CLOSE
Quality and Accountability
Quality and Accountability Hub

1766

Community World Service Asia invites you to a 5-Day Workshop full of interactive learning experiences focused on Quality, Accountability and Safeguarding in Humanitarian Action from 4th – 8th of December 2022, in Bangkok, Thailand.

Kindly see the document below for more details and registration.

The application deadline for the Regional event is September 15th, 2022.

For more information, contact our Focal Point for this event Zainab Mir @ regional.program@communityworldservice.asia

Regional Training_Quality_Accountability-Safeguarding_Bkk_4-8 Dec2022Download

1252

As a continuation of the Quality & Accountability (Q&A) Week 2021, the sixth virtual session, jointly hosted and organised by ADRRN’s Quality and Accountability (Q&A) Hub, Sphere, CHS Alliance, ACT Alliance, ALNAP and Community World Service Asia (CWSA), focused on exploring ways to ensure inclusion for efficient child safeguarding into programs, safeguarding efforts, communications and complaints handling.

“Defining who is a child in the humanitarian aid sector is critical. Any person under the age of 18 is classified as a child. Most organisations, regardless of local or cultural traditions, accept the international definition,” Ester Dross stated during the ‘Child Safeguarding’ webinar on May 24th, 2022.

What is child abuse?
What are the symptoms?
What are the consequences?

While raising these questions in the virtual event, Ester Dross said, “Child abuse includes physical, emotional/psychological and sexual abuse, neglect and negligent treatment, exploitation and violence in all forms. It is essential to have a clear definition in our policies and guidelines when addressing child safeguarding.” Ahmad Alaghawani, Safeguarding Officer at Islamic Relief in Jordan, joined the webinar as the guest speaker. More than ninety humanitarian and development practitioners, from Asia and Europe, participated in this 90-minute webinar bringing together a wide array of diverse expertise and knowledge on safeguarding to learn from.

Child Safeguarding vs Child Protection

“Organisational commitment to preventing and responding to abuse of children, by its own staff is referred to as child safeguarding. On the other hand, the mechanism by which an organisation seeks to fulfil children rights in their communities is referred to as child protection,” shared Ester.

All organisations that engage with or come into contact with children should have safeguarding policies and procedures in place. “Knowing the principles of child safeguarding guarantees that every child, regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, colour, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation, has an equal right to be safe. Establishing and adhering to safeguarding principles ensures that children are safe and protected from any kind of harm.” Key principles highlighted in the webinar included:

  • Children having equal rights to protection from abuse and exploitation
  • Organisation obligated to taking reasonable measures to prevent harm
  • Appropriately using photos of children
  • Acquiring skills and specialised knowledge to adhere to safeguarding policies
  • Working for the best interest of children
  • Treating reports with confidentiality and seriousness
  • Ensuring partners’ responsibility to meet minimum standards

Safeguarding as a Key Responsibility

“At Islamic Relief, we ensure that its staff, operations and programmes do not harm children, young people and people at risk and do not cause them to be at greater risk of harm from others” said Ahmad Alaghawani, “We have policies and guidelines on Child Safeguarding, People at Risk, PSEAH[1], Code of Conduct and Dignity at Work.”

The safeguarding, protection and wellbeing of those we serve have been a core area of Islamic Relief’s work over the past 34 years. In working with vulnerable children of all ages and abilities around the world, Islamic Relief takes seriously its responsibility to protect and safeguard children from all types of abuses.

The organisation has developed a complaint mechanism for children after conducting focal group discussions (FDG) with the staff who directly works with children to address the challenges they encountered while dealing with children. “Some key recommendations that came out from the FDGs included training of teachers on child behaviour and special care of Syrian children refugees, establishing a complaints and feedback mechanism specifically for children and sensitising children on what is right and wrong to create a safe space,” shared Ahmed.

The complaint mechanism for children focuses on raising awareness among teachers, families and children on child safeguarding and protection. Ahmed further added, “The staff at Islamic Relief has to attend a mandatory training on Safeguarding. We also have extensive IEC material which consists of information of different kinds of abuse and exploitation and steps that need to be taken by the communities and children at risk to address the vulnerable situations. Moreover, we conduct awareness sessions to sensitise communities and right holders on our complaint mechanism and ways to report SEAH.” Organisations of all types and sizes to implement rigorous policies, processes and tests to protect children from abuse. “That could mean training staff to understand appropriate language and behaviour. Encouraging teams to run background checks on new recruits. And helping families and communities to understand what they can do to support young people at risk. All organisations have a responsibility to protect children from harm and it is imperative we exercise our responsibility seriously and accountably,” concluded Ester.

[1] Prevention of sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment

869

When: 5th-7th July 2022 (arrival at the venue on 4th July 2022)
Where: Murree, Punjab
Language: Urdu and English
Interested Applicants: Click here to register
Last Date to Apply: 10th June 2022 (incomplete applications will not be entertained)

Training Objectives: Through this training, you will be able to:

  • Identify the key Q&A initiatives and their tools to support Project Cycle Management
  • Select and adapt existing Q&A tools and resources to overcome challenges throughout the Project Cycle
  • Outline the opportunities and challenges faced by humanitarian workers in implementing Q&A approaches and tools throughout the project cycle
  • Identify means by which you and your colleagues can collaborate and coordinate with other agencies to improve the quality and accountability of a humanitarian response

Training Purpose

The impact of humanitarian work on communities depends greatly upon the quality of services and accountability of actions both during emergency and non-emergency times. With millions of people affected by disasters and conflicts, the importance of Quality & Accountability (Q&A) is undeniable. Community World Service Asia (CWSA) aims to ensure that all relevant agencies including NGOs, INGOs, UN, donors, universities and government agencies, playing an active role in the disaster response & rehabilitation are given the opportunity to implement Quality and Accountability approaches and tools in their work. As part of CWSA’s response to the demand for increased support on awareness raising and capacity enhancement, CWSA is delighted to announce the upcoming course on Q&A for PCM. This course is a unique opportunity for all agencies, as it is focusing comprehensively on Standards that can support you during the project cycle.

Number of Participants

  • 18-20 participants will be selected for the training. Women and staff belonging to ethnic/religious minorities are encouraged to apply. Preference will be given to participants representing organizations working in remote and under-served areas.

Selection Criteria

  • You have experience in managing projects or programmes
  • You have some basic knowledge about the Q&A initiatives and are implementing Q&A approaches and tools at a minimum level
  • You are a leader in promoting Q&A
  • You have a ‘good enough’ command of English.

Fee Details

  • Training fee for each participant is PKR 15,000. Fee concessions and scholarships are available for participants belonging marginalised groups and NGOs with limited funding.
  • No TA/DA will be given to participants and travel expenses will be incurred by participants themselves.

Facilitation Team

Mr. Khurram Saeed is working with Community World Service Asia and leading the Quality and Accountability program. He has over 10 years of experience in capacity enhancement support, project management, coordination & networking. He holds hands on experience in promoting Quality and Accountability and applying project cycle including assessing, designing, implementing, reviewing and evaluating projects in humanitarian and development context. He remained extensively involved in the designing and carrying out humanitarian/development capacity enhancement interventions in participatory manner including development of strategies, training manuals and training events.

Ms. Tooba Siddiqi is an experienced Engagement Manager with over 10 years of experience in partnership management, advocacy, youth mobilization, community-led campaigning, fundraising, and resource development. A tech-savvy, human resource manager with a demonstrated history of remotely managing large teams from diverse geographical and ethnic backgrounds. She is a strong community and development professional trained in Management Sciences and Human Resources Management from the University of the Punjab, Lahore. In the past year with Community World Service Asia, she has played a significant role in pushing the Quality and Accountability standards with local NGOs as well as regional NGOs.

Co-Facilitator

Mr. Rizwan Iqbal, has over twelve years of professional experience while working with non-government organizations and businesses in Asia & Europe. He specializes in Organizational Development (OD); Coordination and Support in development of Monitoring and Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) mechanisms at agency-wide level. He remained directly involved in capacity building of partners and humanitarian organizations across the globe for assuring the elements of quality programming. He is a certified trainer by the secretariats of humanitarian quality standards like Sphere, Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) & MERS and has been providing technical assistance/services to organizations on monitoring and evaluating operational quality by using the quality frameworks, standards, guidelines and tools. He worked with a variety of cultures in more than 25 countries around the world. In the past he completed his mission to Nepal (Aug-Sep 2015) after earthquake and a six-month deployment (Nov 2013 – May 2014) in the Philippines as Quality & Accountability Advisor – after Typhoon Haiyaan (Category-1 emergency responses), where he provided support to design, train, monitor and complete (with an exit plan) a Quality and Accountability (Q&A) mission. He had been leading the Quality and Accountability Program team at Community World Service Asia and performing the role of Q&A promotion within Asia-Pacific region. Currently he’s serving as Global Quality & Accountability officer at ACT Alliance based in Thailand.

REGISTER NOW

Community World Service Asia (CWSA) is a humanitarian and development organization, registered in Pakistan, head-quartered in Karachi and implementing initiatives throughout Asia. CWSA is member of the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) Alliance, a member of Sphere and their regional partner in Asia and also manages the ADRRN Quality & Accountability Hub in Asia.

693

When: 24th May 2022
What time: 2.00 PM-3:00 PM (Pakistan Standard Time)
Where: Zoom – Link to be shared with registered participants.
For registration click here
Language: English
How long: 60 minutes
For: Safeguarding focal points, senior managers of national, international and regional NGOs and aid/development networks
Moderator and Trainer: Ester Dross

Background:

CWSA is a humanitarian and development organisation registered in Pakistan, addressing factors that divide people by promoting inclusiveness, shared values, diversity, and interdependence. CWSA is highly committed towards Accountability to Affected People and people centered aid. Over the last two years, we have offered different webinars, covering various aspects of safeguarding and aiming to raise more awareness on key aspects of accountability such as establishing efficient and transparent complaints systems and protection from and prevention of sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment. Safeguarding is a key pillar to any accountability measures that organisations must integrate into their programmes and working cycle.

When people we work with or for, feel unsafe within their workspace or global environment, it leads to critical negative impacts on the quality of our work and the objectives we intend to reach. It is therefore important that we are more aware and increase our efforts for a better understanding of the issues at hand.

This webinar is part of a series of 6 one-hour webinars, covering safeguarding, key policies and minimum requirements, complaints systems, complaints handling and managing investigations and communication. The last webinar will explore questions related to child safeguarding.

We have so far spoken generally about safeguarding and how three organisations set up their safeguarding framework, followed by an interactive session where participants explored the key policies and guidelines they need to have in place in terms of safeguarding. During our third session, we tried to understand what we need to ensure in order to set up robust complaints systems and allow all stakeholders to have a voice and report any concern they have when benefitting from activities of or working with our organisations. During our latest sessions, we spoke about understanding fair and independent investigation processes and how to ensure inclusive and thorough communication with regards to safeguarding, complaints handling and investigations.

Objectives:

The last webinar of this series will explore questions related to child safeguarding including:

  • What is important to ensure inclusion for efficient child safeguarding into programs, safeguarding efforts, communications and complaints handling?
  • How can we contextualize our communication with regards to safeguarding to include children as our audiences?
  • What do we need to communicate to whom around complaints handling and outcomes of an investigation?

Moderator & Presenter:

Ester Dross—Independent Consultant

Ms. Dross is an indépendant consultant with over 25 years of expérience, specializing in accountability, prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse, gender and child protection.
Ms. Dross has had an extensive exposure to humanitarian certification systems and accountability to affected populations while working with HAP International as their Complaints Handling and Investigation Advisor, later as their Certification Manager. She has been closely involved in the Building Safer Organisations Project since 2005, dealing with sexual exploitation and abuse of beneficiaries, particularly focusing on gender and child protection. Over the last 6 years and since working as an independent consultant, Ester has been leading a pilot project for FAO on accountability and gender mainstreaming in emergencies and working with numerous NGOs including ACT Alliance members, supporting and training their staff on gender issues, child

1038

Tuesday 10 May 2022

9:00 – 10:30 UTC / 11:00 – 12:30 CEST

Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Week (HNPW)

The diverse needs of individuals and communities must be fully understood, recognised and addressed in order for the humanitarian community to provide meaningful protection and equitable access to dignified humanitarian aid to all vulnerable individuals and communities in need. Addressing the challenge of inclusion by holistically incorporating diverse individuals and communities, regardless of gender or age, people with particular protection needs, persons living with disabilities and/or people who are subject to exclusion and marginalisation in complex operational environments – is absolutely essential.

Humanity & Inclusion, INTERSOS, UNHCR and Women’s Refugee Commission invite you to a round-table discussion on the importance of inclusion in protection work.

The session will explore opportunities and challenges, as well as ways of strengthening inclusion in humanitarian action, drawing from experience from humanitarian programmes around the world, including protection monitoring and other protection activities. Furthermore, the round-table discussion will launch the new INTERSOS report – Protection Monitoring Lessons Learned report, a fulfilment of INTERSOS pledge made at the Global Refugee Forum (GRF). The report can be accessed here.

Moderator

Ms. Manisha Thomas, Geneva Representative, Women’s Refugee Commission

Panelists

Mr. Gregory Garras, Senior Protection Coordinator, Division of International Protection, UNHCR
Ms. Eleonora Sceusa, Global Senior Protection Advisor, INTERSOS
Ms. Ulrike Last, Global Inclusive Humanitarian Action Specialist

The meeting will be in the hybrid format:

Participation in person:

Plénière C meeting room, Centre International de Conférences (CICG), Rue de Varembé 17, 1202 Geneva

For participants planning to connect remotely, the connection details will be provided a few days before the meeting.

Kindly RSVP your participation to miro.modrusan@intersos.org by 8 May 2022, indicating whether attending in person or remotely.

Download PDF

702

CHS Revision Launch: What should the future Commitments to people affected by crisis be?

The Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability (CHS) was launched in December 2014 after an extensive consultation period involving hundreds of humanitarian actors from across the globe. It sets out Nine Commitments that organisations have made to people affected by crisis, and helps organisations improve the quality and effectiveness of the assistance they provide.
Since its launch the CHS has been applied by a large number of organisations, which has led to considerable learning of the strengths and weaknesses of the current version. Also, during these six years, the world has changed, and the aid sector has continued to grapple with its colonial history and inequal power dynamics. It is now time to make sure we have a core standard that continue to push the agency of people affected by crises and ensures every person is treated safely, respectfully and with dignity.

These launch sessions will gather representatives from a wide range of actors in the humanitarian sector (including CHS Steering Committee members, CHS copyright holders, CHS application supporters, donors, national and international actors) and from people affected by crisis, to take stock of the experience with the application of the CHS so far and learn about it future.

Join us to launch the CHS revision process by contributing to the CHS application experience gathering and learn about the revision process (governance, objectives, timeline, process, and opportunities to contribute).

We look forward to seeing you at the session and contribute to setting up the future commitments to people affected by crisis.

Background

This launch event will be held as blended event combining an in-personand online participation. We will first provide a short explanation of thedevelopment of the CHS and the rationale for launching the revision process.This will be followed by a moderated “coffee table” discussion betweendifferent users and supporters of the CHS, focusing on the powerfulcontribution of standards to meaningful people-centered humanitarian work.

Agenda

11:00Welcome
11:05Opening remarks
11:15Brief introduction to the CHS revision (why, who, how)
11: 30Coffee table chat:
– The role of the CHS for Inclusion at community and country level:
– The donor perspective: tbd
– A regional perspective: CWS Asia
12:10Q&A, discussion
12:25Wrap up the discussion. Short consultation survey for those who are interested
12: 30Close

Speakers

The CHS Revision Launch event will feature an engaging discussion with two representatives from National NGOs who work with the CHS on a daily basis.

Ayesha Hassan is Associate Regional Director at Community World Service Asia (CWSA)

She focuses on campaigning and project implementation on Gender, Human Rights, Quality and Accountability, Livelihood(including food security with focus on DRR), Education, and Democratization. She is trained on Quality and Accountability standards such as the CHS, Do NoHarm Approach, Sphere etc. She has been working in the development sector since1997 and has a keen interest in youth-led projects. Ayesha has a good understanding of socio political and economic issues in the region. Gender, women empowerment and working with youth is her passion and forte.

Rehema Kajungu

Session facilitators: The session is being facilitated by the Co-Managers of the CHS Revision Process.

Aninia Nadig

Aninia’sbackground is in protection and forced migration issues, but she has a long involvement with quality and accountability standards in the sector. She was with Sphere for over 10 years in different roles and was part of the process the development of the CHS. She also played a lead role in two Sphere Handbookrevision processes and coordinated the Humanitarian Standards Partnership(HSP). working hard to ensure the CHS was included as one of the foundation texts for the revised Sphere standards and the HSP. More recently, she has worked as a senior HQAI auditor and a Sphere and CHS trainer, giving her insights on how to train and verify how organisations apply the CHS. SeeAninia’s LinkedIn profile for more on her background and experience. Aninia can be reached at anadig@chsalliance.org

Philip Tamminga

Philip has been involved in standards, quality assurance and accountability issues in the humanitarian and development sectors for over 25 years. He spent 10 years with the Red Cross Red Crescent movement, including senior positions in the IFRC. He also directed the annual Humanitarian Response Index (HRI) report for five years, assessing the role of donor governments in supporting effective and accountable humanitarian action. In 2012 he led the SCHR-sponsored consultation process to review standards and certification in the sector. The outcomes directly contributed to the development of the CHS and the establishment of the CHS Alliance and Humanitarian Quality Assurance Initiative(HQAI). For the past 7 years, he has been working as an independent consultant on quality and accountability issues for the Red Cross Red CrescentMovement, UNICEF, IRC, CDAC Network and the CHS Alliance amongst others. Philip can be reached at ptamminga@chsalliance.org

Click here to register

1500

How do we convey our policies to the communities?
How do we give details about our investigation and complaint systems?
Who is informed on the decisions?

Ester Dross raised these questions while facilitating a webinar, titled ‘Communication & Safeguarding’, on March 1st, 2022. “Communication needs to be focused around our policies, what they say about the communities we serve, what protection measures it has and what we mean by PSEA and safeguarding. Moreover, it is not only important to have complaint systems but it is equally important for the systems to be known and transparent for communities using those systems. They need to know how it works, who receives the complaints and how they are responded to. It is through effective and clear communication that we create trust with the communities we serve,” said Ester.

As a continuation of the Quality & Accountability (Q&A) Week 2021, the fifth virtual session, jointly hosted and organised by ADRRN’s Quality and Accountability (Q&A) Hub, Sphere, CHS Alliance, ACT Alliance, ALNAP and Community World Service Asia (CWSA), was more focused on exploring ways to ensure inclusive and efficient communication around safeguarding, complaints handling and investigations.

Ester Dross was joined by Mandy Jones, Head of Safeguarding, OXFAM, Great Britain as a speaker in the session. Fifty humanitarian and development practitioners, from Asia and Europe, participated in this 90-minute webinar bringing together a wide array of diverse expertise and knowledge on safeguarding to learn from.

“We are focused on a survivor-centred approach and it underpins our safeguarding investigations. Safeguarding in Oxfam is a set of procedures, measure and practices, to ensure that Oxfam upholds its commitments, to prevent, respond to and protect individuals from harm, committed by Oxfam and/or any related personnel,” said Mandy.

Oxfam adopts a non-discriminatory approach for the survivor to have the full right to confidentiality, instead of exposure. “It is absolutely important for us to treat all the survivors in the same way. We also acknowledge their right to have comprehensive information for them to make their own informed decision and not be told what to do. The idea of dignity and self-determination, acknowledging that harm is being done to the survivor already, and attempting to restore power back in the hands of the survivor is crucial for the survivor-centred approach.”

“We need to be able to respond to concerns with kindness, patience, honesty and compassion. It is crucial to know what survivor-centred services are available within your area, field offices and communities before dealing and engaging with survivors. Every one of us has an essential role on knowing what our responsibility is to uphold and contribute to the safeguarding culture. This will include raising awareness on safeguarding and how concerns are reported and who they are reported to. Safeguarding has to be an active agenda in your organisations,” reminded Mandy. 

While addressing a question on ways to communicate with youth under 18 years and children, Mandy responded, “We have to be aware, and must be clear on the messages we give out to the children. We should have an open discourse with them, providing them a forum to express their concerns in their own words. At Oxfam, we are very clear about child abuse and its elements such as child marriages, child labour and sexual harassment. We have to consider the access children have to be informed about the work we do, provide their feedback and what other opportunities are there for their voices to be heard.”

Participants inquired about how to avoid having misleading or fabricated claims through anonymous complaints, as well as how to determine their authenticity. “This brings us to focusing on the information we gain though investigation and witnesses after a complaint has been registered. There is an element of probability where we have to think about the likelihood of a concern happening based on the evidence gathered. Therefore, a comprehensive investigation is required to determine if the allegations are accurate or misleading. We have a significant duty when dealing with complaints, and we must preserve safeguarding by carrying out this responsibility to the best of our abilities,” Mandy explained.

While sharing her views around communicating safeguarding to the communities we serve, Samina Sardar, a participant, said, “The people involved in exercising the safeguarding policies and agenda have to comfortable talking about PSEA. If a person is uncomfortable talking about it, he or she will be unable to effectively disseminate the messages and systems of complaint processes, and communities will be reluctant to share their concerns. Furthermore, in order to promote safeguarding and PSEA, the organisation and those working in it must have the same values.”

In conclusion of the virtual learning event, Ester remarked, “It is key that communities know the channels of communication. It is our responsibility to communicate all the channels of reporting transparently and through clear messages so that communities are aware about it and can use them effectively.”

1037

When: 28th– 30th March 2022
Where: Murree, Punjab
Language: Urdu and English
Interested Applicants: Click here to register
Last Date to Apply: 18th March 2022 (incomplete applications will not be entertained)

Training Objectives: Through this training, you will be able to:

  • Identify any gaps between the dynamics of your organisation and targets you desire to achieve in given circumstances
  • Understand your leadership and management style in order to become more self-aware about your unique strengths and how you can overcome the challenges you face by improving your leadership and management competencies
  • Learn skills and tools to foster a healthy organisational culture that nurtures talent, celebrates diversity and guides performance
  • Enhance your capacity to communicate purposefully and with a vision for improved team functioning
  • Develop innovative tactics to envision, plan and implement organisational change

Background: With changing global trends, the dynamics of organisational and people management have also changed. Traditional methods are becoming obsolete and new trends are emerging with every passing day. Effective managerial skills now aim to improve the individuals’ performance and skills in organisational setting with a focus on the 5 Cs: Clarity, Context, Courage, Commitment and Consistency. Competent. A well-managed staff is the heart of an accountable and effective organisation; therefore, they need to be equipped with the right skills and behaviours. The need for staff development, coaching and mentoring is key to optimising maximum productivity.

This training aims to enhance participants’ leadership skills and promote their professional growth resulting in strong institutions. Through this training, you will learn best leadership and management style to engineer change and innovation in your organisation. By the end of this training, you will also further strengthen your knowledge, skills and behaviours to handle interpersonal conflict, manage deadlines, build a healthy organisational culture, lead employee trainings, solve problems, and manage feedback.

Number of Participants

  • A maximum of 20 participants will be selected for the training. Women and staff belonging to ethnic/religious minorities are encouraged to apply. Preference will be given to participants representing organizations working in remote and under-served areas.

Selection Criteria

  • Participant’s organization should be registered with its respective provincial Social Welfare Department
  • Participant is in a mid/senior for leadership role working in a local/national NGO with primary responsibility of organization/people management
  • Participants from women led organisations, different abled persons, minority groups will be given preference
  • Commitment to apply learning in their work, including dissemination of learning within their organisation

Fee Details

  • Training fee for each participant is PKR 10,000. Fee concessions and scholarships are available for participants belonging marginalised groups and NGOs with limited funding.
  • No TA/DA will be given to participants and travel expenses will be incurred by participants themselves.

Facilitator/Lead Trainer: Mr. Sohail Muhammad Ali is a high-performing research and capacity-building specialist and trainer with expertise in research, training and development to maximize human resource outputs in social development and education sectors. He is a respected & proven advisor to non-government organisations, and has played an active role in providing guidance on research and development functions to promote and innovative solutions to social developmental challenges. He is an influential and inspirational leader with excellent human capital development skills.

Mr. Sohail has the experience of working in South Asia, Africa and Europe. He has conducted professional development workshops and capacity building sessions. He has served as a national and international consultant for organizations including Leonard Cheshire (LC) UK, World Bank, USAID, Care international, UNICEF, Aga Khan Rural Support Program (AKRSP), Academy for Educational Development (AED), Aga Khan Foundation (AKF), Transparency International, Lead Pakistan, British Council Pakistan, Human Resource Development Network (HRDN), and others.

REGISTER NOW!

Community World Service Asia (CWSA) is a humanitarian and development organization, registered in Pakistan, head- quartered in Karachi and implementing initiatives throughout Asia. CWSA is member of the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) Alliance, a member of Sphere and their regional partner in Asia and also manages the ADRRN Quality & Accountability Hub in Asia.

1581

Format: Webinar: Presentation &  Discussion
When: 1st March 2022
Time: 2.00 pm (PST)
Where: zoom – linked to be shared
Register: here
Language: English
Duration: 60 minutes
Presenter: Ms. Ester Dross
For: Safeguarding focal points, senior managers of national, international and regional NGOs and networks

Background:

Community World Service Asia (CWSA) is a humanitarian and development organisation registered in Pakistan, addressing factors that divide people by promoting inclusiveness, shared values, diversity, and interdépendance. CWSA is highly committed towards people centered aid and Accountability to Affected People. Over the last two years, we have offered different webinars, covering various aspects of safeguardbing and aiming to raise more awareness on key aspects of accountability, such as establishing efficient and transparent complaints systems and protection from and prevention of sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment (PSEAH). Safeguarding is a key pillar to any accountability measures that organisations must integrate into their programmes and working cycle.

When people we work with or for, feel unsafe within their workspace or global environment, this has critical negative impacts on the quality of our work and the objectives we intend to reach. It is therefore important that we are more aware and increase our efforts for a better understanding of the issues at hand.

This webinar is part of a series of 6 virtual learning events, covering safeguarding, key policies and minimum requirements, Complaints systems, Complaints handling and Managing investigations and Communication. The last webinar will be dedicated to experience sharing and best practices. We have so far spoken generally about safeguarding and how three different organisations developed and set up their safeguarding framework, followed by an interactive session where participants explored the key policies and guidelines they need to have in place in terms of safeguarding. During our third webinar, we tried to understand what we need to ensure in order to set up robust complaints systems and allow all stakeholders to have a voice and report any concern they have when benefitting from activities of or working with our organisations.  The last time we met, we also talked about understanding fair and independent investigation processes, looking at them through three different perspectives; that of organisations, investigators and survivors.

Objectives:

At our fifth webinar, scheduled for the 1st March 2022, we want to try and better understand how we can ensure an inclusive and thorough communication with regards to safeguarding, complaints handling and investigations.

This webinar will explore:

  • The communication tools and platforms required  to ensure complete understanding of safeguarding and all related processes among affected communities
  • How we can contextualize this communication
  • What we need to communicate and to whom when it comes to complaints handling and outcomes of an investigation

Moderator & Presenter:

Ester Dross—Independent Consultant

Ms. Dross is an indépendant consultant with over 25 years of expérience, specializing in accountability, prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse, gender and child protection. Ms. Dross has had an extensive exposure to humanitarian certification systems and accountability to affected populations while working with HAP International as their Complaints Handling and Investigation Advisor, later as their Certification Manager. She has been closely involved in the Building Safer Organisations Project since 2005, dealing with sexual exploitation and abuse of bénéficiaires, particularly focusing on gender and child protection. Over the last 6 years and since working as an independent consultant, Ester has been leading a pilot projet for FAO on accountability and gender mainstreaming in emergencies and working with numerous NGOs including ACT Alliance members, supporting and training their staff on gender issues, child protection.

819

Follow the Learning Journey on Quality, Accountability and Safeguarding
Virtual Learning Session I: LEARN
Virtual Learning Session II: UPDATE
Virtual Learning Session III: PANEL

The fourth Virtual Learning Session, as part of the Learning Journey on Quality, Accountability and Safeguarding, was conducted on February 10, 2022. The session, designed and facilitated by Sylvie Robert, gave participants an opportunity to initiate bilateral work, through digging into concrete and focused aspects for improvement and upholding quality and accountability standards.  

What can be done practically and how?

“This session will focus on how we will design our improvement plans. Additional coaching support will be provided to those individuals or organisations who are willing to receive it. The coaching will aim at designing and/or refining the improvement plans of the concerned organisation and monitor its implementation. In the group activity today, you will discuss how you wish to do this, which mechanisms need to be adopted or improved and what actions and activities will take place,” shared Sylvie. The improvement plans will be shared with concerned management and organisations to ensure coherency through their implementation.

38 humanitarian and development practitioners from Asia, Africa and the Middle East participated in the 4th Virtual Learning Session ‘CLINIC’.

Establishing concrete strategies to put the Standards into ACTION!

Key Take-Aways

“It is critical to come up with practical measures to set the standards in countries facing comparable challenges to Syria, since there are technological challenges such as shortage of energy, internet access, telephone and other restricted resources.

Additionally, tangible ways to assist individuals on the ground living in restrictive environments must be identified, where the humanitarian mission may conflict with culture. Individuals’ personal status is affected by these contradictory conditions, necessitating psychological assistance.

Techniques for approaching at-risk populations, including children, youth, elderly, women, and other vulnerable groups, must be identified in order to encourage communities to share their concerns and risks without hesitancy. In addition, we must develop strategies to increase community trust in complaint processes relating to privacy and security of personal information, as well as educate personnel to respond efficiently and timely.

During project interventions, staff capacity needs to be built in conducting interviews, surveys, and evaluations. Integration and coordination with government agencies and local governments are also important. It is vital to raise awareness among senior management in organisations about the need of understanding these standards and their application tools as a logical aspect of the mission in achieving these standards at community and organisational level.”
P. J. from Syria

“The key priorities highlighted in the discussion included improvements to complaint processes, refined code of conduct, improved accessibility to work with the affected population, and increasing the capacities of both humanitarian staff and communities.

Organisation are constantly working to improve safeguarding and establish policies and guidelines that are based on the Core Humanitarian Standard. Furthermore, organisations are striving to enhance accountability to the affected population. However, staff and community competence on techniques and tools used to ensure quality, accountability, and safeguarding is crucial. These sessions provided valuable insights into the various contexts that exist throughout the regions, as well as expanded knowledge through the exchange of best practises and experiences.

A member in the group emphasised the need of improving the complaint system and improve its functionality for communities to access it openly and without hesitation. Moreover, policies and guidelines need to be established to cover all aspects of safeguarding including gender, diversity, protection, code of conduct and PSEA. These principles must also be communicated to communities in their native languages for communities to know what the organisation is obliged to do for them.”
N. Y. from Afghanistan

“We have prioritised the improvement in the complaint handling mechanisms. Having an effective complaint handling procedure in place ensures that your organisation is ready to overcome difficult situations, which benefits both the humanitarian practitioners and communities. It is also critical to have clear policies and procedures in place for complaint systems and how to use them effectively and efficiently.

Furthermore, our conversation led to prioritisation of the need to increase community capacity in using complaint mechanisms on the ground. To strengthen their voice and influence, communities must be aware of complaint procedures and accessibility options. This will promote community empowerment and involvement in programme decisions that directly impact them.

A well-written code of conduct clarifies an organisation’s mission, values and principles, linking them with the standards. It is equally important to revise the code of conduct reflecting the context and standards from time to time. The reviewed and amended code of conduct can then be provided to all staff and any additional training can be delivered for better understanding and implementation.”
J. P. from Korea

Follow our Twitter Handle @communitywsasia for Live Updates from this Learning Journey

Prev1...345...11Next Page 4 of 11
© Community World Service Asia