Accountability to communities most at risk and learning with them

Overview

Stage eight of risk-informed development

This resource forms stage eight of our Risk-Informed Development Guide, which provides a comprehensive stage-by-stage approach to working with communities most at risk.

By enabling and building the capacity of communities to manage the outcomes, results of actions, strategies and interventions agreed for risk-informed development, greater resilience is enabled for a more sustainable future. This is especially true because risks and development factors are dynamic and evolve continuously.

To achieve this stage, communities most at risk need to hold to account duty bearers and other stakeholders perpetrating the denial of rights.

This allows them to realise their rights and bring justice to any rights previously denied.

Holding to account other stakeholders in the planning process ensures they are supporting communities to update, adapt and implement their plans. Shared learning is also vital at this stage.

Aims

The aims of this accountability and learning stage are to:

• Ensure that the actions and interventions have resulted in the desired positive change or development gains; review their effectiveness and how they might be changed or strengthened
• Monitor risks and risk drivers by keeping track of new data and knowledge that may influence development and risks for the community and locality
• Ensure that stakeholders and decision makers are held accountable for their responsibilities and there is open dialogue around it
• Continue to learn via what is taking place in the risk-informed development planning process and via the monitoring of risks, risk drivers and development

Key steps in stage eight

1. Agree responsibilities

Together with the planning leadership committee and community taskforce, discuss and agree responsibilities within the community leadership and members to collaboratively participate in accountability and learning activities as actions, strategies and interventions are realised. 

2. Identify accountable stakeholders

Identify decision makers and accountable stakeholders (i.e. individuals, institutions, government agencies and departments, local government units, etc.) within and outside the community who should be involved.

3. Social audits

Strengthen the capacity of communities most at risk to conduct social audits to understand the effectiveness and success of:

Community engagement and leadership 

Refer to the 11 success factors for community-based disaster risk management in the CBDRM Cookbook to examine the effectiveness of the risk-informed development planning, especially characteristics of sustainability and institutionalisation.

Coherence

Refer to the 19 key ingredients for successful coherence in the Coherence Cookbook to evaluate the risk-informed development planning process and its outcomes with respect to other sectoral or local, regional, national and global agenda on risk informed, resilient and sustainable development.

4. Review actions

Review actions being undertaken as agreed in stage seven. This includes: 

• Monitor monthly and yearly targets and the schedule of activities for each of the project or strategic interventions proposed, as set by communities most at risk
• Devise a method to address roadblocks that may emerge and facilitate inclusive feedback
• Set up a community taskforce for accountability and learning who can oversee this stage – it should be gender-balanced and representative of the community most at risk
• Support capacity strengthening as needed

Additional resources

• Social audit
• Economic Literacy and Budget Accountability Groups
• Gantt charts: a visual representation that provides an instant overview of the status of a project; it outlines all activities involved in a project against a timescale 

Stage 9: Repeat and strengthen

View the complete Risk-Informed Development Guide