Accountability for humanitarian aid needs to improve
There is need for feedback from people who benefit from humanitarian assistance that is being provided to them, according to the head of an independent research network.
John Mitchell, the Director of "Active Learning for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action" spoke to UN Radio after the launch of the State of the Humanitarian System 2012 at UNICEF House in New York.
He said the provision of humanitarian assistance to the people in need has improved with more financial support from donors, the use of mobile technologies and better coordination by relief agencies.
However, Mr. Mitchell added, more still needs to be done to improve accountability to the beneficiaries of humanitarian assistance.
"Accountability hasn't got too good, hasn't improved too much. So we are seeing, although there have been small improvements in accountability to beneficiaries, there is still a great deal of work to do there. What we are seeing is that agencies are trying to develop beneficiary feed-back mechanisms in the field so that they can hear what the concerns of the people on the ground are, and act upon those concerns to improve what they do." (Duration: 24")