Humanity & Inclusion: increasing quality through more inclusive and accessible accountability mechanisms

Today, it is a priority for the aid sector and all organisations like Humanity & Inclusion (HI) to ensure that affected people are at the centre of their projects. The Grand Bargain’s ‘Participation Revolution’ (2016)¹ promised to ‘include people receiving aid in making the decisions which affect their lives’. For its part, the Core Humanitarian Standard² (CHS) states that ‘communities and people affected by crisis know their rights and entitlements, have access to information and participate in decisions that affect them’ (Commitment 4) and also that they should ‘have access to safe and responsive mechanisms to handle complaints’ (Commitment 5).

These international commitments and standards led to the elaboration of a Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Policy at Humanity & Inclusion in 2015, which was reviewed in 2022 with support from Groupe URD. This policy defines the implementation framework for all of our projects and includes the fundamental principle of accountability, or the capacity to be accountable in a transparent manner to all the stakeholders who have a direct or indirect interest in our projects. It also includes a quality reference framework which defines criteria to ensure that our projects are of sufficiently high quality. Among these criteria is ‘accountability to affected people’, which concerns accountability towards communities and populations in our operational areas. It involves key actions related to different accountability mechanisms: the sharing of information, the setting up of discussion forums, and the deployment of participatory approaches.

With the aim of reinforcing the quality of its projects, Humanity & Inclusion is therefore committed to including these accountability mechanisms in its operational programmes. To do this, the organisation uses guidelines which are sufficiently flexible to allow mechanisms to be adapted to different contexts and cultures. Each accountability mechanism included in the quality reference framework is explained in a guide. The first mechanism that was deployed concerned information sharing strategies and defined communication methods, the frequency with which these are used and key messages per project cycle phase. Feedback and complaints systems were then deployed to gather, process, respond to and learn from grievances, requests for information and assistance, and complaints from the population directed at HI. Monitoring these accountability mechanisms on all our operational programmes has been a key project in the last year with support being provided when the mechanisms are being designed. Another important aspect has been evaluating the effectiveness of the mechanisms that have already been in place for a number of years. And lastly, the deployment of participatory approaches will be a priority for the organisation in the coming months.

Implementing an accountability mechanism consists of more than setting up a hotline or suggestion boxes to gather feedback and complaints, or putting up a poster to share information about the organisation and its work. An accountability mechanism involves a full set of procedures, from the design phase to the exit strategy, using communication channels that suit all the population groups involved in our projects. This then raises the question of how to make these accountability mechanisms inclusive and accessible, allowing the full implication of girls, boys, women and men of all age groups (children and elderly people) – including disabled people – so that everyone can take part fully. Having collected good practices already in place in our programmes, and following discussions between several members of staff at HI (HQ and field) with different areas of technical expertise, we defined four key principles to be taken into account to ensure that people have access to and are included in the accountability mechanisms put in place by the organisation.

Knowledge of barriers. Access and inclusion depend on detailed knowledge of the barriers that people who take part in our projects have to overcome, whether they are physical or institutional, or related to information or attitudes. Knowledge is also needed of the related risks, people’s capacities, and the power dynamics in our operational areas. This knowledge needs to evolve as the project cycle unfolds, and should not be limited to the needs assessment phase. It needs to include the characteristics of the population involved via the collection of disaggregated data (by age, gender, and disability – using the Washington Group’s series of questions, for example³ in all the relevant exercises.

Involving affected people. Affected people need to be involved in all decision-making processes. This can be on an individual level or via the organisations who represent the different population groups we work with: disabled people, women, young people, ethnic groups, etc. It is equally relevant to: the design phase (What communication methods should be adopted? What feedback and complaints channels should be put in place in a given context?) ; implementation (Is the information shared clear? Are the responses to the feedback and complaints received qualitative?) ; and the project closure/exit strategy (What is the best way to communicate about the project results and subsequent steps? Who should be approached if there are complaints in the future?).

Adjustments. Based on the knowledge and involvement mentioned above, staff should be able to adapt their accountability mechanisms by making reasonable adjustments that increase accessibility and inclusion. According to the IASC guidelines on the inclusion of persons with disabilities, reasonable adjustments are defined as ‘necessary and appropriate modification and adjustments, not imposing a disproportionate or undue burden, where needed in a particular case, to ensure to persons with disabilities the enjoyment or exercise on an equal basis with others of all human rights and funda-mental freedoms’.⁴ This can be the translation of communication materials into braille or into an easy to read and understand format, or the presence of a sign language interpreter during face-to-face exchanges. Reasonable adjustments can also be made to take into account gender and age, for example, in terms of the ratio of women and men among the staff who deal with the feedback and complaints, or by simplifying the explanations of accountability mechanisms directed at children. Nevertheless, these reasonable adjustments can only be made if the necessary financial and human resources are available.

Learning. Finally, an accessible and inclusive accountability mechanism also requires continuous improvement based on frequent monitoring and evaluation activities to regularly check accessibility and inclusion. For this, we decided to mobilise our technical experts (focal points in inclusive humanitarian aid at HQ and in the field) in order to train not only HI staff, but also the staff of our implementing partners.

These partners play a key role in deploying and running accountability mechanisms. As we initially focused a great deal on the role of HI staff and the organisation’s commitments in this area, we wanted to carry out a complementary review of our internal practices regarding how our local partners are included in the design and implementation of accountability mechanisms, the role that they want to play, their internal practices, and the kind of support that they wish to receive from HI on this issue.

Twenty-six of our local partners (disabled persons’ organisations, civil society organisations and state services) answered questions in three countries where we conduct operations (Haiti, Burkina Faso and Nepal). This study showed us the importance of building accountability mechanisms together with our local partners, and the fact that this is currently not done enough due to a lack of guidelines and clarification about the roles and responsibilities of each entity. The initial findings of the study show that we underestimate the knowledge of the specific characteristics of a context that local partners bring, and that their inclusion helps us to make mechanisms more relevant to different communities. The study also underlined that they already have their own parallel accountability mechanisms that are adapted to the local culture and context, based on oral and informal methods, and that they are very keen to reinforce mutual learning on this issue with HI. Based on the results of the study, we are planning not only to adapt our guides to clarify the role of local partners, but also to provide support on this issue to partners who want it.

Through inclusion and accessibility, we are therefore reinforcing mechanisms promoting accountability towards affected people, the final objective being to increase the quality of our operations.

Despite these recent activities, many questions remain: how do we improve the analysis of power dynamics that affect under-represented groups, in order to have relevant accountability mechanisms? How do we go from simple consultation to genuinely transformative participation (full involvement of different population groups in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the projects and policies that concern them) ? How can the role of the organisations that represent these population groups be reinforced, based on the results of the internal study? How can an intersectional approach be applied in crisis situations and how can accountability mechanisms be adapted to these aspects? These are questions that we have discussed and will continue to discuss internally and externally in order to continuously improve our practices.

Laura Mosberg is MEAL expert at Humanity & Inclusion.

1. https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/a-participation-revolution-include-people-receiving-aid-in-making-the-decisions-which-affect-their-lives
2. https://corehumanitarianstandard.org/files/files/CHS_French.pdf
3. https://www.washingtongroup-disability.com/question-sets/
4. https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/iasc-guidelines-on-inclusion-of-persons-with-disabilities-in-humanitarian-action-2019