“Humanitarian agencies exercise considerable financial, technical and logistical power in their mission to save lives and reduce suffering,” said Dr. Jemilah, President of MERCY Malaysia and Chairperson of the Asian Disaster Reduction and Response Network (ADRRN).

“Accountability is the means through which this power can be exercised with responsibility and legitimacy,” added Dr. Jemilah. “And this involves managing the quality of humanitarian action in order to respect the needs, concerns, capacities and disposition of the people whose welfare and safety is adversely affected by armed conflict and other calamitous events.”

Therefore, through The Humanitarian Accountability Partnership International (HAP-I) that serves as the “ISO” for humanitarian action, accreditation of CSOs will be possible with respect to beneficiary accountability. HAP-I’s vision is to achieve a reasonable degree of consistency and equity in compliance monitoring, complaints-handling and quality assurance certification. Through relevant, measurable, actionable and affordable performance benchmarks set within an explicit framework of shared values that define the quality of humanitarian action, HAP-I hopes to accomplish its mission of making relief agencies accountable for the quality of their work to those designated as ‘intended humanitarian beneficiaries’.

During the World Bank CSO Forum, great examples of accountability and chargers of lapses were showcased as well as some of the most thorny issues and lessons from the fields of disaster response and humanitarian assistance addressed.

As part of her presentation, Dr. Jemilah shared examples of MERCY Malaysia’s challenges in the field. One example she cited was during the rebuilding of core houses in Aceh, MERCY Malaysia worked closely with the community in planning the reconstruction of houses and sanitation facilities. However, another agreement was made between the village headman and another international organization to build the sanitation facilities. As a result, MERCY Malaysia was asked by the local authorities and community to focus solely on rebuilding the houses.

Unfortunately, the international organization concerned failed to build the sanitation facilities and when the houses were ready, the sanitation facilities were not. MERCY Malaysia, being the primary NGO in the rebuilding project, was inevitably burdened with the responsibility of ensuring sanitation facilities were rapidly built. Therefore, ensuring accountability was challenging as another organization failed to deliver their project.

“While community participation is critical, sometimes the failure of the community to ensure that partners deliver their projects throws a bad light on other respectable NGOs involved in the same projects,” said Dr. Jemilah. “The lesson learnt from this experience was that the local government and community should insist that when organizations promise to undertake projects, they complete their commitment and are held accountable for their action or inaction. This is not uncommon in the field when NGOs sometimes compete for projects they are unable to deliver.”

MERCY Malaysia is proud to announce that it will be undergoing the HAP-I audit process from September – October 2006 and will be the first Asian organization to receive certification if the standards are met.

“The challenge will be for humanitarian agencies and CSOs to ensure commitment and compliance to accountability while taking necessary action to implement standards in their respective organizations,” said Dr. Jemilah. “And one way to ensure this will be to educate donors and host governments to engage with organizations that meet these standards while having shown the commitment to achieving them.”

MERCY Malaysia is a non-profit organization focusing on providing medical relief and sustainable health-related development for vulnerable communities.

ADRRN was formed as a result of a discussion among the Asia Disaster Reduction Centre (ADRC) Kobe and the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) in Kobe with the assistance of the ASEAN Foundation, as well as more than 30 NGOs from all over Asia, to create safe community environments and disaster resilient societies.