A shared vision on quality and accountability
People affected by disasters have limited options and little power over their access to assistance and protection. Humanitarian organizations therefore have an ethical responsibility to respect the dignity of victims and to do their utmost to ensure that their assistance programmes are of the best possible quality.
Humanitarian agencies should respond meaningfully to needs, take into consideration local capacities and constraints, and respect and involve crisis-affected people. Any response should avoid or mitigate negative impacts while fostering positive effects.
Organizations should manage and support their staff members well; they should evaluate and learn from experience and use resources efficiently and transparently. Organizations should be able to demonstrate commitment to improving their performance through verification and reporting systems.
A number of Quality and Accountability Initiatives are collaborating around this shared vision, through identifying possible synergies and clarifying their differences in order to offer a collective range of choices. Humanitarian organizations can then select the options best suited to their needs and priorities. Six Quality and Accountability Initiatives* are currently committed to working together to facilitate this process of selection, and to reporting progress to the larger humanitarian constituency.
* The six initiatives are: Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance (ALNAP) in Humanitarian Action, Coordination SUD (Solidarité, Urgence, Développement), Humanitarian Accountability Partnership (HAP) International, Groupe URD (Urgence, Réhabilitation, Développement), People In Aid and the Sphere Project.
Friday, 3 August 2007