Humanitarian accountability at the community level: co-creating a community-led process for dialogue and feedback in northwest Syria
Photo: Syrian Arab Red Crescent, April 2021
Northwest Syria (NW Syria) has been affected by conflict and a devastating earthquake in 2023. Access and regular dialogue with communities has been challenging for the humanitarian community that has been coordinating the response from across the border in Gaziantep/Türkiye.
Response-wide, efforts were made to strengthen reactive feedback channels, focusing on strengthening the use of hotlines. But there was a lack of a sustainable, systematic, in-person process to proactively seek out, discuss and advocate for the view of diverse community groups with the right stakeholders. There was a risk of losing touch with communities in northwest Syria if the border closed, highlighting the need for a system that is not dependent on access.
Since September 2023, in collaboration with UNICEF, Ground Truth Solutions (GTS) undertook a process of co-creating a community-led, face-to-face dialogue and feedback system with community members in northwest Syria. The process included a range of local partners, particularly those that work with marginalised populations, to understand diverse community perspectives on what an ideal accountability process looks like to them. This system aimed to result in:
Communities gaining a better understanding of humanitarian actors' obligations and associated standards, as well as
Co-designing and accessing an accountability system where communities could share and discuss their views without waiting for formal engagement by humanitarian actors, helping to identify solutions.
“There are no community-led accountability systems per se. There are community committees, but most are project or organisation specific and with a primary mandate to report back to the organisations but not to communities.”
“We need to go beyond focusing heavily only on collection of complaints, to meaningful exchange and two-way feedback between communities and organisations, for relevant impact to be achieved.”
“As a woman, there are topics that I cannot share using a voice message on WhatsApp. It is better to discuss this face-to-face. I may not be able to explain it using WhatsApp since it can be conveyed the wrong way.”
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Report will be published soon.
