Ground Truth Solutions, 2022, Listening is Not Enough - Global Analysis Report

It is indisputable that people should be ‘at the centre’ of humanitarian assistance. It is equally indisputable that they are not. Despite widespread efforts to include crisis-affected communities and align with their needs, people impacted by crisis feel disempowered and think aid is missing the mark. “To [humanitarians], our needs can be summed up by their needs assessment surveys conducted on what we eat during the day and how we live. But asking us what our basic needs are, they don’t do that. So next time, when organisations want to help us, they should approach us and ask us what our real needs are,” said an elderly, female host community member in Bangui, Central African Republic. She underscores that deeply extractive assessments have little impact on the lives of the people who give their time to answer lengthy and intrusive questionnaires. The same can be said of attempts to involve communities – however genuine the intention – if the humanitarian system is simply not designed to adapt to what people need. Rhetoric abounds, but feedback from thousands of people affected by crisis is clear: decision-making power has not shifted.

People want to be decision-makers

People are clear on what they want, need, and prefer from aid providers, but they are all-too-often excluded. A meagre 36% of surveyed aid recipients in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic think they can influence the humanitarian response. Feedback mechanisms are everywhere, but they are often avoided, not just because they are unclear, but because there is little trust that their feedback would translate to action. Even the most regular community consultations throughout a project cycle are perceived as checkbox exercises when the discussions do not lead to programme adaptation.

Most people want to determine the assistance they receive. When asked if they expect to be able to influence aid, people overwhelmingly say yes. Compared to the dismal number who feel listened to in DRC and CAR, the vast majority (94% and 80%, respectively) think it is important that people in their community are able to influence how aid is provided. People are demanding a seat at the table and, in their own ways, calling for systemic change. “Including us in the decisions that determine the type of aid that they provide is very important. We wish the aid providers would ask for our opinion more,” shares a female cash recipient in Gubio camp, Nigeria. ”It’s their [aid agencies] money so I don’t know how much they would like for the community to participate. But we should be able to vote on things and make decisions, not just be told what is going to happen. But I doubt that will happen,” said a female aid recipient in Somalia.

Meaningful engagement with communities entails making sure people first know that they have a right to influence aid, and then showing them that their views matter by acting on what they say. Doing this well requires widespread humility, with humanitarians recognising that we are playing a supporting role. Only when we accept that we do not know best, can community priorities drive the response. As it stands, people’s sense of disempowerment is so strong that they often don’t even try to engage. “The only right we have is to receive, because we don’t know anything about what the people in charge of aid are doing,” said a woman in Les Cayes, Haiti. People need to know that their knowledge, skills, experiences, and perspectives matter. Telling people they have a right to have an opinion is a first step, but showing them that their opinion counts matters more. People will only know they have a right to have a say when they see that their input is considered, valued, and actioned. This will only happen with systemic change. The goal must be to shift peoples’ roles from passive recipients to agents with authority over humanitarian decisions that impact the lives of their families and communities.

The current system of consultation – a needs assessment survey here, a feedback mechanism or focus group there – is not enough. Periodic integration of community consultations into planning documents risks enabling humanitarian responses to look accountable when those in positions of power and controlling resources are not systematically reacting to people’s views. To be meaningful, engagement with communities must be sustained and linked to action at every level from programme design, through the delivery of assistance to monitoring and evaluation. In Haiti’s Camp Perrin, one man said of aid workers: “I see them as tourists because they just pass by and watch but don’t seriously care about people’s problems.” Engagement means enabling people to participate in the way they want to. For some, a functional feedback process – in which they receive a satisfactory response or see concrete change – would be sufficient. Others want to hold leadership positions, to help determine the aid and services provided in their communities, targeting, and long-term plans. In Chari-Baguirmi, Chad, one woman called for diverse participation. ”A youth leader, leader of older persons, female leader, male leader, and community leaders. The leaders of each category must be appointed to participate in all the meetings and activities in the camp so that each community feels involved and satisfied.”

Ensuring that aid meets people’s most important needs requires a system that shifts power to affected people, rather than just asking them questions. It means a relinquishing of control.

Few say aid meets their needs

Within this current system, in which efforts to include people are perceived to be tokenistic, aid relevance suffers. People do not feel their basic needs are met. In Chad, only 8% think aid covers their most important needs. A male refugee in Mandoul said, ”we sell goods that do not meet our needs to buy the primary goods we need,” while in Ngama Kotoko a female refugee said, “food is a basic need, but for the past few months there has been nothing, and we are starving.”

Perception data show a system falling short of its primary goal to provide essential assistance, as well as meet people’s expectations. “We don’t have a decision on the assistance we can receive,” says a displaced man in South Kivu, DRC. When assistance is not relevant to people’s needs and their views are disregarded, people feel disempowered and deprived of their dignity.

People feel anxious when they are at the mercy of others’ decisions, fickle distribution schedules, and unclear targeting. “Humanitarians should stop misleading vulnerable people with their promises after the targeting process,” said a displaced man in Mapanzo, DRC. In Nigeria, where 55% of cash recipients surveyed say aid meets their needs (a uniquely high number), respondents who report that aid comes when agreed are more likely to feel respected by aid providers. Similarly, in Burkina Faso, respondents are more likely to think aid meets their needs when it comes on time. But humanitarians’ frequent failure to adhere to distribution calendars is a common concern for aid recipients globally. A female refugee in Moyen Chari, Chad said, “We received information that the war in Ukraine is delaying our aid.” A perception that aid relies on imports and outsiders can be particularly hard for people, like those in Chad where only 8% think aid meets their needs. A male refugee in Gon explained that “the fact that seeds are distributed to us in July (after planting season) is a loss for humanitarians and seems a mockery for us.” Reconfiguring aid supply chains to be demand-driven would better adapt to people’s needs.

People are resilient, but not thanks to aid

People, of course, need more than band-aid assistance. They want sustained and meaningful change that utilises their agency. Fewer than half of all people surveyed globally think the aid they receive enables them to live without aid in the future. Respondents who received cash and voucher assistance were similarly negative about their prospects for resilience. This was especially striking in CAR where only 23% think the Cash Voucher Assistance (CVA) they receive helps them feel self-reliant. To support people out of aid reliance, emergency cash alone is not going to cut it. People want support to earn a real income, new skills and income-generating resources. “There are a lot of idle young people in the district where I live. Giving us money to support us is good, but there are other ways to help. Organisations can conduct training to enable us to become autonomous, which would be an improvement, instead of always depending on external assistance,” said a male youth leader in CAR.

People call for long-term solutions whenever surveyed, even if they live in an active conflict area with ongoing threats of violence and climate shocks. They are resilient but suffer from being at the will of aid providers. A female refugee in Moyen Chari, Chad highlighted this paternalistic dynamic, noting, “[Humanitarians] always try to assist us when we are in a crisis. They are like our parents, the parents of the affected people, so a parent cannot let their child suffer without helping them. But a parent who has means would always think about the future of their child.” In Haiti, an aid recipient in Port-a-Piment said, “we can’t stay in a tarp our whole lives,” while another in Les Cayes said, “we don’t want to be made into victims for a sack of rice.”

No transparency, no trust

‘Giving account’ is one of the most basic and well-accepted commitments in the longstanding humanitarian definition of Accountability to Affected People, and the system is failing at it. On average, the largest gap between expectations and people’s experiences is for transparent information on how humanitarian funds are spent. For instance, in Haiti, most (94%) people feel that it is important to know how humanitarian money is spent in their communities, but only 2% say they understand how funds are allocated. Globally, humanitarians are far from meeting people’s expectations that they have a right to know how aid money is allocated and what the plans are. “It’s at their level only. Nobody knows how it’s going,” said a female refugee in Logone Oriental, Chad. A woman in Les Cayes, Haiti demands, “We must have the right to ask questions to aid providers. Because we are all people, with the same rights, even if we are not on the same level in society.” With limited rights to participate and receive information, people do not feel entitled to know what the overall strategy is, or what resources have gone where. International actors delivering both humanitarian and development assistance need to work together to convey how funding is being utilised at both the national and community level. Proper participation will help to break down the divisions that make people feel that they exist at a lower tier.

For transparency to increase, progress on participation and aid quality must be assessed by communities. Aid workers cannot mark their own homework when it comes to participation. But no matter how well independent perception studies are done, they will not lead to changes if there are no incentives in place to act on the data. Perception tracking should not become subsumed by the system and become a check-the-box exercise. Humanitarians must be held accountable for acting on independent perception data – and people’s perceptions improving over time. 

Tired of being left in the dark

To participate, people must first be informed. Globally, people are nowhere near as informed as they want to be. This gap between expectations and perceptions is the largest in Haiti with those feeling much less informed (14%) about aid and services compared to their expectations (98%). A man in Les Cayes describes this lack of communication, noting, “I’m not familiar with the organisations that usually provide aid in my community. They only come to distribute aid to the stadium without having any meetings.”

Even if people rate themselves in surveys as being informed, follow-up questions demonstrate that they are not. Cash recipients in Nigeria and CAR say they feel informed (95% and 75%, respectively). Yet when asked more detailed questions about their assistance, even those with the highest feelings of being informed did not know the answers. Only 36% in CAR and 34% in Nigeria knew when their CVA would terminate. Further, fewer than half of people surveyed globally know how aid is targeted – information that should be developed with communities throughout any project. The bar for information is extremely low, cementing people’s roles as passive recipients.

When people do not have the right information, they will go to extremes to access aid, putting them at risk. Reports of sexual exploitation to get on distribution lists are commonplace, as are accounts of bribery and nepotism. A female returnee in Kaga Bandoro, CAR explained, “They slept with the girls. Only then would they put them on the list.”

Information is not enough – talking at people is not participation.

If people are left out of decision-making, even the most comprehensive information-sharing won’t lead people – especially those left out – to feel aid is provided in a fair way. Enabling people to participate in aid decisions will be more likely to help people feel that aid is done ‘right’ than solely improving communication about decisions already made. “I can participate if the objective is to ensure that the work is well done because we are there to ensure that things are well done,” said a displaced man in Pouytenga, Burkina Faso.

None of this is new. People have been telling us these things for years. The challenge now is to actively listen; then, more importantly, to act. It is time for transformative change.