Accountability to Affected Populations- Pathways for Communities to have Meaningful Influence over Decision-Making

UNICEF is strongly committed to putting affected families, children and adolescents at the center of its work. To make this a reality requires all UNICEF programs, systems, and procedures to systematically include participation of and accountability to affected populations (AAP) across all elements of the response, UNICEF’s Humanitarian Review, which examined UNICEF’s humanitarian operations in the context of the global challenges of the 21st century, concluded in September 2020 that, despite good progress, efforts to put people at the center of all work conducted by the organization must continue and become more systematic. Driven by these commitments, UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia (ROSA) engaged in a series of initiatives aimed at scaling up AAP in countries in the South Asia region. Although there are excellent examples of AAP good practices which mobilized communities in South Asia around a common goal, efforts still need to be made to translate this into the potential transformation UNICEF is aspiring to.

To address this challenge and scale up AAP in a systematic and predictable manner across South Asia, the Capstone team take stock of initiatives in the region; analyze impact and identify lessons learned and challenges encountered. The latter to be distilled into recommendations on how to further strengthen accountability to affected populations in South Asia and what would be the optimal platforms to be used by each country.