Accountability: Being Heard

In the first half of the 1990s, 70 states were involved in 93 wars. More than half of these conflicts lasted over five years, forty per cent lasted over 10 years, and wholly one quarter have lasted over 20 years.1 At the same time, civilians are increasingly the targets of conflict rather than simply hapless victims: civilian casualties of war have increased from 10 per cent at the turn of the century, to 50 per cent in the second world war to over 75 per cent in contemporary conflicts. Since 1980, the number of refugees has increased from 2.4 million to 14.4 million2, while IDPs have increased from 22 million to 38 million3. The magnitude and duration of crises have left beneficiary groups reliant on international assistance for extended periods of time.

It has also been suggested that the shift from wars between national armies to wars between militia and guerrilla groups has contributed to the loss of the
rules of conduct of war. Finally, as civilians are increasingly the targets of war, those who come to their assistance - the NGOs - are less likely to be perceived as impartial and neutral.

Listening exercises have resulted in greater understanding of humanitarian actors of the needs, aspiration, problems, and capacities of affected people in conflicts. This has resulted to better policy making and accumulative knowledge for a comprehensive emergency response preparedness, community strengthening and sustainable conflict resolution. For humanitarian agencies listening skills provided tools to be more accountable to their constituencies.

Those that have been silenced by authoritarian regimes find a platform to have their voice heard through humanitarian aid workers. In an environment when collective expressions are suppressed aid workers have duty to change this. The process of listening may be a starting point for community strengthening and self advocacy. But listening should not be just an extractive exercise and need to develop ways for feeding back the compiled information into communities and local officials. The dissemination of findings can highlight concerns over issues regarding health, and educational deficiencies and unemployment and can be translated into an orchestrated advocacy strategy to change policies. Priorities expressed by affected people should not be ignored and need to be exposed to local, national authorities as well as international community.

The critical lesson of this process warns that greater attention should be focused on the issue of accountability. Listening is about respect, respect for the right of those that we tend to assist. Listening process needs to be more responsive and accountable to the voices. Good communication is not just about listening, it is also about making sure what you think you have heard was actually what you were told. It needs to be ensured that conclusions and recommendations based on the collected information are channeled back for revision. Community team should be established to facilitate an ongoing and mutually beneficial listening dialogue between humanitarian workers and target people. The depth of analysis generated from this exchange will be invaluable for implementing programmes, but the long term sustainability of these programmes are dependent on the measure of accountability that they bring to the relationship.

Oxfam GB, (2000), Listening to the displaced: analysis: accountability and advocacy in action, S. Harris



1. D. Smith, the International Peace Research Institute, The State of War and Peace Atlas, Myriad Editions Limited, 1997, p13.
2. State of the World’s Refugees 1995, Oxford University Press.
3 Smith, op cit p26.