Since the late 1980s there have been a series of initiatives and policies to improve the quality and accountability of humanitarian action. These have included the Humanitarian Accountability Partnership (HAP), ‘Sphere’, ‘People in Aid’, the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP) and the CDAC Network2. In 2014 the Core Humanitarian Standard was launched, which is the most recent in a series of efforts to put people at the centre of humanitarian action, and to build on their capacity to deliver localised and sustainable responses.
Further commitments were made during 2016’s World Humanitarian Summit, which reflected the need to change the way we provide support to communities recovering from crisis. The commitments made, in particular the Grand Bargain’s Participation Revolution, reiterated the need to engage communities and involve them in decision-making.
Put simply, the overarching message from these commitments and initiatives is clear. If we are to meet the growing needs of disaster-affected communities around the world, we must do more to truly listen to them and, crucially, to tailor our responses accordingly. However, the fact is that the implementation of these commitments remains inconsistent and unpredictable during response.
Concerted and coordinated efforts by policy-makers will be the deciding factor if we are able to ‘walk the talk’ and truly put the people we are trying to help at the centre of our humanitarian responses. This policy brief presents the rationale and evidence for increasing investment and uptake in communications with communities, and makes recommendations for policy-makers to maximise its potential.