Accountability to Affected People (AAP) is “an active commitment by humanitarian actors and organisations to use power responsibly by taking account of, giving account to, and being held to account by the people they seek to assist”. It requires humanitarian actors to involve people affected by crises in key decisions and processes that impact them, and have effective communication and feedback channels that engage all sectors in a community, especially those most vulnerable or marginalised. Most humanitarian organisations have their own AAP mechanisms. Yet, collective AAP approaches that cover the entire humanitarian response are relatively new.
Collective approaches seek to bring together the views, feedback, and complaints of affected people across the totality of a response. They generate analysis which is essential for strengthening the quality, targeting, and timeliness of operations. It is also important for guiding the strategic direction of Humanitarian Country Team.
In this webinar, AAP experts discussed practical steps that Humanitarian Coordinators and Humanitarian Country Team members can take to put in place a system-wide AAP approach, which include:
- Nominating a focal point that is responsible for consolidating AAP analysis across the AAP systems of individual organisations and collective mechanisms in-country.
- Supporting tailor-made collective mechanisms for communicating with communities and addressing feedback, including with contributions from pooled funds.
- Supporting local and national organisations to be represented within and have influence over the humanitarian response.
- Ensuring that communities’ preferred channels of communication, languages and cultural practices are mapped and integrated into preparedness actions.
- Including AAP as a standing item on the ICCG agenda.
A summary of the webinar is available online. Additionally, in partnership with the IASC Task Team on AAP, the P2P team produced a note that sets out some practical steps that Humanitarian Coordinators and Humanitarian Country Teams can take to ensure that accountability to affected people (AAP) guides collective humanitarian response.
