Beyond perceptions: how to mainstream accountability to affected people in humanitarian programming

The humanitarian sector has made progress towards greater accountability to affected people (AAP). In 2022, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Principals affirmed commitments on AAP and humanitarian accountability, stressing that the way in which “communities experience and perceive our work is the most relevant measure of our performance.” Emphasis is placed on ensuring that people are at the centre.

Many organizations and agencies have shifted gear to ensure more community engagement with affected people. To help with this shift, they introduced more accessible systems for feedback into operations and programming, and there is greater emphasis on communities’ participation in humanitarian responses. Despite this, communities continue to report that humanitarian assistance and action do not align sufficiently with their needs, they overlook some of the most vulnerable people and fail to properly incorporate their views, priorities and capacities. Feedback highlights that despite good intentions, the humanitarian system is designed on what international agencies and donors assess is best, linked to their available resources, rather than the expressed needs of affected people.

While the momentum to improve AAP gains pace, many humanitarians fear that it risks remaining a ‘tick the box’ exercise focused on gathering feedback, rather than an opportunity to adapt humanitarian operations in order to be more accountable to putting affected people – and include their needs, ideas, capacities and knowledge.

A shift at the inter-agency level is required to better reflect how communities experience response-wide and system-wide humanitarian action. Collective AAP focuses on humanitarian response as a whole and is intended to increase the accountability of the humanitarian system to affected people, putting their experience at the centre of humanitarian action.

Achieving this requires critical elements including engaged and committed leadership, inclusive coordination architecture and quality resourcing. On a practical level, commitments need to be matched with action based on people and their views, which will enable planning, resourcing and monitoring processes to be more inclusive and adaptive to people’s needs.

The IASC Collective AAP Framework provides a lens for planning, resourcing and monitoring. This inter-agency tool guides action planning that draws together existing strategies around gender, protection from sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA), protection and inclusion. The framework guides country-level leadership in developing and monitoring a country-specific AAP Action Plan that outlines key actions, timelines and responsibilities to coordinate collective AAP.

There are some examples of where the rhetoric has moved into practice. The Central African Republic (CAR) Humanitarian Fund, with support from the Inter-Cluster Coordination Group (ICCG), developed an innovative brief guide for integrating AAP into the fund’s projects and allocations. The fund also prioritized those projects related to collective AAP mechanisms and needs and perception assessments. This ensured that each funded project mainstreamed AAP through concrete and meaningful commitments.

To bring about this country-level systemic change, the CAR Humanitarian Fund Strategic Review Committee requires project proposals to demonstrate four key conditions:

  • Robust analysis of needs and preferences based on existing evaluations and assessments.
  • Design based on the perceptions and feedback of affected people.
  • Inclusion of feedback mechanisms to ensure two-way communication.
  • Clear procedures and responsibilities to ensure that activities are adjusted according to people’s feedback and coordinated with larger collective AAP mechanisms.

The Humanitarian Liaison Group (HLG) for the cross-border operation in north-west Syria implemented a system-wide Action Plan for Change, using the AAP Framework as a catalyst.

The plan focused on listening carefully, responding effectively and ensuring the meaningful inclusion of crisis-affected Syrians in the humanitarian response. Simultaneous translation was introduced in monthly meetings, and the HLG consistently invited affected people to share their stories and experiences of aid delivery and their needs. Other initiatives included an information digest on key humanitarian issues and work with Syrian women refugee humanitarians to promote gender equality.

Feedback from displaced Syrian communities consistently highlighted dissatisfaction with the temporary shelter provided. Taking this on board, the HLG affected change by shifting from tents to dignified shelter and living conditions. This leadership priority required an integrated intersectoral approach under the technical guidance of the Shelter/Non-Food Items Cluster, an investment of funds through the Country-Based Pooled Fund and ongoing advocacy with donors.

References

  1. IASC, Statement by Principals of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) on Accountability to Affected People in Humanitarian Action, 14 April 2022.
  2. ALNAP, State of the Humanitarian System 2022; as well as recent surveys by the Overseas Development Institute and Ground Truth Solutions (to be published in late November 2022 as part of a report for IASC Principals).