Central African Republic

Overview

The humanitarian crisis in CAR is characterised by violent conflict which started in 2013 and flared up in 2017 and 2020, forcing millions of people to flee their homes. In 2022, almost half a million people, remain internally displaced, and 1,7 million have returned. The crisis is compounded by an upsurge of armed violence, conflicts related to transhumance, violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, floodings, a socio-economic recession and weak basic services. As a result, 3,4 million people, more than half of the population, are estimated to need humanitarian assistance in 2023.  

To respond to the swelling needs, more than 140 organisations currently provide humanitarian assistance in CAR, helping to alleviate the immediate effects of food insecurity and malnutrition, provide shelter, water, sanitation, health and education services, and protect a population in distress. The majority of implementing organisations are national and international NGOs. The response receives one of the highest levels of funding globally, reaching 1.8 million people in 2021 and 1.4 in the first trimester of 2022, 100% and 70% of people targeted, respectively. 

The humanitarian community in CAR committed to the guiding principles of proximity, protection, and participation, and has made good efforts to improve accountability on a collective level, by putting in place coordination structures and collective feedback mechanisms, measuring aid recipients’ perceptions, and demanding minimum accountability standards for fund allocations.  

Our work

We have been operational in CAR since 2019. In August 2023, we launched a project in support of UNICEF in CAR to ensure that their community engagement strategies are informed by community perceptions. The objective of this mixed-method study is to ensure that the feedback from affected populations is not only collected but acted upon by the relevant stakeholders.  

Between 2020 and 2023, we conducted qualitative and quantitative studies as part of the Cash Barometer project. We held a series of qualitative interviews with CVA recipients and market traders, asking for their perspectives on the COVID-19 pandemic, on protection risks they face at different stages of the process when receiving assistance, and on their reasons for preferring one aid modality over the other. A quantitative survey allowed for further analysis of people’s perceptions of aid.  

Between 2019 and 2021, we supported the Humanitarian Country Team to track eight perception indicators that were included into the Humanitarian Response Plan, as a tool to measure its implementation from the aid recipients’ perspective. 

We also supported the CAR Rapid Response Mechanism and two clusters to improve their accountability practices and developed collective processes to collect and use feedback from aid recipients.