INCREASING
ACCOUNTABILITY AMONG HUMANITARIAN NGOS IN DISASTER RESPONSE
A
Study for the Sphere Project Management Committee
Geneva,
July 2000
Loubna
Freih
Project
Researcher
INCREASING
ACCOUNTABILITY AMONG HUMANITARIAN NGOS IN DISASTER RESPONSE
CONTENTS
II. Introduction 4
Methodology 4
Limits
of Study 5
Definition
of Terms 5
III. Accountability in Current Context of
Humanitarian Action 6
Drivers
of Accountability 6
Multiple
accountability 6
The
Development of the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards 7
IV. Current Accountability Efforts 9
A.
Monitoring and Evaluations 9
B.
Reporting and Disclosure Mechanisms 9
C.
External Evaluations 10
D.
Complaint-Handling Mechanisms 11
E.
Accreditation 15
F.
Peer Review at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 16
G.
Social Auditing 16
H.
The Humanitarian Accountability Project 17
V. Using the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum
Standards to Increase Accountability 18
Scenario
1: Collaborative Assessments and Evaluations 19
Table
1: Descriptions of collaborative assessments and collaborative evaluations 20
Table
2: Phases of Development of Collaborative Assessments/Evaluations Scenario 23
Scenario
2: Accreditation 24
VI. Conclusion 26
Table
3: Steps in Developing an Accountability Model to Sphere 26
The
Importance of Change 26
Over the past ten years, the public, donors and people affected by disasters have come to demand greater accountability on the part of humanitarian organizations. As the number and reach of such organizations have grown so too has the interest in transparency.
Even though there are apprehensions about engaging in a process of increased accountability, most NGOs agree that accountability to disaster-affected people needs increasing. Sphere’s Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards alone cannot provide a complete accountability framework but they do provide a tool for broadening accountability.
Several efforts and initiatives within the humanitarian NGO sector in recent years have laid the groundwork for developing accountability mechanisms. Within the UK-based Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), for example, independent external evaluations are now a prerequisite for participation in an appeal while several UK and Irish NGOs have voluntarily incorporated the People in Aid Code and gone through social audits. In Australia, Canada, Germany and the US, to mention a few, national NGO networks have, or are in the process of, introducing administrative standards and systems of NGO complaint-handling to ensure greater compliance and quality control. In fact, a group of US-based InterAction members who are involved in child sponsoring are going as far as to set up an external monitoring and accreditation process regarding their work.