Displaying items by tag: Accountability

Humanitarian actors increasingly recognise the crucial importance of linking humanitarian efforts to human rights issues. In the Occupied Territories this interdependence is particularly stark. Israel’s policies restricting movement within the West Bank and between the West Bank and Israel, Gaza and other areas are a central factor in the Palestinians’ increasing poverty, unemployment and food insecurity, as well as their lack of access to urgently needed medical treatment. The lack of accountability of Israel’s security force personnel – both individual and systemic – is a direct cause of high rates of civilian death and injury. In order to address the…

As announced in August, Sphere and HAP are working together to promote greater coherence between the HAP Standard in Humanitarian Accountability and Quality Management and the Sphere Project’s Handbook. To help identify current inconsistencies and promote greater practical coherence between the two standards, the HAP Secretariat and the Sphere Project need your support. How you can contribute: 1) Complete a short online survey before 30 November 2009. This is available in English, French and Spanish. Improving coherence between the HAP Standard and the Sphere Handbook http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Jyt8lwuKh60qNvl7YsVG1w_3d_3d Améliorer la coherence entre les standards HAP et le manuel de Sphere http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Ycqwr4DLZinAC7O6BFAN8A_3d_3d Mejorar…

They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within by dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good. T. S. Eliot, The Rock There is no question that humanitarian organisations must be accountable, both in the sense of ‘giving account’ and ‘being answerable’ for the choices they make, the work they do and the resources they use. Nor is it debatable, given the often poor response to crises and the lack of transparency about results obtained, that far more accountability is needed. The issue is rather to whom, about what and for what…

The Sphere Project was developed by thousands of stakeholders over the course of several years, starting in the early 1990s. It has one aim: to increase the quality of humanitarian assistance based on a set of agreed principles and standards. More recently, the Humanitarian Accountability Partnership (HAP) has been launched to try to tackle another outstanding challenge in the provision of humanitarian aid, that of ensuring that disaster-affected people have a right to speak and be heard about the assistance they may be receiving. HAP is perhaps the best known amongst several initiatives explicitly trying to address this problem in…

After over a decade of relative obscurity, Somalia is, once again, on the radar screen of the international community, but for all the wrong reasons. After the departure of UNOSOM in 1995 and a retreat into the shadows, Somalia is now being described with such superlatives as ‘the world’s worst humanitarian crisis’, ‘the most dangerous place for aid workers to operate’, ‘the site of the world’s largest concentration of IDPs’ and so on. This negative press has forced the international community into a bout of collective hand-wringing, but little else. Millions of Somalis – some 2.6 million, at the time…

The need for NGOs to be more accountable to those affected by disaster has been noted repeatedly in major evaluations, including the report of the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition on the international response to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. For World Vision in Sri Lanka, the tsunami response provided an opportunity to implement an emergency programme in a more accountable manner and to work with the Humanitarian Accountability Partnership on a trial of their certification procedures. The overall results, particularly for the people we work with, were very positive and generated a great deal of learning, which is gradually being applied…

A new round of pledges to the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) this December is an encouraging sign of donor commitment to providing greater and more predictable financing for humanitarian assistance. However, all changes are best judged on the evidence of how they play out in practice, and not just on the theory. From my perspective as operational Emergencies Director of one of the largest international NGOs, the increasingly predictable thing about each new emergency in 2006 was that each time it became harder for us to obtain the swift and concrete donor support that we have counted on…

In a recent position paper MSF posed itself the question “…. what will better serve the populations in need: will MSF’s independent approach be beneficial to the most vulnerable at the end of the line? Or on the contrary, …is it indeed the collective effort, which will better serve the vulnerable?” We came to the conclusion that the best service for populations in need will come as a result of independence of action rather than participation in an integrated effort. Hence our decision in the past years to decline the invitation to join the IASC both at headquarters and field…

Humanitarians have spent a great deal of time talking and writing about the importance of being accountable to beneficiaries. At its simplest, it all seems very straightforward: genuine accountability through the consultation and participation of affected people is empowering and results in more appropriate and effective aid. Everyone seems to agree on this. The concept is explicit in a raft of humanitarian aid policies, codes and principles, donors are beginning to use it as a condition of funding and evaluations of humanitarian action are increasingly highlighting its importance. The language of participation and accountability to beneficiaries is now being used…

ABSTRACT One of the most frequently heard criticisms of humanitarian action is that it is unaccountable and unregulated. In response, a wide range of initiatives has been launched to improve quality and accountability. Reformers argue that, if actors are held to account, they will behave better and fulfil their responsibilities. They also contend that being accountable for one’s actions has moral value. This paper asks whether initiatives designed to improve accountability really are the solution to the problems humanitarianism faces today. It does not aim to dismiss accountability; rather, it seeks to show that accountability is a procedural phenomenon, not…