Transcript 2008 PSG Meeting, HAP Secretariat Presentation

“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
Peer Support Group
2008 Annual Meeting
Monica Blagescu
[email protected]
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
Covering …
• 2008 Updates: including on Membership,
Certification and Accreditation
• The 2008 Humanitarian Accountability Report
• HAP Standard Review Process
• Highlights from the 2009 Work Plan
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
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 through capacity building
– Promote greater accountability
– Monitor and certify compliance of members
– Handle complaints against members
6 Associate Members
HAP members
1.
2.
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4.
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22 Full Members
5 Certified Full Members
ACT International
ACFID (Australia)
ACTED (France)
CAFOD
CARE International
Christian Aid (UK)
Church World Service –
Pakistan/Afghanistan
COAST Trust (Bangladesh)
CONCERN Worldwide
Coordination of Afghan Relief
(CoAR)
Centre for Peace & Development
Initiatives (Pakistan)
DanChurchAid (Denmark)
Danida
Danish Refugee Council
DFID
Lutheran World Service
MANGO
18.
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27.
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33.
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
Medair (Switzerland)
Medical Aid for Palestinians (UK)
MERCY Malaysia
Merlin
Muslim Aid (UK)
Naba'a (Lebanon)
Norwegian Refugee Council
OFADEC (Senegal)
Oxfam GB
People in Aid
Save the Children UK
Sida
Sungi Development Foundation
(Pakistan)
Tearfund (UK)
Women's Commission on Refugee
Women and Children (USA)
World Vision International
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
Progress in 2008
• Merger with Building Safer Organisations completed
• Pakistan Office moving towards separate registration
• General Assembly agreed to seek closer ties with Sphere in the
Standard Review process
• Board approved the Standard Review ToR and agreed to seek
greater inter-operability with other quality and accountability
initiatives
• New services statement launched (2009 Services list and price
guide now available)
• Stronger emphasis on membership obligations agreed for 2009:
– monitoring of detailed Accountability Work Plans for the
implementation of the HAP Principles of Accountability; OR
– enrolment in the certification scheme
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
2008 continued…
• Guide to HAP Standard published and launched in Geneva and
London
• Beneficiary Based Consultation published “To complain or not
complain: still the question”
• NEP Response to Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh (national Peer
Support Group) and to the Baluchistan earthquake
• Joint response with Sphere to Cyclone Nargis, further
deployment in 2009
• With SCUK, exploring options for a more effective function
specifically on prevention and investigation of sexual
exploitation and abuse
• Communications plan and knowledge management system
being consolidated for roll out in early 2009
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
Certification
• 2007: First round of membership certification completed with
OFADEC, Danish Refugee Council and MERCY Malaysia
certified.
• 2008: Second round of certîfication: DanChurchAid and
Tearfund certified. First round of mid-term monitoring audits.
• Enrolled in the certification scheme:
– Members: ACTED, Christian Aid, Cafod, COAST Trust,
Concern, Save the Children UK, Muslim Aid.
– Non-members: UNHCR and Help Age International
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
Experience to date
• Certification requires leadership; it does not require specialists,
but they can help
• Baseline analyses “de-mystify” the HAP Standard Certification
process
• It is the process of achieving compliance with the Standard that
matters; certification provides the recognition
• Greatest challenge to most agencies are posed by
– Benchmark 1: developing a humanitarian accountability
framework and demonstrating how the management system
enables its implementation
– Benchmark 5: developing effective complaint handling
mechanisms, in particular working through partners
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
Accreditation: the next step
• Scaling-up is not possible through simple expansion
of the HAP certification scheme.
• Accreditation is the preferred solution where HAP
International’s role is limited to:
– Quality assuring accredited agencies
– Further standard development work
• Consultation on accreditation options starting with:
–
–
–
–
ACT International
Naba’a (Lebanon)
HAP Pakistan
Asian Disaster Response and Risk-Reduction Network
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
The 2008 Humanitarian
Accountability Report
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
Outline
• A Review of Humanitarian Accountability and Quality Management
in 2008: Progress made across the board towards HAP’s vision “of
a humanitarian system championing the rights and the dignity of
disaster survivors”.
• A Perceptions Survey on humanitarian accountability and quality
management in 2008.
• Testimonies from the field
• The HAP Secretariat Annual Report: Progress achieved against
the 2008 workplan and the second year of the 2007-2009 strategic
plan.
• HAP Members’ Reports
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
Members’ Reports
•
Against the four focus areas in the Accountability Workplan Guidelines
OR
•
Against the six Benchmarks in the HAP Standard
– Proposed accountability objectives for 2008, as prepared for the 2007
Humanitarian Accountability Report
– Recommendations in baseline analysis reports or the corrective action
requirements from audit reports
DEADLINE: 6 March 2009
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
HAP Standard
Review Process
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
Aims of the Review
1.
To consider known impact of the HAP 2007 Standard upon
the lives of disaster survivor
2.
To identify lessons learned from experience with the HAP
2007 Standard
3.
To ascertain the strengths and weaknesses of the 2007
Standard and to identify areas for change and improvement
4.
To highlight positive and negative consequences of
compliance with the Standard
5.
To reach consensus on new areas for the Standard, including
expansion of its scope and of the Standard certification
scheme to other sector
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
Experience with the
Standard
Impact of the
Standard on the
lives of disaster
survivors
Key
considerations
New
directions for
the Standard
Content of the 2007
Standard
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
Impact of the
Standard on the
lives of disaster
survivors
HAP commissioned studies on complaints
handling and the HAP evaluation will seek to
include an assessment of the impact of the
HAP 2007 Standard and certification upon
the lives and perceptions of disaster
survivors
Review and collate findings of all known
studies that shed light on the impact that the
application of the Standard has had upon the
lives and perceptions of disaster survivors
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
Impact of Self-Regulation
•
Preparing a brief review on the impact of self-regulation in
other sectors and at national level; evaluations of social
auditing methods; what lessons are relevant to HAP?
–
Some quotes for reflection on the following slides
•
Planning to liaise with InterAction/SAI in their review of the
impact of the Child Sponsorship Certification Scheme
•
Collaboration with ALNAP on the impact studies
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
2008 research released by the University of Washington
(Daniel J Evans School of Public Affairs)
“The strength of standards is one critical determinant of the
reputational signal created by self-regulation. Standards provide
effective signals by separating high and low quality organizations.
The higher the standards, the higher the costs of compliance for
low quality organizations, who are therefore less likely to join.
Strong, specific standards may be difficult to agree upon and may
discourage participation, but will create more powerful signals of
quality for stakeholders. More lenient standards will create a more
attractive program for potential participants, but will not be as
effective in distinguishing high quality from low-quality NGOs or in
regulating organizational behavior. Thus in many cases,
establishing a strong voluntary club may imply excluding a large
proportion of NGOs.”
Data collected from key informant interviews, public records, on-line archives of
national NGO organizations, and secondary sources between 1990-2006 for
twenty sub-Saharan countries and nine Asian countries.
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
“Most nonprofit self-regulation is oriented toward
governments and donors. This orientation has been
criticized, however, on both moral and pragmatic
grounds as ignoring important accountabilities of
nonprofits to their own mission and to their
beneficiaries (Moore, Brown, and Honan, 2003;
Ebrahim, 2003). […] changing the current orientation
of self-regulation will require the delegation of
concrete powers to beneficiaries, something that
nonprofits may be reluctant to do in the absence of
strong pressure from other stakeholders. “
Kugerty (2007) Models of NGO Self-Regulation
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
A study that models the impact of certification on the
quality of organizations in the market shows that the
presence of a certifying body increases incentives for
managers to run a charity that delivers good quality
programs as defined by those they affect, leading to
an increase in the number of “good” charities.
Svitovska (2007) “Prompted to be good”
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
Lessons learned from the first two years
Whether compliance with the Standard
satisfies the criteria of mission criticality,
affordability and practicality, and how this can
be improved
How the Standard has been applied to
agencies working through partners and how
this could be improved
Options on the scope of certification for
larger agencies
Factors affecting member agencies’
decisions to choose certification or not
The demonstrated impact of compliance
against the Standard / Certification
Experience with the
HAP 2007 Standard
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”

Qualifying Norms for Certification

The Humanitarian Covenant

The six benchmarks, requirements
and means of verification
Content of the 2007
Standard
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
Expansion of certification options beyond the
humanitarian domain
Demonstrated inter-operability with other
relevant standards, particularly the Sphere
“Common Standards” and the People in Aid
Code.
The need for additional benchmarks, such as
those not included in the HAP 2007 Standard:
- Coordination and collaboration
New
directions for
the Standard
- Impact analysis
- Appropriate reporting
- Advocacy / Rights based approaches
- Ethical fund raising practices
- Supply chain management that
considers local capacity and resources
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
Critical Factors in the Review Process
• Continued compliance with ISO guidelines for the development
of international standards
• Robust stakeholder involvement, including participation at all
levels of communities and staff
• Use of both internal and external resources and skills, ensuring
objectivity where essential
• Complementarity with planned review and consultation
processes of other relevant quality and accountability initiatives,
particularly the Sphere standards review and the ECB process.
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
For your consideration
• How can you best facilitate participation of your programme
beneficiaries in the Review process?
• The HAP 2007 Standard development process showed that
significant participation by member agencies is difficult to
achieve without sufficient resources being devoted to the
project. HAP will explore a secondment system.
• The design of the review will ensure the provision of significant
benefit for participating agencies, where the work conducted in
relation to the review also constitutes progress towards
certification or re-certification.
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
Highlights from the 2009 Work Plan
• Partner with academic and other relevant institutions to
promote and contribute to relevant research
• Commission studies: effect of complaint handling mechanisms;
impact of HAP Certification scheme
• Publish report on the state of accountability in new
emergencies
• Strengthen the Peer Support Group and organise regional
Accountability Leaders Workshop
• Deployment of field staff in new emergencies
• Delivery & continuous improvement of services (as per the
2009 Services List and Price Guide)
“making humanitarian action accountable to beneficiaries”
2009 Work Plan (continued)
• Contribute to joint quality and accountability “social network”
• Develop HAP Standard relevant materials to support members’
staff development needs
• Review the Investigations Guidelines
• Establish and administer a pool of independent (BSO)
investigators
• Training of CARB as certification body (quality assurance and
appeals handling)
• Develop Accreditation Standard and formalise Auditor Standard
• Carry out up to 5 Accountability Work Plan monitoring visits/year
• Strategic review, including external evaluation