Francophone perspectives on quality, accountability and certification of humanitarian actors

A discussion group at the conference celebrating the Groupe URD‘s 20th anniversary.

As a result of a celebratory two-day conference at the association’s headquarters in Plaisians (France) on 30-31 May 2013, the organisation published a document summarising “key messages” from the debates which involved almost 80 participants working in NGOs, governments, research institutes and UN agencies.

Although “quality has become accepted by the humanitarian sector as a fundamental issue,” there is no consensus after 20 years of debate about “what quality is or should be” when it comes to aid, the key messages document states.

For the participants at the Groupe URD‘s gathering, “quality is not the solution but rather a way of questioning practice in order to ‘do better’.” They therefore proposed to “stop thinking in terms of ready-made solutions and re-learn the right questions to ask ourselves” – something that lies at the “heart of the quality approach”.

In this context, quality needs to be “quality for communities” affected by disaster or conflict. This requires that humanitarian organizations be “particularly vigilant” and work to redress the power imbalance that makes accountability to donors – rather than to beneficiaries – appear as “natural”.

The “relevance and even the meaning of a [humanitarian] program” are essential to its quality. Quality cannot be achieved through a “check-list of technical standards”. Instead, what it takes is “continual questioning of the relevance of the standards used” as well as of the organisation’s quality approach.

Western humanitarian organisations see “their presence increasingly challenged” while at the same time they face “growing demands from actors from other countries,” states the key messages document.

In view of this situation, the document warns against “locking ourselves into the dogma of de-westernisation” and “the excesses of blind ethnocentrism” – both equally dangerous. A key to success here is not to lose the trust of aid beneficiaries and Southern partners.

Several “risks” were addressed through various discussion topics. One of them, the risk of aid being instrumentalised for non-humanitarian ends, is not a new phenomenon, but its current “frequency and scale” require aid actors “to be more vigilant than ever,” notably by exercising the choice of “whom to be dependent on”.

There are also the risks and opportunities of greater professionalisation of the humanitarian sector, which participants at the Groupe URD gathering considered a “necessary development”.

While acknowledging that “the humanitarian system needs competent individuals,” they wondered whether “today’s master courses really train people on the basis of the sector’s real needs”.

If professionalisation “has positive aspects, is also has an equal number of drawbacks,” including bureaucratisation and “the current culture of ‘zapping’ between organisations”. After all, “before being a career choice, humanitarian action is a life trajectory”.

Another risk identified at the gathering is the concept of “value for money”. Currently very much talked about, it refers to the need of “aid effectiveness”. Such an approach raises many issues, including the question of “Who can legitimately define the value of our actions?”

The key messages document suggests that “sometimes it is impossible to know the real impact [of humanitarian action]”. What is necessary, particularly in dialogues with donors, is “to defend the idea that certain projects are difficult but essential”.

The current discussion of an accreditation system for humanitarian organisations was one of the topics addressed at the Groupe URD‘s 20th anniversary gathering, but also the central issue discussed at an ad-hoc workshop convened by the Groupe URD and Coordination SUD (Solidarité, Urgence, Développement), the national coordinating body of French NGOs working in international aid.

The workshop took place in Paris on 20 September and was attended by 19 participants from 10 organisations. Although participants were nearly all heads of departments within their organisations, the workshop report states that its content “only represents the ideas of individual participants and does not constitute the official position of the NGOs represented” – a clear signal that the stakes are high.

Participants analysed in particular the draft model proposed by the certification project of the Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response (SCHR), a grouping of nine of the most influential humanitarian organisations.

The SCHR certification project aims to “identify how certification could help humanitarian organisations show that they are credible, reliable and trustworthy partners, committed to effectively meeting current and future humanitarian needs”. (The SCHR draft model is available for input and feedback until 31 October 2013.)

Participants at the Paris workshop were not in principle against certification of humanitarian actors per se. Certification, the workshop report says, “could help promote quality approaches within NGOs and encourage the sharing of good practices” – this being “the most useful objective of certification”.

However, they identified “important shortcomings” in the SCHR draft model. One of them: “The proposed reference framework struck us as being essentially based on a technocratic and instrumental approach, overlooking what should be at the centre of the mechanism, the quality of our programmes.”

Rather than improving the quality of humanitarian action, “certification of this kind would be a way of supervising NGOs”.

One of the major concerns highlighted by the workshop participants was the composition of the central governing body proposed by the draft model. “We do not know where or whom its legitimacy comes from, who appoints it or whom it is accountable to”.

The workshop report points out that “self-designation or co-option” would be “neither logical nor acceptable”. Instead, it suggests members of the governing body should be elected, for instance, by those organisations that have signed-up to the Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief (currently 515 organisations).

Another major concern relates to the choice of humanitarian principles made by the draft certification model, which takes up only humanity and impartiality. “There is a risk that this selection will weaken the other principles (independence and neutrality) by introducing the idea that there is a hierarchy among humanitarian principles.”

The report highlights the risk that “different levels of certification,” as proposed by the SCHR draft model, “could lead to an increase in competition between organisations and a form of grading/ranking by donors and the general public”. On the other hand, this system would “considerably reduce the appeal of certification for NGOs which do not achieve the highest level”.

The workshop proposed instead a model with “only one label” that would “only distinguish between certified and non-certified organisations”.

The workshop participants expressed a need to “slow down” the discussion of the SCHR certification model “so that genuine consultation can take place”. They conditioned their involvement in it to “deadlines being put back by five or six months”.