Organizations commit to strengthening community engagement and feedback

In August 2021, forty-three participants drawn from different UN agencies and civil society organisations participated in the virtual training on Accountability to Affected Population (AAP) as part of the preparations for the implementation of the Phase 2 of the Spotlight Initiative.

UN Women and UNICEF Zimbabwe in collaboration with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) facilitated the training which focused among other concepts on how AAP commitments can be practically applied in the field for strengthening identified programmatic areas  like feedback mechanisms, communication with communities and their meaningful participation.

Leonard Marikano, the Program Officer for  FACT Mutasa who attended the meeting, said: “During the emergency response of Cyclone Idai  there was very limited  time for consultations and when we  went to the site, that’s when we  identified the needs of the  communities through community engagement, hence interactions are always good to understand gaps and needs before any intervention.”

Leonard added that in Mutasa District they have received feedback from Gender Based Violence (GBV) survivors and community stakeholders through meetings and consultations.

He said: “They have requested for empowerment  or startup packs and we are starting to see a shift as we are progressing with this training. We have to better tailor our responses to effectively assist communities especially during  emergency GBV response. There are barriers  in terms of communication in some of the households where there is only one phone and the victim lives in the same house with the  perpetrator as well as network challenges.”

Mavis Madhuku from Bantwana Organisation explained how her organization was working on GBV cases.

“As part of our interventions for GBV cases, we have a transport voucher system given to  district social welfare for assisting  survivors to access critical services.  We have client satisfaction surveys that are carried out whereby we  ask our clients on how this system has  worked for them and what they think needs to be improved. We have been getting valuable feedback from our clients,” Mavis said.

The training was very interactive, and participants shared their experiences, views and  challenges and looked extensively at 8 key lessons from AAP concepts and principles and on how to develop an AAP action plan. There was also focus on enhancing understanding on AAP and reviewing key Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC)’s commitments for AAP.

“ For a very long time I felt like it was my lone walk where I constantly asked myself if, as part of civil society, I am in any meaningful/significant way making a change in the lives of communities. It was refreshing to realise how most of us are pushing to see that change”, said Jennifer Tavengerwei, Programs Director for FACT Mutare.

Nobuhle Moyo, Project Officer for Leonard Cheshire Disability Zimbabwe said, “ Radio programs have been influential for the organisation during this COVID-19 period. After each  radio program we receive many calls on our toll free from beneficiaries engaging us further  regarding issues we would have raised so providing a feedback mechanism such as the toll free line ensures active participation of the beneficiaries.”

The AAP training for Spotlight Initiative partners presented an opportunity for a wider reach and the sharing of experiences from organizations and agencies on some of the components of AAP that are already being practised and need sustained and comprehensive inclusion in programme planning. 

This training has also highlighted issues of better collaboration and coordination; and the need for in-depth and further discussions on how AAP capacities can be developed for development practitioners.   

“This training was really comprehensive and insightful. I am looking forward to the second training on how to incorporate some of these principles as the Spotlight Initiative programme is strongly focused on community engagement”,  said Pat Made, the Technical Coordinator for the Spotlight Initiative at UN Women.