Sexual exploitation and abuse of authority are serious misconducts and violations of human dignity and respect, especially by service providers. They have devastating effects on the victim’s physical and mental health and well-being, his or her capacity to work and his or her relationships with family, friends, and communities.
Since its establishment, the Inter-Agency Ethiopia Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) Network has made significant progress in tackling sexual exploitation and abuse within the humanitarian community and development sector in Ethiopia. The Ethiopia PSEA Network is led by co-chairs UN Women and UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and supported by the Inter-Agency PSEA Coordinator. The national Network continues to support the regional Networks to achieve its objectives in the field through sharing information, capacity building, technical support, and guidance to PSEA Network members.
The 2024 work plan which guides the Network interventions has been developed jointly by members of the PSEA Network from the national and regional levels, co-chairs, and the Inter-Agency PSEA Coordinator, to prevent, mitigate and respond to SEA. It is part of the national strategy and is steered by the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator to Ethiopia with close support from Cluster Leads Agency (CLA), UN Country Team (UNCT) and Humanitarian Country Team (HCT).
Priority areas for the 2024 PSEA work plan are:
Prevention: All humanitarian and development staff and related personnel know the IASC standards of conduct for protection from sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA) and understand their personal and managerial responsibilities to address sexual exploitation and abuse and other misconduct.
Safe and accessible reporting: Every child and adult recipient of UN assistance has access to safe, and gender and child-sensitive pathways to report SEA, including through Complaints Feedback and Response Mechanisms (CFRMs), that lead to assistance, are appropriate to the context and accessible to those in the most vulnerable situations.
Victims’ right to assistance: Every child and adult victim/survivor/complainant is offered immediate, quality assistance (medical care, psychosocial support, legal assistance, sustainable reintegration support).
Accountability and investigations: Every child and adult victim/survivor of SEA who is willing, has their case investigated in a prompt and safe way, in accordance with a victims’/survivors’-centered approach.
PSEA inter-agency country-level structure: The Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator and UNCT/HCT are supported at senior management and technical levels to lead, oversee, and deliver on the above PSEA outcomes, including providing support for strengthening PSEA Networks at regional level.
The above priorities are in line with global and national priorities. They are built on the activities from the last few years, the SEA Risk Assessment outcomes, as well as insights gathered directly from communities.
Some of the recommendations from community consultations, recommended to institute confidential reporting protocols for SEA within IDP camps in collaboration with community representatives, health workers and aid agencies; Provide multiple SEA reporting channels such as suggestion boxes, helplines, and trained community focal points; Perform regular rapid assessments of risks and vulnerabilities; Distribute context specific PSEA information, education, and communication (IEC) materials at national and regional level that includes disability friendly materials adapted for those visually impaired; Monitor aid distribution and establish accountability mechanisms for humanitarian workers; Promote community engagement to ensure the PSEA strategies are culturally appropriate and responsive to local needs and concerns; Build and enhance the capacity of relevant stakeholders at all levels; Explore collaboration and build partnerships with other stakeholders within and outside of the IDP camps to collaborate and prevent SEA.
The PSEA Network will work in collaboration with OCHA and humanitarian clusters for PSEA coordination and mainstreaming, Child Protection (AoR), GBV (AoR), Gender in Humanitarian TWG and Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) Working Group for community consultations and community-based complaint and feedback mechanisms.
1.5.1 Accountability to Affected Populations
The Inter-Agency Accountability Working Group (IAA-WG) in Ethiopia aims to collectively promote greater accountability in humanitarian and development work. It was established in 2009 and works towards institutionalization and implementation of relevant standards at all levels of humanitarian and development actions by member agencies and the wider humanitarian community including the government. In 2023, 60 agencies participated in the IAA-WG.
The Community Voices Dashboard, a collective feedback platform that provides a trends analysis of affected communities’ most urgent concerns, continues to be maintained on a regular basis. In 2023, more than 25,000 instances of feedback and complaints were recorded, the top 3 contributing agencies being WFP, the Organization for Migration (IOM), and World Vision Ethiopia. Complaints and feedback requiring actions are referred to relevant actors, and decisions are communicated back to the affected populations. However, the AAP-WG identified the need to ensure more timely action is taken and systematically communicated back to those reaching out through Community Feedback Mechanisms (CFMs).
Other key aspects of accountability commitments are still to be improved. Participation of children, adolescents and adults in the communities in the design of the response is insufficient. The same Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) report shows that only in a small minority of locations (less than 3 per cent) were IDPs and returning IDPs completely involved in decision making around humanitarian aid. Different CFMs and Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) exercises prove that information to communities about humanitarian responders plans and activities is insufficiently communicated, constituting a significant barrier to accessing aid.
In an effort to increase affected people’s access to tailored and contextually appropriate CFMs, an assessment of communities’ perception is expected to be completed by December 2023 to inform decision making regarding preferred communication and CFM channels, strengths and weaknesses of existing information-sharing practices and preferred modalities for community engagement.
Priorities in 2024 will include:
Building on evidence to expand AAP activities, particularly CFMs, in line with community preferences. Disseminating good practices in terms of participation in intervention decision making and information sharing. Reinforcing and expanding sub-national accountability working groups and encouraging their contribution to the national IAA-WG. Maintaining the Community Voices Dashboard and disseminating its findings, as well as continuing to disseminate standards through trainings, will remain key activities of the IAA-WG and its members in 2024.
Building on the mainstreaming and implementation of AAP activities, facilitating AAP assessments to strengthen tailored and contextually appropriate CFMs and share lessons and experiences from CFM implementation. Capacitating IOM and partner staff in AAP implementation approaches through AAP trainings, updating AAP/CFM tools and sharing, reinforcing, and expanding sub-national accountability working groups and encouraging their contribution to the national IAA-WG. Maintaining the Community Voices Dashboard and disseminating its findings, as well as continuing to disseminate standards through training, will remain key activities of the IAA-WG and its members in 2024.
Through the AAP-WG, joint efforts in improving accountability to affected people in Ethiopia will continue in 2024 through sharing experiences and best practices.