Giving citizens a say in development

Keystone Accountability has been working hard to ensure that the voices of people most affected by aid are heard by the organizations that serve them. 

We have been busy with a variety of projects over the last quarter - this is just a selection. 

We have been working in Malawi on a project which is testing the approach of using social labs to solve development problems. This involves working very closely with local people to address the development issues that are most relevant to their communities. The project is an example of locally led development. We are still in the set up phase at the moment and have been getting buy in from local development actors and local government officials.

We have been supporting a big UK grantmaker to help them collect feedback from local organizations and people they support. We are helping them design a system to listen better to the people they seek to help and together achieve better outcomes. The project will work with people in Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Uganda to understand and address the lack of agency, connectivity or resources that prevents them from sharing their knowledge, experiences and concerns. We will then provide the funder with a system to collect and act on feedback from the beneficiaries of their programs. 

We have been helping a large foundation listen better to the organizations that it funds. And helping it be more responsive to the needs and opinions of its grantees. 

We have also been collecting examples of good practice and sharing these on our website so all organizations can benefit from our tips and tricks about collecting and using feedback effectively. 

Links:

• Keystone Accountability's blog

Ground Truth Soluions continues to systematically collect feedback from the recipients of aid in different crisis settings. Following the first round of quantitative data collection in Lebanon and northern Iraq, Ground Truth facilitated focus group discussions with displaced people to delve deeper into the issues that were surfaced in the survey. The reports were further disseminated among the humanitarian responders in respective countries.

Participants of eight focus group discussions conducted with Syrian refugees, Palestine refugees from Syria (PRS), and Palestine refugees from Lebanon (PRL) in four different governorates in Lebanon made following recommendations for improving aid and humanitarian response they recieve, which include:

• pursuing a more equal distribution of aid and communicating how recipients of aid are identified;
• support in the procurement of residency papers and employment;
• closing the feedback loop by following up with refugees after complaints and feedback have been collected;
• increasing the food voucher allowance to allow households to sustain an acceptable dietary balance;
• increasing the monthly cash transfer to cover rent and electricity charges, and investing more in health care,
• secure schooling for children, and projects that create jobs for youth.

The findings of 10 focus group discussions conducted with internally displaced persons (IDPs) and Syrian refugees at six different sites – in camps and urban settings – in northern Iraq suggest that displaced people would like to see more:

• efforts to be made to curb discrimination in aid distribution;
• investments in health services. Participants across all locations said that medicine is scarce, and available treatment or healthcare is too expensive;
• increase in the cash programmes and more food vouchers, as well as special support during Ramadan and Eid;
• help with employment and salaries, especially for women;
• efforts to incorporate feedback into aid agencies’ activities so that their needs can be better met.

Ground Truth Solutions will continue to amplify voices of affected people on the reciving end of aid and comminicate their feedback to the humanitarian responders.