In 2018, Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) member charities collaborated on a learning-focused initiative to better understand and improve the utilization of community feedback at different stages in the programme cycle. In addition to a London learning workshop with DEC members, three DEC member charities offered themselves as case studies for a more in-depth examination of related practices in their emergency response to the Rohingya refugee crisis in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.

DEC member agencies remain deeply committed to addressing safeguarding concerns and urgent protection issues. Therefore, in this learning engagement, it was a priority for DEC members to also understand how feedback systems are utilized to communicate such information and what the link is between feedback systems and complaint-handling mechanisms for reporting, investigating and responding to serious incidents. Staff of case study organisations were also asked to describe how their agencies handle complaints of a sensitive nature and which require confidentiality, including reports on sexual exploitation and abuse incidents.

Utilization of community feedback for improving humanitarian response is one of many key elements for increasing accountability to crisis affected people. There is still more to learn about institutional enabling factors that make such utilization possible. This report highlights the key observations from our field work and examples provided by DEC member organisations.

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