Consultant – Policy Development of Community Engagement and Accountability (CEA)

About IFRC

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, with a network of 191-member National Societies (NSs). The overall aim of IFRC is “to inspire, encourage, facilitate, and promote at all times all forms of humanitarian activities by NSs with a view to preventing and alleviating human suffering and thereby contributing to the maintenance and promotion of human dignity and peace in the world.” IFRC works to meet the needs and improve the lives of vulnerable people before, during and after disasters, health emergencies and other crises. IFRC is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (Movement), together with its member National Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The work of IFRC is guided by the following fundamental principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality. IFRC is led by its Secretary General, and has its Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The Headquarters are organized into three main Divisions: (i) National Society Development and Operations Coordination; (ii) Global Relations, Humanitarian Diplomacy and Digitalization; and (iii) Management Policy, Strategy and Corporate Services. IFRC has five regional offices in Africa, Asia Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, Europe, and the Americas. IFRC also has country cluster delegations and country delegations throughout the world. Together, the Geneva Headquarters and the field structure (regional, cluster and country) comprise the IFRC Secretariat. IFRC has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment and other forms of harassment, abuse of authority, discrimination, and lack of integrity (including but not limited to financial misconduct). IFRC also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles.

About Community Engagement and Accountability (CEA)

Community engagement and accountability is a way of working that recognises and values all community members as equal partners, whose diverse needs, priorities, and preferences guide everything we do. We achieve this by integrating meaningful community participation, open and honest communication, and mechanisms to listen to and act on feedback, within our programmes and operations. Evidence, experience, and common sense tells us when we truly engage communities and they play an active role in designing and managing programmes and operations, the outcomes are more effective, sustainable, and of a higher quality. Working in partnership with communities is at the core of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. We commit to involving people in the management of aid, holding ourselves accountable to those we seek to assist, and building on local capacity in the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement’s Code of Conduct in Disaster Relief. The Principles and Rules for Red Cross and Red Crescent Humanitarian Assistance commit to including transparent communication and feedback mechanisms in emergency responses. In December 2019, the first set of ‘Movement-wide Commitments for Community Engagement and Accountability’ was approved at the Council of Delegates. The Movement is not alone in its efforts to strengthen community engagement and accountability. There are several global initiatives also working to support this aim. These shared commitments support collective action on improving community engagement across agencies and include the Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability (CHS), which sets out nine commitments that organisations and individuals involved in humanitarian response can use to improve the quality and effectiveness of the assistance they provide, the Interagency Standing Committee Commitments on Accountability to Affected People, and the Grand Bargain Commitments to increasing the participation of affected communities in addressing humanitarian needs.

About the Protection Gender and Inclusion (PGI)

The CEA approach also works together with PGI components as these both are a crosscutting issue that to be integrated in the programs and operations as an organization’s value. The Protection Gender and Inclusion identified as one of the strategic priorities in Strategy 2030 in its objective to mitigate violence discrimination and exclusion with particular attention to people who are vulnerable, excluded and marginalised. The PGI Policy approved at the 2022 General Assembly supported by the PGI Operational Framework developed in 2021 accentuate integration of value, power and inclusion as key features. The PGI policy define IFRC stand on addressing violence, discrimination and exclusion as “interlinked and to effectively address causes, risks and consequences of any of these issues we need to address them together” further affirmed by the framework that Protection Gender and Inclusion “integrates issues of gender, diversity and inclusion into any protection response to make it more appropriate, adapted and effective”. The core emphasis of PGI approach has been to be mainstreaming PGI into programme and operations while also emphasising specific themes in mainstreamed and specialised work addressing the marginalised, excluded and vulnerable and to develop the tools, guidance and procedures that addresses them in an integrated way. To support the programmatic guidance, institutional structures and systems to be developed and refined, with core PGI competencies being established for all staff and volunteers, and specific competencies being established for those specialised in PGI. Accompanying training and accreditation processes ensure a consistent quality across the national society.

All these policies, strategies, and tools have one single common aim to provide better help for people affected by violence, discrimination and exclusion.

Job Summary

Through Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS)’s National Strategy 2021-2025, ARCS has a vision as a national humanitarian organization, independent, impartial, neutral, with voluntary services, going towards self-sufficiency, delivering humanitarian services to the people affected by natural disasters and conflicts, providing social protection services, and reaching the communities whom others cannot reach. In addition, ARCS brings the strong value to recognize the strengths of all men and women, boys and girls in all communities. Our local, ever-present members, volunteers and youth provide support, training and skills development to build on these, helping people to take control of their own lives and environments. Our local members and volunteers empower their communities to create their own solutions that improve the lives of vulnerable people. ARCS’s goal is described to their 4 goals and commitments to ensure their work are based on community needs.

• Goal 1: Communities with strengthened life-saving resources and capacities to respond to and recover from natural disasters, health emergencies, and conflict generated shocks.
• Goal 2: Communities with higher long-term resilience through risk reduction, improved health and livelihoods, and adaptation to climate change and migration.
• Goal 3: Communities respecting humanitarian values and principles; promoting diversity, human dignity, tolerance, non-discrimination, social inclusion and peace.
• Goal 4: ARCS, a reformed National Society delivering impartial, neutral, effective, sustainable, relevant, and accountable humanitarian services.

The CEA policy and plan of action for ARCS is a public document that will support ARCS in valuing and guiding the integration and institutionalization of CEA within the ARCS National Strategy. Most importantly, the aim of this CEA policy is to assist ARCS in adopting a more systematic and planned approach to engaging communities, inclusive,and ensuring consistent and high-quality accountability across all our programs and operations. By institutionalizing CEA into our ways of working, ARCS will:

• Improve its understanding of the community context and needs.
• Lead to better, more effective programs and operations.
• Contribute to stronger community ownership and resilience.
• Build trust, access, and acceptance in communities.
• Uphold Movement commitments to accountability.
• Strengthen the organization’s reputation with communities, donors, and partners.

Specific Objectives of the CEA Policy Development

• To review current contents with up-to-date evidence-based data and situation analysis. The sources of evidence-based data could be from community surveys, stakeholder consultations, and feedback mechanisms.
• To address/reflect policy gaps as it relates to existing policies and legislations addressing CEA in ARCS. Include a thorough gap analysis comparing the current policy with international/national standards,best practices, and recommendations from relevant organizations.
• To create a policy that incorporates new trends and issues for effective integration ofCEA in programs and operations, and to make CEA a standard practice in the organization. Consider incorporating a section on emerging challenges and opportunities, to ensure the policy remains relevant and adaptable to changing contexts.
• To provide ARCS staff and volunteers with clear guidance on what is expected of them in relation to CEA, social inclusion, and “Do no harm”, including the roles and responsibilities of different departments and levels. How staff and volunteers can effectively engage with communities and integrate accountability mechanisms into their work.
• To describe how CEA should be integrated into other ARCS documents, including the strategic plans, annual plans, proposals and other policies and guidelines. What mechanisms for regular review and updating of these documents to ensure alignment with the CEA policy and to facilitate ongoing learning and improvement.
• To outline the support, resources, and operational plan to ensure this policy can be implemented within ARCS. Consider the allocation of human, financial, and technical resources required for policy implementation, including capacity-building initiatives for staff and volunteers.
• To develop the CEA Plan of Action in line with the Policy. This needs to define key milestones, indicators, and monitoring mechanisms for the implementation of the CEA Plan of Action, ensuring accountability.
• To decide how long the policy will be valid beyond its current end date. The policy should remain in effect after its current expiration date. Essentially, it involves extending the policy’s validity period to ensure it continues to be applicable and enforceable for a new, specified duration.

As PGI will be attached in the CEA policy, The following specific objectives of PGI are required to be highly considered:

• To enable the national society to realise its full potential to address violence, discrimination and exclusion.
• To support the national society to comprehensively assess and address their own institutional capacity, staff composition, and willingness to address those issues.
• To appoint dedicated focal points working on PGI-related institutional development and all staff working across programs and operations should be supported to have core PGI competencies.
• To comprehensively assess and address the range of PGI issues across all operations, programmes, and services in mainstreaming PGI.
• Continue advocacy, research, and learning to influence standards, norms, laws, and behaviour to ensure people’s dignity, access, participation, and safety.

Duties & Responsibilities

CEA within ARCS is still evolving. Significant efforts are needed to address issues related to roles and responsibilities,coordination, and standardization to ensure high-quality programming and services aligned with the CEA approach.

Recently, ARCS appointed a focal point for CEA as part of its commitment to mainstreaming CEA. Therefore,technical support from IFRC is still necessary to enhance CEA within the ARCS program. In terms of PGI itself,ARCS has a Gender Department that mostly the staffs are rotated or occupied with other task PGI related yet, the capacity building and technical support still needed as well. A primary challenge in ARCS is the insufficient capacity within the programs and operations team to effectively execute CEA activities, which should be integrated into their programs, especially the feedback mechanism and sensitive feedback mechanism. The operational standards for integrating CEA also need to be strengthened within programs. Community participation during responses is still not implemented well or systematically. A 2023 CEA and PGI assessment report revealed that beneficiaries still lack sufficient information and communication regarding the aid services provided by ARCS. Despite the initiation of CEA and PGI capacity building within ARCS a few years ago, there remains a high demand for technical implementation throughout the program cycle (assessment, planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation).

ARCS is currently lacking integration in PGI components in the programs or operation. The components are Dignity, Access, Participation, and Safety. Based on the ARCS-IFRC Community Feedback report, some women have a challenge to look for information, particularly related to aid distribution. Women communities are difficult to be reached as more male volunteers or staff from humanitarian organization were being mobilized, instead of women. It affects the women in having less access and information to get assistance. Reliable data also reflects that thousands of women are left behind as women-headed households as most have been widowed due to the conflicts and disasters. However, most of them are engaged as caregiver i.e. household tasks, childcare and taking care of the elderly parents. Their engagement prevents the women accessing income-generating activities and trainings that would help them to improve their livelihood.

A key component of this Policy is to improve coordination among department or unit in ARCS at all levels to ensure that decisions with significant integration of CEA and PGI within the programmes and operations are taken.

Key Activities, Outputs and Deliverables

It is expected that the consultant will undertake the following proposed strategy approaches and priorities in accordance with the objectives of this ToR:

Proposed Strategy Approaches

1. Conduct an analysis to decide on a new date and duration for the policy.
2. Analyse data and review the policy to reflect the current status of CEA in ARCS.
3. Identify key issues in programs and operations and develop actionable strategies and activities in the plan of action.
4. Perform a desk review and analyse relevant documents and information to inform policy formulation.
5. Conduct Key Informant Interviews (KII) and needs analysis to map who is doing what and where, including the stakeholder mapping
6. Review the level of implementation of the relevant policy.
7. Prepare a first draft of the CEA policy.
8. Update and finalize the draft policy for managing CEA in line with available strategies and principles.
9. Share the draft policy with ARCS and IFRC leadership in consultative meetings for inputs.
10. Collate inputs from ARCS and IFRC leadership and consolidate them to reflect feedback.
11. Present the consolidated policy to ARCS and IFRC CEA and PGI team for final review.

Proposed Priorities in CEA Policy

1. Scope and audience of policy: Who the policy applies to within ARCS and what departments or work it impacts upon. It is not limited to include external stakeholders such as communities, partners, or donors.
2. Key principles of the policy: The overall principles or commitments of ARCS in relation to CEA, to ensure a consistent approach to how ARCS engages with and are accountable to communities, transparency, responsiveness, inclusivity, and feedback mechanism. Also, the specific actions ARCS will take to ensure these commitments are met.
3. Roles and responsibilities: Who has responsibility in implementing the CEA policy and what their responsibilities are, at different level within ARCS, including leadership, staff, volunteers, to ensure accountability and effective coordination.
4. Implementation and monitoring of the policy: How the CEA policy will be implemented and monitored, mechanisms for regular review and adaptation based on feedback and lesson learned.
5. Related policies, strategies, procedure, and guidelines: List the existing ARCS policies, procedures, plans, guidelines that CEA will be integrated into or that link to CEA policy, to ensure coherence and harmonization across organizational frameworks.
6. Adopt a more systematic and planned approach to protection, gender and inclusion, and to ensure minimum standards consistent in emergency operations and long-term programmes.
7. Access and inclusion for people with disabilities, marginalized, most vulnerable including children emphasizing on the DAPS principle (Dignity, Access, Participation and Safety).

Based on the above activities, it is expected that the consultant will provide the corresponding deliverables in accordance with the objectives of this ToR:

Deliverable 1. First Draft of the CEA Policy and plan of action, with a summary PPT presented to IFRC and ARCS team for feedback clarifications, comments etc.

Deliverable 2. Final clean of CEA Policy and plan of action with a summary PPT presented to IFRC and ARCS team.

The final policy needs to be provided in at least 2 local languages Pashto and English, given ARCS’s main language is Pashto.

Proposed activities:

1. Discussion of TOR and workplan.
2. Consultant work to procedure first draft.
3. Present first draft to CEA policy and Plan of Action.
4. ARCS and IFRC CEA and PGI team review and submit to consultant.
5. Consultant harmonizes and submits to ARCS and IFRC CEA and PGI team.
6. Finalization and presentation to ARCS and IFRC leadership.
7. Finalization and submission.

Job Requirements

• The ideal consultant for developing the Community Engagement and Accountability (CEA) Policy for the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) should possess a postgraduate degree, preferably in fields such as humanitarian studies, social sciences, or public policy.