Accountability to affected population – AAP

AAP is founded on two operational principles in humanitarian programming:

1) rights-based approach
2) aid effectiveness

Being accountable to affected people reaffirms our obligation to respect, fulfil and protect human rights and dignity, and achieving our commitments is essential for quality programming.

Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) is an active commitment by humanitarian actors to use power responsibly by taking account of, giving account to, and being held to account by the people they seek to assist. “Use power responsibly”: SRH Serbia recognizes that there is often an inherent power differential that tilts towards aid and service providers in the course of interactions between SRH Serbia’s staff members and the people they are tasked to assist. When left unchecked, this fundamental imbalance fosters abuse of power and an environment conducive for undermining the rights and dignity of people that SRH Serbia commits to aid and protect. “Taking account of, giving account to, and being held to account”- AAP requires humanitarian actors and organizations to be transparent and to involve people affected by crisis in decisionmaking processes by engaging with all diverse groups of the population especially those most vulnerable aimed at assisting them in the most appropriate, accountable and effective way. WHO ARE THE “AFFECTED POPULATIONS”? “Affected populations” is understood as mobile populations and host community members who SRH Serbia seeks to assist. SRH Serbia is involved in a broad spectrum of activities in aiding people, from emergency assistance, to transition and recovery through to development. AAP takes accountability beyond the limited practice of accountability to “beneficiaries” as it reaches out to people unintentionally excluded from receiving assistance which often happens to marginalized groups including people with disabilities, older persons, and LGBTI groups. Moreover, the commitment to AAP differs from the traditional accountability to donors (only). It requires humanitarian actors to place people at the core of the response fostering their right to be involved in the decision-making processes that affect them and inform programming to be appropriate and responsive to their needs.

The statement of commitments includes:

1. Leadership
2. Information-sharing and Transparency;
3. Participation
4. Complaints and Feedback Mechanism
5. Partner Coordination

The Framework supports important policy documents such as the Humanitarian Policy – Principles for Humanitarian Action, Standards of Conduct, Gender Equality Policy, Policy and Procedures for Preventing and Responding to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) and the Guidance note on the mainstreaming of humanitarian protection principles.