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Summary
Despite efforts to “improve accountability to affected people” in Central African Republic (CAR), crisis-affected people’s perceptions of the quality of the humanitarian response have not improved.
To address this gap between the intentions of the humanitarian system and the perceptions of the community, Ground Truth Solutions (GTS), in collaboration with Humanitarian Data Support (HDS), spoke to over 100 people working for humanitarian organisations in CAR in 2024. Through workshops, bilateral conversations, and an online survey, we sought to understand the barriers to better community involvement in the design and implementation of humanitarian aid, as well as potential solutions.
Humanitarian organisations struggle to involve communities in project design, often conducting this phase alone, with no real participation from members of the communities concerned. This lack of community participation in decision-making hampers the impact and efficiency of interventions. National organisations, in particular, highlight the need for greater resources to sustain ongoing dialogue with communities prior to the development and submission of project proposals.
Although actors seem to put a lot of effort into collecting feedback, it is often not acted upon and rarely leads to improvements. Reasons for this were stated as include funding restrictions and logistical barriers such as poor infrastructure and insecurity. Systematically using feedback and allowing real participation from communities needs more attention. Funding should be flexible, especially for national NGOs, as they must be treated as strategic partners rather than merely implementing organisations. This flexibility would allow national NGOs to make timely, context-specific decisions and adapt programmes based on real-time feedback, ensuring more effective and relevant interventions.
Most actors indicated community engagement as an add-on, citing things deemed to be good practice 'globally' rather than things that made sense for their own communities. This concerning projectisation of accountability may be part of the problem. In times of scarce resources, the only way to maximise the impact and efficiency of limited humanitarian funds is to ensure that aid meets the population's priority needs. This requires genuine community engagement, moving beyond reactive feedback mechanisms to focus on active participation and empowerment.