© Disasters Emergency Committee
The Disasters Emergency Committee brings together the leading UK aid agencies to
raise money at times of humanitarian crisis in poorer countries. By working together
we can raise more money to save lives and rebuild shattered communities.
Everyone who makes a donation to the DEC should be confident that their money will be well spent.
Our members are experts in humanitarian aid who can deliver the effective disaster responses which donors expect and those affected by disasters deserve.
We recognise however that improvement is always possible and we challenge ourselves to continually develop our ways of working through the DEC Accountability Framework (DECAF).
In 2009-10 Ernst & Young once again validated Member Agency and Secretariat self-assessments against the DECAF Accountability Priorities. They concluded that the framework has had a positive effect on member agencies’ and is now a mature process ripe for review (see box).
DEC Accountability Priorities
We run well managed appeals
During 2009-10 the Secretariat met commitments to agree a systematic complaints procedure and to procure a finance system better suited to meeting our needs. In 2010-11 the DEC will launch its single donations database which should enable us to better service our donors and make our fundraising more effective.
We use funds as stated
Building on a strong foundation in this area, a number of our Member Agencies met improvement commitments to roll out financial training in field offices and introduce risk registers across their programmes. Commitments for the coming year are similar with two other agencies seeking to improve their risk management.
We achieve intended objectives and outcomes
DEC members all have systems in place to manage their programmes and projects but a number are in the process of revising these. In 2009-10 two of our agencies rolled out new programme reporting tools. Four other agencies will continue work on new programme management mechanisms in 2010-11.
The most common area of challenge for Member Agencies continues to be measuring unintended impacts of their programmes: nine agencies have improvement commitments in this area. Capturing unintended impacts is important if negative unintended effects are to be minimised and positive ones are to be understood and built on.
We are committed to agreed humanitarian principles, standards and behaviours
Commitment to established touchstones such as the Red Cross Code of Conduct for humanitarian workers and the Sphere Standards is universal amongst DEC members. Over 2009-10 Member Agencies met commitments on training and integrating the standards into planning. Improvement commitments for 2010-11 reflect those of prior years (although in different agencies) and include:
• Ensuring country staff translate international standards into local languages for distribution
• Developing refresher training for staff on standards
We are accountable to beneficiaries
Over the last three years many of our Member Agencies have significantly increased the involvement of beneficiaries in their work by providing them with more information, responding to their feedback and sharing decision making with them.
During 2009-10 the number of DEC Member Agencies certified by the Humanitarian Accountability Partnership (HAP) increased from one to three with five other members working towards this. HAP certification means that agencies have had external audit of their systems for beneficiary accountability. Those agencies not pursuing HAP certification have their own approaches to improving accountability to beneficiaries and all have made improvement commitments in this area.
We learn from our experience
Making effective use of prior learning continues to be a challenging area for agencies and an area where many continue to make improvement commitments.
Improvement commitments for 2010-11 include developing a better framework for sharing learning between Country Programmes and for ensuring that learning is being reflected within new projects.
DECAF itself is a learning tool. In 2009-10 the DEC came together to run workshops on themes emerging from the prior years self-assessment, including how to effectively work through partners and indeed mechanisms for sharing learning. The Board also used DECAF as a tool for challenging each other on performance and accountability.