Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) officer

Details

Mission and objectives

Update

Context

As per OCHA’s role in any context, OCHA in DRC coordinates the humanitarian architecture with all its complexity in DRC. OCHA negotiates humanitarian access on behalf of the humanitarian community, and advocates for the protection of civilians and for increased funding to meet the needs of the affected population. Key challenges include: - Low acceptance of the humanitarian community in some parts of the country, including in North Kivu - Access challenges due the insecurity, the poor infrastructure and the administrative im-pediments imposed by the government on humanitarian actors - Low levels of funding which does not correspond with the increase in needs - No political solutions in sight to shift the trend

Task description

Under the supervision of the Head of Protection Unit, the International UNV will be responsible for the following duties: 1. Foster the participation and engagement of AAP focal points, especially from smaller local and national organizations through AAP Working Groups, trainings, online Survey and communities, and targeted Focus Group Discussions. 2. Provide a series of ‘AAP for Frontline Workers Training (of Trainers) sessions’ to AAP Focal Points and relevant OCHA staff. 3. Support the coordinators of the North-Kivu and National AAP Working Groups and the North-Kivu CCCM Cluster, to develop and disseminate key messages on topical issues and recurrent complaints. 4. Support AAP Focal Points (particularly those from local and national organisations) to establish Complaint Feedback Mechanisms (CFMs) and Community-Based Complaint Committees (CBCCs) within their organisations, and jointly analyse and respond to information received through these CFMs and CBCCs. 5. Support OCHA’s offices in South Kivu, Ituri and Tanganyika to establish AAP fora at provincial-level (‘AAP fora’ could mean new AAP Working Groups like the one that exists in North Kivu, or the introduction of a new AAP standing agenda item in already established meetings (e.g. “Community’s Suggestions & Complaints” agenda item at the OCHA-South-Kivu’s Friday morning ‘Humanitarian Information Sharing’ meeting in Bukavu)). 6. Establish constructive working relationships with Goma-based, AAP-related, national officer counterparts in UN agencies (e.g. AAP/Protection/Gender/Community Engagement officers in IOM, HCR, WFP and UNICEF), evidenced by the monthly sharing and joint analysis of trends from these agencies’ complaint feedback mechanisms (CFMs) and complaint-referrals between their CFMs. 7. Prepare CFM Information Sharing Protocol template documents for head of agencies/missions to sign that will facilitate CFM data sharing and case/complaint-referral between humanitarian organisations. 8. Establish constructive working relationships with AAP Focal Points in Goma-based, local, national and international humanitarian organisations, evidenced by the identification of the unmet needs of IDPs with disabilities and the coordination of low-cost, high-impact, community-led assistance that bridges gaps between local organisations with access and international organisations with funding, to inform the formation of consortia and the capacity building of local organisations, to advance the localisation agenda. 9. Work with Humanitarian Fund (HF) colleagues to incorporate mandatory AAP indicators within all HF allocations in a way that simultaneously encourages AAP best practices by HF implementing partners and generates AAP data that can be used for the HPC and other purposes.   Results/Expected Outputs: 1. Complaint feedback mechanism (CFM) data is shared and jointly analysed at coordination meetings (of the AAP working group and other fora) on a monthly basis. 2. Cumulative AAP training sessions are provided to organizations and agencies based in East DRC. 3. A Collective CFM is established where international, national and local humanitarian organisations publicly report and track complaints and feedback received, refer cases between organisations with due respect for data protection issues, and close the majority of cases within 30 days. 4. SMART AAP-focused indicators become standard within internationally funded humanitarian projects in Eastern DRC. 5. There is a mindset change, particularly among the senior management of humanitarian organisations, from “no complaints means no problems” to “no complaints means we’re ignoring what communities are trying to tell us about how we should improve our assistance to them” 6. OCHA is recognised as the best-placed, natural leader, impartial convenor, and neutral broker between donors and humanitarian organisations (international, national and local), driving progress towards the provision of higher quality humanitarian assistance that is more responsive to the needs and suggestions of affected communities.