Accountability & Protection

Owned by Jean-Christophe Barbiche (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Jun 05, 2023 by Global WASH Cluster
3 min read

Monitor the adherence of the response to the 5 WASH commitments for safety and dignity of the affected population

There are many ways to ensure that the WASH response is accountable and decrease/avoid protection risk for the beneficiaries ; Two main tools are available to the WASH coordination platform:

  • The 5 WASH Minimum Commitments for the Safety and Dignity of Affected Populations
  • Feedback and Complain Mechanism 

The WASH cluster/sector coordination is responsible for the following tasks:

Foster the integration of Feedback and Complaints Mechanisms in WASH 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. 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 issues are addressed. 
  • In most cases, no centralized system exists, and partners must implement their own FCM for their program, with the support of the WASH coordination platform when necessary. This support can be done through the organization of workshop and training on accountability to affected population (AAP) and FCM at the capital or subnational level, and the elaboration of guidelines that can be included in a specific section of the Strategic Operating Framework chapter dedicated to Accountability to Affected Populations. If this has been agreed with partners, the coordination platform can collect and compile results from partner's FCM and use them to provide an analysis of the collective response quality.

Various guidelines on FCM are available in the documents folders on top of this page

Monitor adherence of the response to the 5 WASH Minimum commitments 

As described in the Accountability to Affected Populations section of the Strategic planning chapter, the Global WASH cluster partners have agreed in 2012 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.

Under the guidance of the WASH cluster coordinator, WASH partners must agree on the modalities to be used to monitor the achievement of these 5 commitments in their respective programmes. 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:
    • Systematize the use and reporting of WASH accountability checklists
    • 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 a third party (INGO or LNGO, local governement, private company)