- Design a safe and accessible complaints and feedback mechanism.
- Prepare an evaluation using the OECD DAC criteria.
- Keep learning alive within the team.
1Accountability to affected populations
Accountability to affected populations (AAP) rests on three pillars: informing (who we are, the selection criteria, what people can expect), involving (consulting communities at every stage) and listening and responding (complaints and feedback).
2The complaints and feedback mechanism
- Multiple channels suited to the context: toll-free hotline, suggestion boxes, help desks, committees, field staff. They must be accessible to women, children, older people and people with disabilities.
- Categories: request for information, suggestion, complaint about the quality of assistance, sensitive complaint.
- Sensitive complaints (sexual exploitation and abuse, fraud, corruption): a separate confidential channel, passed directly to the designated focal point, with referral of the survivor to support services. Never handled by the local team implicated.
- Response times known to everyone, and a closed loop: the person receives a response.
- Regular analysis of trends, presented to managers so that the programme can be adjusted.
3Evaluation
Types of evaluation: real-time (at the start of an emergency), mid-term, final, ex post (after the end), impact. It may be internal, external or mixed.
The six OECD DAC criteria (revised in 2019):
- Relevance: does the intervention respond to people's needs and priorities?
- Coherence: does it fit with other interventions and with norms?
- Effectiveness: is it achieving its objectives?
- Efficiency: are resources used economically and in a timely way?
- Impact: what long-term changes, positive or negative, intended or unintended?
- Sustainability: will the benefits last after funding ends?
The terms of reference (ToR) set out the context, purpose and use of the evaluation, the evaluation questions by criterion, the methodology, the timeline, the deliverables, the evaluator's profile and the budget. After the evaluation, a management response states for each recommendation whether it is accepted, by whom and when it will be implemented.
4Keeping learning alive
- After-action reviews (30 to 60 minutes, just after an activity): what did we plan? what happened? why? what will we do differently?
- Quarterly reviews of the tracking table with the whole team, including partners.
- Knowledge capture: short lessons-learned notes, shared with the cluster and other NGOs.
- Feedback to communities: present the results to the people who responded to the surveys.
A serious complaint in the suggestion box
Food distribution site, West Africa
You manage the complaints and feedback mechanism of a food assistance programme.
Among comments about the quality of the rice, an anonymous message says: “The list leader is asking for money to register families.”
Decision 1 of 3What do you do with this complaint?
Decision 2 of 3Other feedback (rice quality, waiting times) is piling up without a response. How do you “close the loop”?
Decision 3 of 3The donor is funding a final evaluation. Which question concerns efficiency (OECD DAC criteria)?
Key takeaways
Accountability means listening, handling sensitive complaints in complete confidentiality, responding to communities and learning, right through to the final evaluation.
Exercise: your complaints mechanism
For your project, choose three suitable complaint channels (justifying your choice for women and people with disabilities), write out the pathway for a sensitive complaint from receipt to closure, and set the response times. Then write three evaluation questions, each linked to a DAC criterion.
Key points
- Inform, involve, listen and respond.
- Sensitive complaints follow a separate confidential channel.
- Six DAC criteria: relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, sustainability.
- A recommendation without a management response is a dead letter.
Further reading: course references
- OECD-DAC (2019). Better Criteria for Better Evaluation: Revised Evaluation Criteria Definitions and Principles for Use. www.oecd.org/fr/cad/evaluation/criteres-cad-evaluation.htm
- ALNAP (Buchanan-Smith, Cosgrave, Warner) (2016). Evaluation of Humanitarian Action Guide. www.alnap.org/help-library/evaluation-of-humanitarian-action-guide
- CHS Alliance, Groupe URD, Sphere (2024). Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability (CHS). www.corehumanitarianstandard.org
- Sphere Association (2018). The Sphere Handbook: Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Humanitarian Response. spherestandards.org/fr/manuel-2018
- United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) (2016). Norms and Standards for Evaluation. www.unevaluation.org
Daily quiz
3 questions to check what you have learned. Answer them all to complete the day.