction projects by humanitarian organizations. A core team was formed with the objective of creating a common humanitarian engineering space under the International Humanitarian Infrastructure Platform (IHIP).

The Association IHIP was created on February 2018 in Geneva under Swiss law.

IHIP was presented in March 2018 at the Fragility Forum of the World Bank, Managing risks for peace and stability, in Washington on March 5, 2018.

IHIP was selected to the second Paris Peace Forum on November 2019.