Empowering frontline staff to deliver accountable and locally driven humanitarian assistance

Seven years on from the Grand Bargain Commitments and the launch of the Participation Revolution, humanitarians must face the disappointing reality that there has been little meaningful change in the way that aid is designed or delivered. Slow progress toward meaningfully changing the way we work is, arguably, most acutely felt by the staff, volunteers, and local agencies on the frontlines of response. They are the people who daily engage, support, and often put their lives at risk to serve people in crisis. Yet, the voices and knowledge of frontline staff are largely overlooked and neglected in operational and organizational decision-making. Frontline staff themselves recognize the importance of participation, but as a sector, we lack practical guidance on how to embed meaningful participation into our ways of working – from our daily routines and staffing models to organizational culture and values.

In this session, we will draw on the learning from IRC's Empower to Enable project, which aims to foster accountable and client-centric humanitarian assistance by empowering frontline staff to enable the participation of crisis-affected people in the design and delivery of humanitarian assistance. With the help of a panel of stakeholders, we will take stock of the current evidence on the role of frontline staff and discuss practical and scalable solutions for empowering frontline staff to ensure participation from crisis-affected people.

Read more about the event on https://phap.org/hnpw2023-session4