Summary:

More than two years after initiating its development, on 30 January 2007, the HAP Board adopted the HAP 2007 Standard in Humanitarian Accountability and Quality Management.

http://www.crin.org/docs/hapi_2007.pdf

Humanitarian agencies exercise significant financial, technical and logistical power in their mission to save lives and reduce suffering. In contrast, disaster survivors have no formal control and often little influence over emergency relief agencies, making it difficult for the people affected by disasters to hold these aid agencies to account. In 2003 the Humanitarian Accountability Partnership (HAP) was launched to promote accountability to disaster survivors and to acknowledge those agencies that comply with the HAP Principles of Accountability. By applying these Principles, an agency makes
itself accountable to disaster survivors for the quality of its humanitarian work.

Like HAP’s Principles of Accountability, the HAP 2007 Standard in Humanitarian Accountability and Quality Management has been developed through extensive consultation and field tests. It is based upon a simple but effective humanitarian quality management system that may be applied by all humanitarian agencies. It is rooted in a set of humanitarian principles that drive and shape the humanitarian work of its adherents and by which they voluntarily elect to be held to account. As the HAP 2007 Standard represents a solemn contract to be accountable to people affected by disasters not just now but also in the future, these values are presented in the HAP Humanitarian Accountability Covenant.

Related information

• Humanitarian Accountability Partnership - International (HAP-I)
• Inter-Agency Standing Committee: Protecting Persons Affected by Natural Disasters: IASC Operational Guidelines on Human Rights and Natural Disasters (February 2007)
• The Sphere Project
Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP)

People in Aid
• CRIN's next newsletter, which looks at children's rights and emergencies, will be published in February.