Event series on strengthening accountability and inclusion: Practitioner insights: Applying guidance on accountability and inclusion

Event polls

During the event, we also asked participants to share their views and advice on the examples discussed. You can find the final results of these below.

Participant advice – Example 1: Access and remote support:

• Have a strong platform in place (free hotline, etc.)
• Establish a hotline managed by the head office supported by focal points in the field to support the local response. In addition, involve communities in improving access to services by sharing service mapping and training on IASC referral guideline
• Learn about any local civil society actors on the ground we could collaborate with to provide support in responding to cases
• Use local actors and local communication streams on information and prevention sharing
• Referral to GBV provider or Protection provider that can look for a more suitable solution
• Have feedback and complaint mechanism through your partners in-country
• Providing CRM numbers to the communities and trained to support any accident or cases faced , Community Desk Help committee which can support the communities,
• Put in place a hotline number which will serve people to make a free call to the service provider & send their feedback/complaint
• Establish strong and functional referral systems for protection incidents with partners
• During COVID, we established WhatsApp groups for our community groups in which we sent in key messaging on ASRH (what the groups were set up for) but also on GBV hotlines and location of drop-in centers.
• Work closely with protection cluster and GBV, Child Protection working groups for providing specific services
• Work with local working groups and local authorities
• Map actors trusted by community including informal systems and support network available for survivors
• Ensure that a mapping of existing protection services is done when setting up  feedback and complaints mechanism
• Look outside for the humanitarian system for others that can support
• Hotline
• Discuss with the people with disabilities what their needs are in order to be able to access the feedback mechanisms, what are the obstacles and what are the options to overcome those

Participant advice – Example 2: Access in rural areas and people with disabilities

• Contact PLWD organisations in country to ask how they gather input from PLWD
• Combination of multiple means as no size fits all.
• Outreach in order to have feedback and complaints
• Ask people with disabilities about the channels they prefer to give feedback through
• It's crucial to conduct consultation with people with disabilities on how they would like to provide their feedback and complaint.
• 1. Make use of technology 2. Establish an outreach mechanism to reach out to PwSN
• Identify what disabilities you are working with and adapt your methodologies for participation e.g. 121 conversations in sign language, braille, use of visual materials, intellectually appropriate participation methodologies
• Make sure first of all that all information about feedback mechanisms are provided in various formats. Make sure that the service is accessible to all
• Rely on community volunteers
• Make sure your team wants to receive feedback and you will start receiving feedback.
• Prior establishing of a feedback mechanism, it is a must to undertake an assessment to check within the context the existing mechanisms and it's appropriateness.
• Reach out to CHS Alliance who has good training of trainers corse on core humanitarian standard to build partners capacity
• Mapping of resources and using those identified resources to the works of organizations could be one example. eg. organizing experience sharing forum where an organization with good experience on psychosocial support could share its experience.

Participant advice – Example 3: Lack of capacity

• Mentoring and coaching over a period of time rather than a one off training
• 1. Streamline contents in one guidance 2. Facilitate trainings (ToTs) for implementing partners.
• Focus on practical training and tools that NGOs can quickly adopt
• Build capacity of different stakeholders
• Joint work on particular activities, e.g. analysing / using feedback and complaints to provide support and build capacity
• Conduct capacity assessments to identify gaps and develop capacity building plan phased over time identifying priority areas to start with
• Partner up with other humanitarian actors to organize capacity building trainings and discussions
• Moderate expectations and don't overburden if not providing support
• Supporting community structures holistically; strengthening the capacity of all rather than focusing on one, and strengthening the communication and collaboration between all integrated structures
• Knowing the real need and making them the part for the solution
• Reach out to CHS Alliance who has TOT corse on core humanitarian standard for providing training and capacity building for partners.

Participant advice – Example 4: Regional coordination

• Build relationships to understand challenges, the reasons behind the conflict and identify ways to build trust amongst the involved agencies
• Regional coordination could serve as a platform/hub where countries share their best practices and document good practices/challenges to disseminate to countries to serve as inspirational to act on gaps and sustain good practices

Participant advice – Example 5: Joint mechanisms

• Check the IASC portal for relevant guidance
• If the mechanism is for a specific platform, then it is not really collective. I would suggest to link up with the larger humanitarian community to discuss interest for a comprehensive joint mechanism
• Check the IASC service directory to identify other actors in the area who could provide support or guidance
• Work to build trust with each participating organization around how feedback will be handled and give space to agencies to analyse feedback confidentially.
• One approach could be mapping out individual organizations' practices of accountability and inclusion and discuss on how to harmonize the different approaches as is feasible and workable for the network than reinventing new one.
• In the instance where individual organizations do not have practices, it would be good to begin by conducting assessment on what exists contextually and see how best to use those identified to the network.