Quality & accountability in humanitarian assistance – how standards support your mandate

An open letter to Mr Tom Fletcher, CMG, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs & Emergency Relief Coordinator, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), from the Humanitarian Standards Partnership (HSP)

Dear Mr Fletcher,

Congratulations on your appointment. We wish you courage and steadfastness as you begin your work in this important role with huge responsibilities.

Faced with growing humanitarian needs and decreasing financial support, the system is also grappling with an existential crisis, as international humanitarian law and principles are increasingly undermined. To remain fit for purpose, it must shift towards being ‘of the Global South, for the Global South’, in line with the intended collective outcomes of the Grand Bargain.

Quality and accountability in humanitarian assistance go hand in hand; it is not possible to succeed in one without succeeding in the other. We urge you to consider this as you establish your priorities in the coming weeks. We also request that you meet with us to discuss the issue of quality throughout the humanitarian programme cycle. Given the state of the world and the many challenges to principled humanitarian action as well as the need to strengthen the centrality of protection throughout the whole of humanitarian response, it is essential that quality returns to the forefront of policy, advocacy, and operations. All humanitarian efforts must maintain at least an intent to reach minimum standards. Without a commitment to quality, we cannot ensure dignity, as respect for humanity is diminished each time quality is overlooked.

The Humanitarian Standards Partnership (HSP) aims to improve the quality and accountability of humanitarian action through the promotion of humanitarian standards. The HSP offers training, tools, and policy and practical guidance for a harmonised approach to working with standards. This enables frontline aid-workers to know, understand and implement humanitarian standards as easily as possible, whilst retaining the depth of resources for technical and policy specialists. The collective guidance represents years of application and learning by thousands of leading experts and practitioners and provides a strong rights-based framework that empowers actors at the local level to lead humanitarian response and ensures proper contextualisation of preparedness and response.

You bear an immense responsibility with every communication and decision you make. The HSP is ready to support and assist you in any way possible to ensure that everyone, no matter their situation, has the right to life with dignity.

Yours sincerely on behalf of the HSP,

The HSP includes the following standards:

• Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS)
• Humanitarian Inclusion Standards for Older People and People with Disabilities (HIS)
• INEE Minimum Standards for Education
• Livestock Emergency Guidelines and Standards (LEGS)
• Minimum Economic Recovery Standards (MERS)
• Minimum Standards for Camp Management (MSCM)
• Minimum Standard for Market Analysis (MISMA)
• The Sphere Handbook
• Standards for Supporting Crop-related Livelihoods in Emergencies (SEADS)

Representatives to and for the HSP are:

• Alistair Short, SEADS Coordinator
• Ariel Solari, Team Lead, Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE)
• Cate Turton, Executive Director, CALP Network
• Ced Hesse, Chair of LEGS Trustees
• Jennifer Cline Kvernmo, International Organization for Migration (IOM) and co-chair of the Minimum Standards for Camp Management (MSCM)
• Tanya Wood, Executive Director, CHS Alliance
• Thomas Stork, Danish Refugee Council (DRC) and co-chair of the Minimum Standards for Camp Management (MSCM)
• Sam Wood, Head of Humanitarian Team, HelpAge
• Tushar Wali, Disaster Risk Management Director, CBM Global
• William Anderson, Executive Director, Sphere