The Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability (CHS) is a globally recognized voluntary standard setting out nine commitments that organizations and individuals involved in humanitarian response use to improve the quality and effectiveness of the assistance they provide. Because accountability is one of Medical Teams’ core organizational values, we strive to integrate each of the nine commitments into our delivery of humanitarian assistance. Here is a brief overview of Core Humanitarian Standard Commitment 5 and a video providing insight into how Medical Teams incorporates CHS Commitment 5 into our global operations.

Commitment 5: Communities and people affected by crisis have access to safe and responsive mechanisms to handle complaints

Although aid organizations strive to ensure their responses are effective, humanitarian contexts are often complex and fast changing, making organizations susceptible to fraud or abuse of power without appropriate checks and balances in place. Organizations must put appropriate policies and procedures around procurement, program management and financial management in place, and people affected by crisis also need to have avenues for bringing concerns, feedback, and complaints to an organization and to receive an appropriate and timely response. A complaint can alert an organization to serious misconduct or failures in the response, allowing the organization to take timely action to improve program quality. To ensure that communities can provide this essential feedback, aid organizations should:

• Consult with communities and people affected by crisis on the design, implementation, and monitoring of complaints-handling processes.
• Welcome and accept complaints, and communicate how the mechanism can be accessed and the scope of issues it can address.
• Manage complaints in a timely, fair, and appropriate manner that prioritizes the safety of the complainant and those affected at all stages.

Significant resources will be needed to accomplish the above, both in terms of budget and staff time, so annual budgets and project plans must be adjusted to account for these activities. For example, staff may need to conduct an initial information campaign so that different groups within the affected population know what they can expect from agencies in terms of services, staff attitudes, and behavior as well as what to do and where to go if they want to make a complaint because the agency has failed to meet these standards. Additionally, organizations need to set up a consistent tracking system across operations to record, respond to, and analyze trends in feedback to inform programming. Relevant staff must also be trained on standard operating procedures, including processes for handling sensitive complaints related to potential fraud or sexual exploitation and abuse.

In the following video, we discuss how Medical Teams integrates CHS Commitment 5 into our programs in Tanzania and Uganda.

Learn more from the Core Humanitarian Standard and CHS Alliance websites as well as our other posts on CHS commitments. The information on Core Humanitarian Standard Commitment 5 and its key actions in this post are summarized from the Core Humanitarian Standard and CHS guidance notes.

Jenny Perry
Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) Advisor

Jenny contributes to the calling of Medical Teams International through the development and implementation of a global strategy, systems and tools for evidence-based monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning programs and supports country office teams to integrate these activities throughout all phases of the project life cycle. Connect with her on LinkedIn.