INTERPRETER AND TRANSLATOR TRAINING: From crisis response to sustainable livelihoods

When disaster strikes, communication is life. Ensuring quality communication across language barriers during acute crises requires immediate capacity. As new and different language communication requirements arise across the humanitarian programming cycle, countries need to develop the professional capacity that is deployable during ongoing as well as in future crises. Transitioning to crisis recovery presents yet additional challenges to crisis-affected countries as retaining trained professionals is possible only if they can be assured sustainable livelihoods beyond the end of a humanitarian crisis; this contributes to our understanding of the humanitarian-development nexus. This chapter argues that communication and related training needs vary across the humanitarian programming cycle, that local institutions are best equipped to respond to changing needs and that their agency reinforces local disaster preparedness.