3. Background to Beneficiary Accountability

From post Rwanda genocide in 1994 through to tsunami there has been an increasing demand and interest on the need for the humanitarian sector to be accountable to beneficiaries and to improve on the quality of services delivered. Various accountability initiatives have come up all with the aim to support and improve quality, accountability and learning in the context of emergencies.

Humanitarian agencies exercise significant financial, technical and logistical power in their mission to save lives and reduce suffering. In contrast, the disaster survivors have no formal control and often little influence over emergency relief agencies, making it difficult for people affected by the disaster to hold these aid agencies to account. In 2003 the Humanitarian Accountability Partnership International (HAP-I) was launched to promote accountability to disaster survivors and to acknowledge those agencies that comply with the HAP Principles and Standards of Humanitarian Accountability and Quality Management. By applying these principles and standards an agency makes itself accountable to disaster survivors for the quality of its humanitarian work.

The Red Cross Code 9 states that,” We hold ourselves accountable to both those we seek to assist and those from whom we accept resources”. There is a clear and growing demand from agencies and their staff for integrated and coherent support to improve quality and accountability in the context of emergencies. Lessons from recent humanitarian emergencies have also highlighted the need to build individual and organisational awareness and capacity to implement humanitarian programmes that include people affected by the disaster as key participants in the design, planning, implementation and evaluation of programmes. All over the world the need for such an approach to humanitarian programme management will continue to increase, and humanitarian actors will benefit from adopting this approach.

Paul Gol,Kabul.