Measuring Commitment to Best Practice
HRI
NEWS
The Role of the Beneficiaries of Humanitarian Action
“Request implementing humanitarian organisations to ensure, to the greatest possible extent, adequate involvement of beneficiaries in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of humanitarian responses”
Principle 7 of the Principles and Good Practices of Humanitarian Donorship
At times, humanitarian responses have not sufficiently taken into account the opinions and experiences of local organisations and those affected by emergency situations when designing, measuring, implementing and evaluating responses to crises. Jan Egeland, Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary General recently spoke with DARA about this issue. According to Egeland, the role of local communities has not been acknowledged adequately, despite being the first to respond to the needs of the affected people. Generally, when the international response reaches the affected area, social networks of mutual assistance are already established and local communities often have consolidated structures and mechanisms in place, which are very efficient to ensure initial assistance for victims. It is for this reason that humanitarian action can be more effective if it is integrated with local processes, supports already existing initiatives and links recovery with community development. Humanitarian action will have better results if it is rooted in a needs assessment and above all, in an examination of existing capacities. Just as Silvia Hidalgo, Director of DARA, pointed out, “the key word is support, empowerment, and promotion of the capacities of people and communities”.
The Principles of Good Humanitarian Donorship speak for themselves regarding the role of local communities. Principles 5 through 8 highlight the vital importance of their integration in aid processes in order to obtain results that guarantee not only immediate assistance, but also the prevention of future emergencies. For this very reason, the participation, involvement, and intervention of beneficiaries must occur in the design, implementation and subsequent evaluation of the humanitarian response.
The active involvement of aid beneficiaries throughout the whole process of humanitarian assistance is mainly the responsibility of implementing organisations. Humanitarian donors, who generally are hardly present in the field, scarcely have the means to ensure aid beneficiaries’ active inclusion in the design, implementation and evaluation of programs. Nevertheless, they can and should incorporate the responsible inclusion of local communities in their humanitarian strategies and above all, they should require that the empowerment of the people is considered and put into practice by the implementing organizations they finance.
Lack of coordination with social groups in countries with humanitarian emergencies has been questioned by NGO’s, as well as the United Nations. Also subject to their questioning is the shortage of funding allocated to strengthening civil society’s capacities and to the design of joint prevention plans, response mechanisms and rehabilitation processes. Some even denounce the predominance of a paternalist approach that undermines beneficiaries’ capacities and increases their dependency and vulnerability.
This criticism, however, can also be a turning point from which to propose new types of actions that recognise the crucial role of local communities. In fact, there is a growing awareness of their relevance in emergency situations, especially in the moments immediately following a crisis, and in the prevention and preparation for future emergencies. The increasing development of local citizens’ movements can provide implementing organisations and donors with a dialogue that permits more beneficiary groups to be better integrated. In this sense, just as Jan Egeland defends, the donor community must work hand in hand with these groups because, “only when people are empowered, when they are offered supplies, when they are supported are they truly capable of obtaining more successful results.”
A variety of empowerment strategies exist and they differ substantially depending on the political context and the personal and social circumstances in which they will be applied. In general, reinforcing the local organisational capacities allows vulnerable groups to mobilize and face their problems together, which also makes them feel socially included, respected and represented. The word “empowerment” and the idea of the active participation of local communities in the response to emergency situations were used almost exclusively in the development field and hardly at all in the humanitarian field until a few years ago. However, they have been gaining popularity and acceptance not only among humanitarian organisations, but also among policymakers and the donor community.
More and more, the implementation of consultative processes with the beneficiaries is doubted less; financial and institutional support for local networks and the establishment of mechanisms for the active participation of the affected communities increase the quality and effectiveness of humanitarian aid. Proof of this is the existence of initiatives like the Humanitarian Accountability Partnership (HAP), which consists of creating a system of accountability to the beneficiaries.
The fact that the donors begin to incorporate the effective participation of the beneficiaries as a precondition to funding puts more pressure on implementing organisations to guarantee that this principle does not go to waste.