The Relationship between Communication and Accountability, and Implications for Community Engagement

Communicating with communities (CwC) is an emerging field of humanitarian response that helps to meet the information and communication needs of people affected by crisis. CwC is based on the principle that information and communication are critical forms of aid without which disaster survivors cannot access services, engage with aid providers and make the best decisions for themselves and their communities; neither can they hold aid agencies to account.

An important component of CwC is the aspiration to shift power from aid providers to aid recipients, and to facilitate recipients’ own action through more effective engagement. CwC and accountability are inextricably linked. A key aspect of accountability – for some, the other side of the communication coin; for others, a part of what communication supports – is listening to affected communities and adapting the international response based on their inputs.

Accountability commitments also include being transparent about international response efforts, engaging affected people in programme design and encouraging community participation in monitoring and evaluation processes. This presentation considered how the
humanitarian response to Typhoon Haiyan / Yolanda in the Philippines is rewriting the way accountability and CwC actors are working together, and what this means for community engagement. For the first time, communication specialists are working alongside an IASC Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) advisor to support agencies in ensuring they are accountable to communities affected by Typhoon Yolanda.

The session focused on key learning emerging from the response to the Typhoon. It considered what this can teach us about the role of communication in helping agencies to foster community engagement and thereby be more accountable to the people they serve. It also evidenced to what degree the joint CwC / AAP response enabled greater community engagement, the challenges faced and examples of good practice that can be drawn from the experience.