HAP in Bangladesh
Cyclone Sidr - November 2007
On the 15th November 2007 Cyclone Sidr hit southern Bangladesh destroying both houses and livelihoods, and leaving thousands of people in need of assistance. Immediate relief focused on life-saving measures such as provision of medical support and clean water, and distribution of food and non-food items. The critical period is now over and NGOs are focusing on longer-term rehabilitation and reconstruction, including supporting with shelter, livelihoods and income-generation activities.
Under the New Emergencies Policy, a HAP-led initiative in Bangladesh was agreed to promote good practice through supporting efforts to develop and improve immediate activities and systems that focus on quality and accountability to disaster survivors during the Sidr response.
An Overview of HAP's Initiative
Phase 1: Accountability self-assessments
Next Steps
An Overview of HAP's Initiative
The strategy for this initiative is:
- To strengthen staff understanding of Principles of Accountability to disaster survivors and of their agencies’ compliance with these Principles;
- To promote and support immediate action and longer-term collaborative approaches that strengthen the accountability and quality of humanitarian work in Bangladesh;
- To facilitate the development and implementation of accountability self-assessment plans; and
- To encourage sharing of lessons learnt and peer support amongst HAP members, their local partners and other interested agencies.
The HAP Field Team provide hands-on guidance to staff from participating agencies on quality and accountability self-assessments of their respective agency’s cyclone response at one field location. The findings provide a snapshot of the agency’s humanitarian accountability and quality at that particular site. Based on this, the joint team can identify good practices, gaps, and areas for improvement that require immediate or longer-term action. At the end of this process, staff will have the knowledge, capacity and confidence to undertake further reviews of their respective agency’s accountability to disaster survivors (by integrating this into existing monitoring and evaluation or through the use of new tools and processes). Participating agencies will be in a better position to respond to evidence-based recommendations and continuously improve their humanitarian accountability and quality management system.
Details on the plan for HAP’s engagement in Bangladesh can be found in the terms of reference.
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Phase 1: Accountability Self-Assessments
The initiative started on 23rd-24th January with a workshop on accountability self-assessments attended by key staff from 14 NGOs. Following this and with guidance from the HAP Field Team, staff from participating agencies have been undertaking self-assessments during field visits in the most severely Sidr-affected in Bagerhat, Patuakhali and Burguna Districts. In total, six field visits were conducted with: Save the Children UK; GUP and their partner Christian Aid; Concern Worldwide and their partner SPEED Trust; CARE Bangladesh; HEED Bangladesh; and Muslim Aid.
The field visits focused on reviewing practice against the HAP Standard Benchmarks in particular information dissemination, community engagement, and complaint-handling. Through reviews of existing policies and procedures, semi-structured interviews and facilitated discussions with local staff, and focus group discussions with disaster-affected communities, the six NGOs have been able to identity good practice and gaps in their accountability towards Sidr-affected communities.
To enable participating agencies to strengthen their humanitarian accountability in this response and from the onset of future emergency responses, recommendations and specific action points have been agreed with each of the participating agencies.
Lessons Learnt Workshop (March 2008)
On the 25th March 2008, 17 "accountability champions" met in Dhaka to review progress and lessons learnt to date. From notice boards with key information about humanitarian plans, to regular monitoring of beneficiary satisfaction with the response programmes, to village committees which make project related decisions on behalf of their communities, good practice examples of humanitarian accountability abound. However, many of these remain ad-hoc and are not always integrated into a coherent strategy.
Where new approaches have been piloted NGOs have already seen results. Workshop participants highlighted that offering beneficiaries opportunities to provide suggestions has changed mind-sets of staff, and involving local communities in beneficiary selection improves the effectiveness of the intervention. Through action agencies have shown participation is possible, even in project planning and design during the early stages of an emergency response.
Many creative methods for sharing information with communities were observed, although limited monitoring of what information reaches people means the effectiveness of different channels has not been assessment. Over reliance on one channel alone for sharing key messages, risks exclusion of certain groups.
It was recognised that if communities are not able to have their voices heard and raise concerns humanitarian agencies are undermining them as human beings. To address complaints staff need to be supported with clear procedures, and communities made aware of their rights and entitlements, and reassured that a process is followed.
Details on the lessons learnt workshop held on the 25th March 2008, including key learning points can be found in the workshop report, and accompanying power point slides.
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Next Steps
All participating agencies have identified key priority areas to be taken forward over the next few months with a view to strengthening humanitarian accountability and quality management, and the six agencies that undertook guided self-assessments have a list of recommendations from the HAP Field Team and jointly developed action points.
Over the next few months the HAP Field team will provide advice and support to agencies. Towards the end of 2008 an after action review is planned, using the key priority areas and agency-specific recommendations as the basis for this process.
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We would like to thank the following organisations for their financial support to this initiative: CARE Bangladesh, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide Bangladesh, DanChurchAid, Muslim Aid UK, Oxfam GB Bangladesh Program, Save the Children UK in Bangladesh, Tearfund UK, and World Vision Bangladesh. In particular we would like to acknowledge the support from Concern Worldwide in hosting the HAP Field Team in Dhaka.
Also available HAP reflections on the Sidr-cyclone response (November 2007) and the HAP Principles of Accountability in Bengali.
For details about previous HAP work in Bangladesh please see the 2006 HAP Standard development workshop report and beneficiary input report.
Updated: 3rd June 2008
