February 2024 — Accountability to affected populations (AAP), originating from the 2016 Grand Bargain Humanitarian Summit, mandates agencies and governments to involve communities in humanitarian response efforts. UNICEF's AAP vision revolves around seven pillars of accountability principles, emphasizing timely communication, community participation in decision-making, advocacy using community input, strengthening community capacities, accessible feedback mechanisms, protection from exploitation and abuse, and coordination among stakeholders. UNICEF has developed key documents to support AAP programming, including the 2022-2025 AAP Global Strategy. Based on the milestones and results set out in these documents, UNICEF ESARO organized a regional workshop in Nairobi from 23 to 25 January 2024 which brought together over 40 AAP focal persons and SBC Specialists from 17 countries in the region.

The AAP regional workshop aimed to empower SBC practitioners in integrating AAP into humanitarian and development programs by developing a unified framework in ESAR based on global and regional experiences. Expected outcomes included enhanced understanding of key AAP components, improved skills using modern tools, and increased capacity and motivation for AAP interventions. A pre-workshop survey revealed insights from 80% of country offices, highlighting the presence of AAP strategies in half of the offices and the strong integration of AAP into plans for 2024, focusing on basic programming, capacity building, and strategy development. Weaknesses in feedback management and evidence-based advocacy were identified for improvement.

The early part of the workshop focused on establishing the basics of AAP programming to ensure a common understanding among colleagues at UNICEF with varying levels of experience. The integration of AAP into core documents at country offices was emphasized, along with discussions on tools such as AAP performance benchmarks and integration into planning documents. The workshop delved into evidence generation for AAP advocacy and decision-making, addressing the identified weakness in this area. Work with governments and examples from different regions illustrated the importance of institutionalizing AAP and collaborating with government bodies. The workshop also explored linkages between AAP and PSEA, introduced a digital strategy, and discussed the importance of community feedback mechanisms. Internal coordination, country experiences, and donor interactions were also key highlights, showcasing the commitment to integrating AAP into humanitarian and development programming for 2024.

The three-day AAP regional workshop for ESA was a resounding success, achieving its objectives and outputs. Participants from across the region, including countries not traditionally in humanitarian programming, demonstrated a promising development-humanitarian nexus for AAP. Feedback from participants indicated high satisfaction with all aspects of the workshop, with over 71% rating it as extremely useful and the rest as very useful in improving their knowledge of key AAP components. The workshop facilitated increased confidence among participants in organizing and conducting AAP training courses and integrating AAP into core CO documents. Moving forward, commitments were made by country offices to strengthen AAP implementation, including enhancing the feedback loop closure, knowledge management, government involvement, and gender-sensitive approaches.