Individual Quality and Accountability: The Case for Professionalization

There has been a move to enhance accountability by organizations that assist or act on behalf of people affected by disasters, conflict, poverty or other crises. Initiatives focused on enhancing the quality of service delivery and accountability in the humanitarian sector include: Humanitarian Accountability Partnership (HAP), People In Aid, the Sphere Project, the Emergency Capacity Building Project, Groupe Urgence, Réhabilitation, Développement (URD), the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP) and national self-regulatory schemes that focus on accountability and quality in the non-profit sector. For the most part, these initiatives focus on accountability from an organizational, systems and management perspective. People in Aid and Sphere provide Codes of Conduct for humanitarian workers but none provide a mechanism to ensure individual adherence to the Code(s) of Conduct nor disciplinary action for violations or misconduct in the field. Furthermore there is no official body that offers protection, access to standardized training and education and strategies for networking to individuals who are career humanitarians.