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accountability_guidance

Overview

This guidance is intended to support the systematic and practical application of CI’s Accountability Framework by capturing, distilling and sharing resources, lessons and case studies that highlight promising practices within CARE and peer organisations. Teams across the organisation are testing new ways of strengthening their accountability, and this guide will continually be updated with emerging learning and ideas both from within CARE and beyond. This is not a comprehensive list of ‘how to's’ or a series of technical solutions, but rather intends to capture and share emerging learning and provide actionable suggestions that can be adapted by staff. It aims to help CARE consider various dimensions of our accountability, and to position teams to adapt, iterate, innovate and trial new practices.

Accountability must be intentionally maintained and integrated into systems, policies and procedures, so that it becomes institutionalised. But it cannot be reduced to compliance or ticking the box. It is first and foremost about our behaviors, rooted in organisational culture and daily practices. To be truly accountable requires the willingness to be inclusive in how we share power with others and listen to and accept their perspectives. This is the ‘other side of the coin’ to what we promote in our programming; in other words, the way we model the behavior we want to see.


Guidance and Resources

I. Organisational Accountability: Any effort to strengthen CARE's accountability must focus both on how we put the reporting mechanisms, policies and processes in place organisation-wide to help us be more systematic about our accountability, as well as creating the enabling environment that encourages accountability. The role of CARE's governance and management in modeling and supporting our commitments and accountability practice internally is critical. This section captures the mechanisms that CARE uses to strengthen our performance and demonstrate accountability at the organisational level.


II. Humanitarian Accountability: This section focuses on guidance and resources for humanitarian settings. CARE is committed to demonstrating the highest standards of quality and accountability in its humanitarian work, in order to meet the immediate needs of disaster-affected populations in the poorest communities in the world in a way that also addresses the underlying causes of people’s vulnerability. The Humanitarian Accountability Framework (HAF) frames CARE’s specific commitments to accountability at all stages of emergency preparedness and response.


III. Partner Accountability: Collaborating with a wide range of partners and allies is a core part of CARE's work, and critical to achieving our impact goals and fighting more effectively against global poverty and injustice. By endorsing global external commitments such as the Charter for Change (C4C), the Grand Bargain and the Principles of Partnership, CARE has committed to working towards more effective partnering and locally-led disaster response, which requires deep cultural and structural change at all levels of the organisation. This section focuses on accountable partnership practices, although we are still working towards a more systematic approach to accountability towards our partners.


IV. Programmatic practices for community feedback:This last section focus on community-level accountability and feedback practices, and includes both concrete ways in which CARE has gained experience with systematically institutionalising accountability through community feedback processes as well as select external resources developed and tested by peer organizations and practitioners.

accountability_guidance.txt · Last modified: 2018/12/11 21:08 (external edit)