Memorandum submitted by One World Trust
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. The One World Trust[101]
submission will consider the World Food Programme (WFP)'s accountability
to local communities and suggest ways in which it can be improved.
Local beneficiary communities, already marginalised and at-risk,
must be able to hold their service providers to account. To achieve
this we recommend that the WFP should:
— Improve its transparency to local
communities by developing an information disclosure policy that
clearly identifies what, when and how it will make information
available to them (and other stakeholders).
— Establish a permanent mechanism at
the senior management level through which NGOs representing local
community perspectives can feed on-the-ground and local perspectives
into high level decision making. A number of WFP peers such as
UNDP and UNEP currently utilise similar mechanisms.
— The WFP should modify its current
complaints hotline to be more accessible to local communities,
enabling them to raise grievances. The complaints mechanism should
make explicit commitments to protecting beneficiary confidentiality
and to non-retaliation.
TRANSPARENCY
2. Access to timely and relevant information
about an organisation's activities and plans is key for local
communities to effectively engage with them and ultimately hold
them to account. Research by the One World Trust has indicated
that an information disclosure policy is a crucial mechanism by
which organisations can ensure coherence and consistency in what
is made available, when and how.
3. Currently, while the WFP makes broad
commitments to transparency it lacks an information disclosure
policy that guides the information it makes available to external
stakeholders such as local communities.
— The WFP should develop an information
disclosure policy outlining which information will be made available,
when that information will be available, and how information can
be accessed. Programme and evaluation information should be made
accessible to local communities and other beneficiaries on a proactive
basis—rather than only upon request.
— The information disclosure policy
should meet key good practice principles including narrowly defined
conditions for non-disclosure; commitments to respond to information
requests within a specified period of time; and appeals mechanisms
for denials. A "narrowly drawn set of conditions" identify
the specific harm that would come from disclosure.
— The information disclosure policy
should explicitly list local communities and other beneficiaries
among stakeholders to which the policy applies. NGOs, WFP implementation
partners, donors and any other interested parties or individuals
should also be included.
— All staff should be made aware of
the information disclosure policy once it is brought into force.
Training should be provided to relevant staff members on how to
meet WFP's.
NGO PARTICIPATION
4. The WFP has a number of documents that
guide its engagement with external stakeholders such as local
communities.[102]
The WFP's current stakeholder engagement guidelines however do
not include a direct channel between NGOs representing local community
interest and needs and senior management. Such channels enable
NGOs to feed into high level decision making on policy and strategy
through a permanent mechanism, rather than requiring them to develop
ad hoc advocacy strategy each time they seek engagement. These
channels facilitate prompt inclusion of on-the-ground and local
perspectives into organisational policies and programmes, enhancing
responsiveness to local needs and perspectives and thereby improving
service delivery. A number of WFP's peers utilise such mechanisms
including the United Nations Development Programme which has a
Civil Society Advisory Committee that meets with senior management
on a quarterly basis, and the United Nations Environment Programme
which has a Global Civil Society Forum that feeds into meeting
of the Governing Council.
— The WFP should establish a permanent
mechanism through which NGOs representing local communities' interests
and needs with WFP senior management in a consistent manner.
COMPLAINT AND
RESPONSE MECHANISMS
5. Being open and responsive to complaints
is key to providing a high quality service that meets the needs
of the users.
6. Currently, the WFP has a Hotline for
receiving external complaints. However, it is not clear if this
mechanism is available to all external stakeholders or only those
in partnership with the WFP. Significantly, there is no explicit
guarantee of non-retaliation for external stakeholders who are
not WFP partners. This ambiguity leaves beneficiaries and local
communities uncertain as to whether their complaints could lead
to a loss of services or other retaliation, a risk few relying
on WFP services could be reasonably expected to take.
7. For the WFP to effectively incorporate
local perspectives into programme monitoring, evaluation, and
planning, all external stakeholders, particularly the most vulnerable,
need access to a complaints mechanism with credible guarantees
of non-retaliation.
— The WFP should modify its current
complaints mechanism to be more accessible to local communities
and make explicit commitments to protecting their confidentiality
and to non-retaliation. The policy should be inclusive of other
key stakeholder groups such as NGOs, WFP implementation partners,
donors and any other interested parties or individuals.
8. The WFP does not currently have a mechanism
that allows external stakeholders to appeal policy and programme
decisions. The presence of such mechanism strengthens the credibility
and legitimacy of complaints procedures.
— The WFP should establish a mechanism
allowing external stakeholders to appeal decisions on complaints.
CONCLUSION
9. To enable the World Food Programme to
meet local needs and to in turn deliver on its mission to promote
global food security better systems for transparency, external
stakeholder participation, and complaints handling are needed.
An improved policy on information disclosure would foster transparency
and enable stakeholders to hold the WFP and their representatives
to account. The development of an institutionalised mechanism
for engaging with NGOs at the governing, executive or senior management
levels would enhance feedback and participation. Expansion of
the complaints policy to explicitly include, provide protections,
and offer an appeals process to local communities would facilitate
improved responsiveness to policy and programme failures.
Robert Lloyd and Shana
Warren
101 The One World Trust promotes education and research
into changes required in global governance to achieve the eradication
of poverty, injustice, environmental degradation and war. We develop
recommendations on practical ways to make powerful organisations
more accountable to the people they affect now and in the future,
and how the rule of law can be applied to all. We educate political
leaders and opinion-formers about the findings of our research. Back
102
These documents include the WFP's Mission Statement, General Regulations
and Rules, "Participatory Approaches" document, "WFP
Commitments to Women" document, and "Working with NGO's:
A Framework For Partnership". Back
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