Humanitarian Accountability Partnership International - Humanitarian Accountability - Importance of Accountability

Importance of Accountability

The unique nature of humanitarian work makes accountability particularly important for the following reasons:

Acute needs People who have survived conflict or a natural disaster often have acute needs. Frequently, they have been displaced from their homes and lack their usual economic, social or psychological support systems.

Lack of choice, lack of competition Normally, recipients of humanitarian aid cannot 'choose' between relief providers. So they cannot signal they are unhappy with a service by going to another provider, unlike consumers in competitive retail markets.

Lack of voice Disaster survivors usually lack access to formal procedures for participation in decisions about assistance. Traditional governance structures are likely to be extremely strained by the disaster or conflict, if they have survived at all, and (until recently) relief agencies did not include participation and complaints systems in their programmes.

Donor-survivor disconnect Moreover, the people whose choices do influence relief organisations – donor governments and their citizens – are not consumers of humanitarian aid. Therefore, they may not be in a good position to judge whether the aid was helpful or not.

Life and death decisions Finally, in humanitarian situations the consequences of decisions can be particularly severe. For example, a person’s decision to queue for food distribution (rather than forage or seek help through private networks) may be a gamble with life or death if the organisation has underestimated the amount of food needed to go around.