Learn more about the LOCALED initiative for Leveraging Organisations’ Collective Accountability: Locally-led and Evidence Driven
The Humanitarian Accountability Gap
Amid overwhelming humanitarian needs and strained funding, ensuring that aid is effective and driven by the expectations of the communities is more urgent than ever. Yet despite global commitments to enhance accountability to people and to prioritise local decision making, a stark accountability gap persists between what crisis affected communities expect and how organisations respond.
Why do aid organisations still struggle to consistently listen to community perceptions, which should be the most relevant measure of their performance? Too often, aid assessments are top-down, driven by international agendas, and conducted in an ad hoc manner that doesn’t support systematic learning across different contexts.
Closing this gap requires a bold new way of assessing aid effectiveness – one that is holistic, encompassing a broad range of actors, including civil society organisations, NGOs, UN and governments to enable learning.
Closing the Gap: CHS LOCALED
CHS Alliance’s CHS LOCALED takes a collective and localised approach, building on the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS), a framework already used by hundreds of organisations to improve the quality and accountability of aid. Under this initiative, assessments of how organisations collectively meet their CHS commitments will be conducted alongside community perception assessments within specific humanitarian responses.
CHS LOCALED will provide a comprehensive picture of aid effectiveness and drive improvements to close the gap in expectations between those providing assistance and those experiencing it. It is unique because it integrates the following three approaches:
- Community centered approach: Communities affected by crisis will be consulted to provide feedback on how well aid organisations are fulfilling the CHS commitments, ensuring their voices shape the response.
- Collective approach: Organisations responding to the crisis will contribute to a collective assessment, using the CHS as a common framework. These assessments will generate valuable evidence of what is working, where improvements can be made, and whether challenges stem from local contexts or broader systemic challenges.
- Locally led approach: Peer assessors will lead these collective assessments, shifting from traditional top-down approaches and to more participatory and accountable processes. Support will be provided to help local organisations unfamiliar with the CHS to meet their commitments, fostering knowledge exchange and capacity building.
With thanks to USAID, we are launching the CHS LOCALED initiative in October 2024.
In 2025, piloting in four countries will begin in South Sudan, Ukraine, Bangladesh, and another country to be announced soon. We will partner with Ground Truth Solutions, as leaders in gathering and analysing community perceptions. CHS Alliance members and partners of all sizes and types will participate in these pilots, representing the diversity of operational responders in specific locations, with some serving as peer assessors. We are excited to take this bold step together in our collective commitment to demand greater accountability for people in crisis.
How Can I Be Involved?
CHS Alliance will be hosting an online workshop for members on 31 October 2024 at 11 AM – 12:30 PM CET. Register here.
If you are a humanitarian or development organisation working in South Sudan, Ukraine, and Bangladesh, or if you are not currently a member of the CHS Alliance, please do reach out to us for more information.
For more information, please contact Bonaventure Sokpoh at bsokpoh@chsalliance.org.