Accountability towards beneficiaries

1
Accountability towards beneficiaries
INTERNATIONAL NOT-FOR-PROFIT EVENT
WORKSHOP 1

• Nicholas Stockton
• Executive Director
• Humanitarian Accountability Partnership (HAP)

2
The Humanitarian Accountability Partnership -
International

• Founded in 2003 "to achieve and promote the
  highest principles of accountability through
  self-regulation by members linked by common
  respect for the rights and dignity of
  beneficiaries"
• Objectives
• Set standards of accountability
• Support members
• Promote greater accountability
• Monitor and certify compliance
• Complaints-handling

3
HAP full-members

1. ACFID (Australia)
2. ACTED (France)
3. CAFOD (Caritas UK)
4. CARE International
5. Christian Aid (UK)
6. Church World Service Pakistan/Afghanistan
7. COAST Trust (Bangladesh)
8. CONCERN Worldwide
9. DanChurchAid (Denmark)
10. Danish Refugee Council
11. Medair (Switzerland)

• Medical Aid for Palestinians (UK)
• MERCY Malaysia
• Muslim Aid (UK)
• Norwegian Refugee Council
• OFADEC (Senegal)
• Oxfam GB
• Save the Children UK
• Sungi Development Foundation (Pakistan)
• Tearfund (UK)
• Women's Commission on Refugee Women and Children
  (USA)
• World Vision International

4
Current Donors

• Official donors
• AusAID
• DFID (associate member)
• Danish MFA (associate member)
• Swedish MFA (associate member)
• Irish MFA
• Netherlands MFA
• Norwegian MFA
• Foundations
• Oak Foundation
• Ford Foundation

5
Horn of Africa 2009

• A simulation

6
Scenario

• August 2009
• Horn of Africa Famine
• 12 million people affected
• Global crude mortality 3/10,000/deaths/day
• 2,160 children under five dying per day
• UN Emergency Appeal 30 funded

7
Dodoth A badly affected district in Karamoja,
Uganda

• Population 80,000 with 27,000 children under 5
• Crude Mortality Rate _at_ 6/10,000/day
• 48 deaths per day of which 34 are children under
  5
• District wide caseload of 4,160 moderate-severely
  malnourished children

8
FlashAid and Qualaid

• Qualaid is HAP Certified, FlashAid is still
  thinking about it.
• Both agencies arrive 1st August on OCHA charter
• Both deploy 5 international staff
• Each given 50 of OCHA emergency funds available
  for supplementary feeding in Dodoth District

9
Comparative Response
FlashAid
Qualaid

• Day 1 hits the ground running
• Day 3 Supplementary feeding programme for 2,080
  children up and running
• Day 4 crowd control problems due to
  registration anomalies and lack of information

• Day 1 to Day 3 community consultations
• Day 4 Verification of registered beneficiaries
  completed with help from community leaders

10
Comparative Response
FlashAid
Qualaid

• Day 5 Beneficiary criteria and detailed
  distribution schedule displayed on public
  notice-boards
• Day 6 Supplementary feeding for 2,080 children up
  and running

11
Day 7 - Both agencies have underestimated demand
as migrants from un-assisted neighbouring
district start arriving generating an additional
1,000 caseload of malnourished children. Queues
form in both project areas, although these are
much longer at FlashAids feeding centre because
distribution schedule has not been published.
12
Comparative Response
FlashAid
Qualaid

• Day 8 Feeding programme expanded to meet new
  demand total caseload 3,000
• Day 9 Rates of dehydration and diarrhoea
  increase due to effect of long queues in
  un-shaded waiting area
• Day 10 Programme disrupted by riots.
  International staff withdrawn.

• Day 8 - Consultations with community and patients
  
• Day 9 Feeding programme expanded to meet 3,000
  caseload. New distribution schedule communicated
  to community
• Day 10 - New shaded waiting area constructed for
  additional caseload

13
Comparative Response
FlashAid
Qualaid

• Day 12 - Team given advice on reducing security
  risks by community leaders
• Day 20 to Day 80
• 186 complaints handled
• targeting improved
• 2 members of staff sacked for sexual exploitation
  of beneficiaries

• Day 15 Warehouse looted
• Day 20 International staff return
• Day 21 National staff ambushed on road
• Day 25 Security consultant brought in to advice
  on new security guidelines

14
Comparative Response
FlashAid
Qualaid

• Day 70 Evaluation Team arrive
• Day 72 Evaluation Team depart
• Day 80 Evaluation Report given to HQ with inter
  alia recommendations for improving queuing
  registration practices and dealing with poor
  community relations due to staff "behavioural"
  issues.

15
Comparative Response
FlashAid
Qualaid

• Day 90 Nutrition targets reached - project
  closed

• Day 82 Field informed of evaluation findings
• Day 83 Registration anomalies addressed Queuing
  conditions improved

16
Comparative Response
FlashAid
Qualaid

• Day 100 Nutrition targets reached. Project
  closed

17
FlashAid mortality data
18
Qualaid - mortality data
19
Bad queuing conditions leads to slower rate of
decline in mortality rate in FlashAid centre
The speed dividend
The accountability dividend
Death rates increase sharply with influx from
neighbouring districts, although higher in
FlashAid area.
FlashAid's early achievements undermined by staff
insecurity and temporary evacuation
FlashAids evaluation recommendations implemented
Quick start by FlashAid brings initial gains in
reducing mortality, but -
Qualaids Complaints handling system leads to
improved targeting as registration anomalies are
resolved early
Qualaids early consultation and public
communications reduce queues, stress and
registration mistakes
Qualaids improved targeting and better
environmental conditions produces earlier closure
of project
20
Dodoth DistrictCumulative lt5 death toll after
100 days

• FlashAid
• Area
• 1,207

• Qualaid
• Area
• 604

21
Comparative Costs
Agency Activity Person days Cost Elapsed time to address problems Excess lives lost before problems fixed
FlashAid Evaluation 40 days 20,000 80 days 269
Consultant 10 days 5,000 10 days 10
Total 50 days 25,000 90 days 279
Qualaid Initial consultation 3 days 1,500 3 days 6
Community- liaison 12 days 6,000 3 days 6
Complaints- handling 10 days 5,000 4 days 8
Early closure -50 days -25,000 -10 days -
Total -25 days -12,500 0 days 20
22
Qualaid's management system produced

• Better humanitarian outcomes in terms of
  mortality, morbidity and the dignity of disaster
  survivors
• Improved programme cost-effectiveness
• Better staff security and risk management
• Reduced losses through fraud and theft
• through the application of..

23
five simple quality management practices

1. transparency in mandate, objectives, beneficiary
   and entitlement criteria and implementation
   reporting
2. consultation with "principals" (disaster
   survivors) right from the beginning to gain their
   informed consent
3. feedback/complaints redress-handling system
4. competence of staff
5. learning for continuous improvement

24
The Challenge

• Imbalance of power between humanitarian
  principals and humanitarian agents. For example
• Disaster survivors are only rarely represented
  in
• Donor resource allocation procedures
• UN coordination mechanisms
• NGO governance arrangements
• Disaster survivors are
• Often not consulted in assessments by relief
  agencies
• Given no choice in selection of relief agency
• Often treated as a homogenous group
• Often subjected to "veterinarian" style relief
  interventions
• Rarely able to submit a complaint or seek redress

25
..compounded by

• Host country national regulatory mechanisms are
  weak or compromised in most humanitarian crises
• Donor country NGO regulation that usually seeks
  to strengthen accountability to domestic
  stakeholders, not to disaster survivors
• Fragmentation and proliferation of standards
  setting initiatives
• The absence of an effective industry-wide
  voluntary quality assurance system

26
..the consequences

• The humanitarian system is thus particularly
  vulnerable to the risks of
• Moral hazard (e.g. sexual exploitation of
  children by aid workers)
• Inappropriate choice (i.e. agencies taking on
  jobs that they are not qualified to do e.g.
  post-tsunami boat building and house
  reconstruction)
• The relative power of donors (both official and
  private) means that market-share success is a
  function of supply-side contracting and marketing
  rather than demand-driven programming

27
the situation

• The credibility of international humanitarian
  action is threatened by perceptions of
• lack of impact
• poor coordination
• waste/inefficiency
• corruption and fraud
• political instrumentalisation/co-option
• lack of professionalism
• Increasing calls for official regulation (e.g.
  International Disaster Response Treaty)

28
HAP's proposition

• The adoption of HAP's accountability and quality
  management standard will improve the impact and
  cost effectiveness of humanitarian action
• HAP's certification assures optimal programme
  quality in any given context
• HAP certification improves risk management
• HAP certification helps to curb abuse of
  corporate power thereby reducing vulnerability to
  hostile legal action
• HAP certification benefits all stakeholders
  (staff, donors, partners and disaster survivors)
• HAP certification strengthens the comparative
  advantage of certified agencies

29
The Humanitarian Accountability and Quality
Management Standard
30
What is different about the HAP Standard?

• Addresses the quality of humanitarian action, as
  perceived by its intended beneficiaries and other
  key stakeholders
• Focussed only upon "mission critical" elements of
  an agency's humanitarian quality management
  system
• Prepared in accordance with the ISO guidelines
  for the development of international quality
  management standards

31
Standard Development Process
32
The 6 benchmarks and 19 related requirements were
selected for

• Relevance (mission criticality)
• Feasibility
• Affordability
• Measurability

33
The HAP Standard comprises

• Foreword
• Introduction
• HAP Accountability Principles
• Brief history
• Qualifying norms for certification
• Key definitions
• Humanitarian Covenant
• Principles for humanitarian action
• Outline of Benchmarks
• Working with partners
• Benchmarks for the HAP Standard

34

• Benchmark 1
• The agency shall establish a humanitarian
  quality management system
• Benchmark 2
• The agency shall make the following information
  publicly available to intended beneficiaries,
  disaster-affected communities, agency staff and
  other specified stakeholders (a) organisational
  background (b) humanitarian accountability
  framework (c) humanitarian plan (d) progress
  reports and (e) complaints handling procedures
• Benchmark 3
• The agency shall enable beneficiaries and their
  representatives to participate in programme
  decisions and seek their informed consent 
• Benchmark 4
• The agency shall determine the competencies,
  attitudes and development needs of staff required
  to implement its humanitarian quality management
  system
• Benchmark 5
• The agency shall establish and implement
  complaints-handling procedures that are
  effective, accessible and safe for intended
  beneficiaries, disaster-affected communities,
  agency staff, humanitarian partners and other
  specified bodies 
• Benchmark 6
• The agency shall establish a process of
  continual improvement for its humanitarian
  accountability framework and humanitarian quality
  management system 

35
"The Guide to the HAP Standard" now available
from Oxfam publishing
Order from www.oxfam.org.uk/publications
36
HAP certification offers the sector

• A more informed choice for staff, volunteers,
  partner agencies, donors and disaster survivors
• Enhanced credibility and standing of certified
  agencies
• Strengthening of accountability and
  professionalism
• HAP certification is
• Applicable regardless of agency size, place of
  origin, operational or partner-based
• Available to all agencies who meet the qualifying
  norms

37
Steps to Certification

• Baseline analysis
• Submission of application
• Preparation of documentation
• Self-assessments of all field sites
• Head office audit
• Field site audit
• Interviews with stakeholders
• Auditor's report
• Authorisation by HAP Certification and
  Accreditation Review Board
• Certification 3 year validity with interim check

38
Typical certification time-line
Decision
If audit findings reveal any major
non-conformities, certification would be delayed
until these are addressed A certificate is issued
for a period of 3 years, with a mandatory mid
term (18 months) monitoring audit
Preparation
2 4 weeks Ensure agency on board
Baseline Analysis
6-8 weeks Prepare HAF Prepare HQMS
Improvement
Head Office 3 days Field Site 3 days Report,
including drafts and feedback up to 1 month
Audit
Within 6 months Consultation, support and
organization response to baseline recommendations
Certified
Head Office 3 days Field Site 3 days
39
Certification

• 2007 First round of membership certification
  completed with OFADEC, Danish Refugee Council and
  MERCY Malaysia certified.
• 2008 Second round of membership certification
  underway with 6 more members (DanChurchAid,
  Tearfund, Concern, Christian Aid, World Vision
  (FPMG) Cafod) involved

40
Is the accountability burden too great?
41
Task In Groups of 6

• If HAP Certification benefits all stakeholders,
  as HAP claims is the case, what are the major
  blockages preventing your agency from enrolling
  in the HAP Certification scheme?