AAP: The phrase ‘accountability to affected people' (AAP) is widely used in the humanitarian community to refer to the commitments and mechanisms that humanitarian agencies have put in place to ensure that communities are meaningfully and continuously involved in decisions that directly impact their lives.
Accountability refers to the responsible use of power (resources, decision-making) by humanitarian actors, combined with effective and quality programming that recognizes a community of concern's dignity, capacity, and ability to be independent. As an international humanitarian organization, with a protection function at its core, UNHCR is committed to ‘putting people first' and drawing on the rich range of experiences, capacities, and aspirations of refugee, displaced, and stateless women, men, girls and boys. In addition, it is committed to being accountable to the people it serves by listening and responding to their needs, perspectives, and priorities.
UNHCR's AAP framework and these values are outlined in UNHCR's Policy on Age, Gender and Diversity (AGD, 2018), specifically core actions 2-5:
- Participation and inclusion (Core Action 2).
- Communication and transparency (Core Action 3).
- Feedback and response (Core Action 4).
- Organizational learning and adaptation (Core Action 5).
How to implement this at the field level?
The following key components of accountability to affected people are intrinsically linked and build on each other and other community-based participatory approaches. They are applicable in all UNHCR operations and provide a framework for the practical integration of accountability into protection and assistance programming.
Participation and inclusion.
Women, men, boys and girls of diverse backgrounds are able to engage meaningfully and are consulted on protection, assistance, and solutions.
Establish arrangements that permit meaningful participation at all stages of the operation's management cycle (assessment, planning, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation). The arrangements should be accessible to all groups in a community. In particular, ensure that potentially marginalized groups are included, such as minorities, people with disabilities, and people with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.
Ensure that all persons of concern have equal and non-discriminatory access to protection, assistance and solutions. Act in a manner that enables forcibly displaced and stateless women, men, girls and boys to be resilient and achieve self-reliance.
Identify the capacities and priorities of all persons of concern and develop protection, assistance and solutions programmes that accord with them.
Communication and transparency.
Women, men, boys and girls of diverse backgrounds in all operations have access to timely, accurate, and relevant information on (i) their rights and entitlements, and (ii) the programmes of UNHCR and its partners.
Facilitate communication and dialogue between UNHCR, its partners, and persons of concern at key stages throughout the operation's management cycle.
Share information and communicate in languages, formats, and media that are culturally appropriate for, and accessible to, all groups in a community.
Feedback and response.
Formal and informal feedback from persons of concern is systematically received and responded to, and corrective action is taken when appropriate.
Establish and maintain effective feedback systems (including comments, suggestions, and complaints), using a variety of communication channels that are accessible to all persons of concern and that are appropriate for both sensitive and non-sensitive feedback.
Allocate human and financial resources to ensure that feedback from persons of concern is systematically collected, acknowledged, assessed, referred, and responded to in a timely, confidential, and effective manner.
Collaborate with partners in feedback referral and response processes (wherever appropriate).
Organizational learning and adaptation.
Interventions, planning, priority setting, course corrections, and evaluation are informed on an ongoing basis by the views of persons of concern.
Learn from continuous engagement with communities of concern and adapt interventions and programmes in response to new knowledge gained through community participation and feedback, both in the short and long term.
Measure and improve accountability to all persons of concern through assessments of organizational performance on accountability.
Include persons of concern as partners throughout the operation's management cycle, inter alia by reporting the results of assessments and follow-up actions to them.
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