Checking the Heartbeat of Humanitarian Assistance

Introduction
All too often, humanitarian actors fail to adequately consult with affected populations who are given too few opportunities to offer their perspectives on the assistance they receive or the agencies that provide it. Delivered through a partnership between DanChurchAid (DCA), Save the Children Denmark
and Ground Truth Solutions, and with the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) – the accountability component of the Sphere handbook - as a foundation, the Listen Learn Act (LLA) project is piloting an innovative method of regular and systematic information gathering and analysis to provide a ‘heartbeat’ or vital sign for agencies to know how they're meeting people's basic expectations. Linked to a process of engaging communities on the issues they raise and a commitment to feeding back on corrective actions, this initiative offers an important benchmark for ‘closing the loop’. This report provides an overview and analysis of some early findings and offers critical reflections from practitioners piloting the initiative in Ethiopia, Lebanon, Mali and Nepal.