Monitor the adherence of the response to the 5 WASH commitments on protection
Foster the integration of Feedback and Complaints Mechanisms in WASH partners' response and monitor their results
Feedback and Complain Mechanisms (FCM) are contextual, effective, accessible and safe ways for beneficiaries to provide both positive and negative feedback to the agency that have reached their household or community with some activities. FCM are considered as one of the best tools to monitor response quality, as beneficiaries can report directly their level of satisfaction. They also demonstrate a high level of accountability to affected population (AAP) from the partners, as beneficiaries can also report any issues, wrong doing of project staff, or negative side effect of the intervention.
- In some cases, a unique FCM for the response is set up by an organization external to the response (UNOPS, for instance). all beneficiaries' feedback and complaints are centralized, classified and forwarded to relevant sector coordinators, who then contact partners involved to ensure they are addressed.
- In the majority of the cases, no centralized system exists. The WASH coordination platform is responsible to support partners to implement their own FCM system within their program. This can be achieved through organization of workshop and training on accountability to affected population (AA)P and FCM at capital or subnational level, and the elaboration of guidelines that can be included in the Strategic Operating Framework. If this has been included in the quality monitoring agreed modality, the coordination platform can collect and compile results from partner's FCM and use them to provide an analysis of the collective response quality.
Monitor adherence of the response to the 5 WASH Minimum commitments
The Global WASH cluster partners have agreed that 5 WASH Minimum Commitments for the Safety and Dignity of Affected Populations should be respected in all national humanitarian WASH programmes to ensure that the distinct assistance and protection needs of the affected population are met. These commitments, centered on people, aim at ensuring that key issues are taken into consideration by all partners, such as gender, gender based violence, child protection, disability, and age. The respect of these minimum commitments all along the humanitarian programme cycle allows partners to design and implement a participative response.
The five minimum commitments are:
- Consult separately girls, boys, women, and men, including those with disabilities, to ensure that WASH programs are designed so as to provide equal access and mitigate incidences of violence;
- Ensure that girls, boys, women, and men, including those with disabilities have access to appropriate and safe WASH services
- Ensure that girls, boys, women, and men, including those with disabilities, have access to feedback & complaint mechanisms so that corrective actions can address their specific protection and assistance needs
- Monitor and evaluate safe and equal access and use of WASH services in WASH projects;
- Give priority to girls (particularly adolescents) and women’s participation in the consultation process
The WASH coordination platform must agree a modality to monitor the respect of these 5 commitments by partners. This can be done through the following actions:
- Organize training of partners on the 5 minimum commitments
- Agree on the commitments'monitoring modalities. for instance:
- Monitor their use in the field through a centralized FCM
- Monitor each partner's FCM results
- Organize frequent workshop with partners staff where implementing issues would be reported and addressed collectively
- external monitoring done by 3rd party