Accountability to Affected Populations:

UNICEF Commitments and Actions

September 2013

Context

Background

The movement for improved accountability to affected populations (AAP) has been led primarily by NGOs, donors, academics, the Red Cross movement, and, not least, by disaster affected populations themselves. These groups have worked together for many years to develop standards of service and management, codes of conduct and tools and frameworks to promote quality and accountability within the context of humanitarian action. The Red Cross Code of Conduct, the ECB “Good Enough Guide,” the SPHERE Standards and the HAP Standard are the most widely recognized outputs from the growing accountability movement.

Though good progress has been made, sustainable and system-wide change has been slow, largely due to fragmented approaches and limited coordination around the issue; both within the larger humanitarian system and within individual agencies themselves. Over the course of the last two years, as AAP was identified as both a goal and a pillar of the Transformative Agenda, UN agency engagement with this issue has become more systematic, including UNICEF’s own.

The IASC Commitments

On April 2011, the Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC) endorsed five Commitments to Accountability to Affected Populations (CAAPs)::

  1. Leadership/governance;
  2. Transparency;
  3. Feedback and complaints;
  4. Participation;
  5. Design, monitoring and evaluation

Formally accepting these commitments brought the UN system into the discussion of accountability on a level not seen before. It was agreed that agencies would incorporate these commitments into their respective policies, operational guidelines and project designs. It was explicitly recognized that communication with, and inclusion of, crisis-affected populations in the design and provision of humanitarian assistance were integral parts of achieving strengthened accountability to affected populations. Agencies have since been exploring ways of meeting the AAP commitments that were endorsed by their Principals.

In addition to endorsing the CAAPs for their own organizations, IASC Principals have committed to promoting them with their operational partners, within Humanitarian Country Teams and amongst cluster members. This includes the development of operational plans to put the commitments into practice. IASC WG members agreed to provide feedback on the commitments over the course of 2013.

Interagency Task Force on AAP

Great interest exists in learning more about how accountability to affected populations can be strengthened when organizations are working together in response to a humanitarian emergency.

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UNICEF Engagement

UNICEF already has a strong policy commitment to accountability and, in particular, forward accountability to its key constituencies - children and the communities where they reside. In several areas, UNICEF already has in place systems (or has made significant progress towards establishing systems) that make individual programs more accountable and transparent to populations that it seeks to assist both in situations of stability as well as in crisis. However, implementation of these commitments is uneven and tends to be subject to the will of individual staff members or offices rather than systemic endeavors. Nonetheless, UNICEF staff appear highly motivated to institutionalize these endeavors in order to enhance the application of the CAAPs within programmatic and operational practices.

The CAAPs present a platform to consolidate and deepen forward accountability commitments across the organization, beginning with (but not limited to) humanitarian action countries. To track and enable progress against commitments, at the headquarters level, UNICEF has formed an Inter-Divisional Committee on AAP, with representation from the Emergency Division, the Department of Human Resources, the Ethics Office, the Change Management Office and the Programme Division. This group is charged with the oversight of the implementation of the CAAPs within UNICEF; including keeping field offices informed and coordinated, advocacy, oversight of assessment exercises, vetting of results and findings, and development and implementation of recommendations. This committee meets quarterly.

In early 2013, an institutional mapping/self-assessment of the internal processes and accountability mechanisms currently in place within UNICEF was completed. The exercise had the goal of measuring institutional compliance with the CAAPs and informing a strategy towards strengthened accountability to affected populations in UNICEF’s humanitarian action. The methodology of the report was grounded in a desk review of UNICEF policies and systems, as well as a series of key informant interviews, carried out in early 2013. The review mapped current levels of compliance with the IASC Principals commitments and recommends ways for UNICEF to make incremental progress towards compliance. It proposes six recommendations to strengthen UNICEF’s implementation of the Commitments to Accountability of Affected Populations. Each recommendation is then further broken down into Actions. These are attached as Annex 2.

The self-assessment report was the first phase in a process that aims to:

  • Review UNICEF governance and management systems, organizational policies, operational guidelines, systems, decision-making processes, tools and resources through the lens of strengthened accountability to affected populations;
  • Identify and analyze how headquarters, regional and country offices have implemented accountability policies with the aim to collect lessons learnt and good practices;
  • Build on the existing accountability measures;
  • Demonstrate the value added of strengthened AAP mechanisms;
  • Identify entry points to strengthen UNICEF’s accountability systems;
  • Formulate a strategy to achieve the accountability and quality commitments.

The report alsoprovides the organization with a baseline of information from which to move forward. The value of this baseline for UNICEF lies in both the learning that it enables as well as the information base it provides for planning, communications and decision-making.

In summary, the self-assessment reports that UNICEF already has in place systems that make individual programs more accountable and transparent to populations that it seeks to assist in times of crisis. However, implementation of these commitments is patchy and often the subject of individual staff members or offices rather than systemic endeavors. The report suggests a range of actions that UNICEF could take to continue its progress towards full compliance with the CAAPs.

In addition to the recommendations in the report, and with the requisite support and buy-in from management, possible medium-term actions to increase organizational compliance with the CAAPs could also include:

  • The development of an action plan and identification of explicit strategies to address existing gaps and areas of weakness in UNICEF compliance with CAAPs
  • The integration of AAP-related review processes with UNICEF’s annual planning and review exercises.
  • Arrangement of capacity development and training sessions for UNICEF staff, designed to address the areas that the report highlights for attention (e.g. handling of complaints or provision of accessible information to affected communities). It is critical that staff become deeply engaged with AAP if they are to take forward improvements to policy, systems and practice.
  • Working on an individual basis with selected UNICEF regional and/or country offices, to understand better what particular elements of AAP may need to be strengthened in that country or situational context.
  • Identification of next steps in the operationalization of the inter-agency IASC Operational Framework on AAP, and consideration of any additional support UNICEF may wish to provide to system-wide and inter-agency coordination initiatives in this regard.

Support to country offices on this issue will be at a corporate level, and should build on existing policy guidance, tools and methods that already inform and strengthen accountability to affected populations. These include gender equality programming, prevention of sexual abuse and exploitation measures, equity and human-rights-based approaches to programming and humanitarian performance monitoring tools. While the larger AAP strategy and/or action plan are being conceptualized and tested, some quick wins and immediate actions in support of increasing AAP could include:

  • Disseminating the Gender Guide to the CCCs (currently available in English, French and Arabic)
  • Making IASC Gender E-learning mandatory for all staff
  • Setting up feedback mechanisms for affected populations
  • Finalising and rolling out UNICEF’s global PSEA strategy
  • Rolling out HPM with emphasis on strong participatory elements
  • Partnering with ALNAP or other organizations to design and deliver a course on AAP and participation in humanitarian action.

Next Steps

The IASC Commitments to Accountability to Affected Populations (2011) represent a platform to consolidate and deepen forward accountability commitments across the organization beginning with (but not limited to) operations in situations prone to crisis.

As per the findings of the self-assessment exercise and the recent L3 simulation exercise, there is a need for a clearer conceptual and eventually operational understanding of AAP, beyond (though not excluding) beneficiary communication mechanisms. For this reason,

the AAP Task Force will collect country and divisional examples of ways in which UNICEF has complied with the Commitments, to develop guidance and good practices and cull lessons learned. Good practices and illustrative examples will be included in communication materials to be developed. Ideally, field examples would illustrate the widest possible definition for AAP; including but not limited to how decision-making by leadership can be informed by information from beneficiary populations, good practices in PSEA, completing feedback loops to key informants after needs assessments and paying attention to issues of diversity, inclusivity and equity throughout the programme cycle.

Efforts are also being made to form a network of AAP champions and to increase the general knowledge of and comfort levels with AAP amongst all UNICEF staff.

Ultimately, the goal is for UNICEF to embrace clear,minimum standards for AAP in all operational areas.

Looking forward, some medium and long- term steps to increase compliance with the CAAPs within UNICEF humanitarian action countries are planned as follows:

  • AAP Updates will be produced and disseminated quarterly. (First update June 2013)
  • Development and dissemination of guidance and tools to raise organizational understanding of and commitment to AAP (On-going)
  • Identify good practices and disseminate to practitioners (On-going)
  • Establish clear minimum standards for AAP (Q1 2014)
  • Incorporate minimum standards on AAP into UNICEF core humanitarian policy documents (Q1 2014)
  • Strengthen implementation of interagency operational framework on AAP (Q4 2013, Q1 2014)

Annex 1 Recommendations and Actions

Recommendation # 1: Draft ‘briefing note’ to clarify the linkages between the CCCs and the CAAPs (an addendum to the CCCs?)

Accounts for:

Action #1: Publish a briefing note outlining (i) the linkages between the CAAPs and the CCCs; (ii) a common programmatic action applicable to each programmatic and operational sector and (iii) a common benchmark for monitoring performance in meeting the CAAPs

Recommendation # 2: Establish network of ‘champions’ (and ‘community of practice’?) to enhance the visibility and expertise for AAP within UNICEF.

Accounts for:

Action # 2: Build and support a network of ‘champions at the Regional Director and Regional Emergency Adviser levels.

Action # 3: Appoint a senior-level ‘ambassador’ for AAP with appropriate support from EMOPS.

Action # 4: Initiate a community of practice within UNICEF on AAP to build awareness and support - particularly amongst Regional Directors and Regional Emergency Advisers.

Recommendation # 3: Gather and disseminate ‘good practice case studies’.

Accounts for:

Action # 5: Capture the good practices that are currently occurring at country-level in a compendium of short case studies.

Recommendation # 4: Develop a suite of generic (non-prescriptive) guidance documents to operationalize CAAPs (with training/coaching, mentoring/advisory support as necessary).

Accounts for:

Action # 6: Consideration should be given to linking roll-out of UNICEF’s commitments to AAP, peace- and conflict-sensitive approaches to humanitarian action and resilience-building (and others?) within a single mainstreaming strategy to exploit synergies, build ownership and avoid overwhelming field staff.

Action # 9: Review the commitments associated with C4D and ‘media and communications’ in the CCCs for opportunities to strengthen reporting on information-sharing elements of AAP.

Action # 10: Develop guidance on development of an appropriate information strategy to fulfill UNICEF commitments to information-sharing and transparency.

Action # 11: Deepen investments in mobile communications technologies to improve access to information for affected populations as well as feedback on humanitarian programmes.

Action # 12: Develop guidance on building appropriate, context-specific, recipient feedback mechanisms.

Action # 13: EMOPS and PD provide guidance to ROs and COs on effective participatory processes in crisis situations.

Action # 16: Publish guidance on evaluating for AAP

Recommendation # 5: Review performance monitoring framework(s) in order to ensure that AAP is systematically embedded and incentivized.

Accounts for:

Action # 7: Include explicit references to UNICEF’s commitment to forward accountability to affected populations in individual job descriptions, the code of conduct, and performance management.

Action # 8: Review all EMOPS training materials to identify opportunities to enhance the visibility and profile of AAP.

Action # 14: Develop and integrate into the humanitarian performance monitoring framework, measurable indicators for participation.

Action # 15: Require implementing partners to report against participation indicators.

Action # 18: Require independent ex-post evaluations to test AAP reporting.

Recommendation # 6: Engage IASC Principals on operationalizing AAP within the cluster system.

Accounts for:

Action # 17: Amend NGO partnership agreements and reporting formats to include mandatory requirements to report on AAP.

Action # 19: Publish a supplement to the PPM elaborating UNICEF’s inherited accountabilities as a cluster lead agency and build into appropriate training fora.

Action # 20: Advocate for sector-wide AAP indicators within individual clusters and aggregate response level.

Annex 2 : Full Report, Accountability to Affected Populations: Institutional Mapping of UNICEF Comitments (Darvill, 2013)

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