The ECB training was an eye opener, especially in areas of weaknesses such as provision of feedback to the beneficiaries, which for most organizations is often an oversight. Most times organizations concentrate exclusively on achievement of the objectives of the programme being implemented."
Margaret Adongo
Senior Programme Assistant and Gender Focal Point
UN World Food Programme
Background and context
In the early years of the 21st century, humanitarian organizations face challenges on an unprecedented scale. In the last decade, the frequency, severity, and complexity of disasters have dramatically increased, affecting hundreds of millions of people.
For organizations with missions and mandates to address the human suffering behind the statistics, this clear trend makes some familiar problems ever more pressing: how to mobilize and manage the money, materials and people required to prepare for and respond to the coming storm? But it also raises some less familiar questions: how to ensure the quality of the work we do when resources will be spread more thinly? How to ensure we listen to, respect and respond to the views of the communities in whose name we are working? How can we help those communities to build the resilience that will enable them to withstand future shocks?
In the past five years alone, the pressures on the humanitarian system have intensified—it has mobilized responses to major disasters ranging from the tsunami in Southeast Asia and earthquakes in Pakistan and Indonesia, to continuing armed conflicts in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Somalia, and Sudan, as well as ongoing emergencies. At the same time, both agencies and donors expect adherence to more rigorous and complex standards, greater accountability, and better impact measurement. In the field, overstretched and overwhelmed staff struggle to apply the latest standards to their work under difficult conditions, often uncertain about which standards to apply and how to apply them.
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