SERVICES: National Platforms
Sri Lanka
Context: OCHA Sri Lanka established an Accountability to Affected People (AAP) Working Group (AAP WG), under the auspices of the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT), in June 2022. The aim of the AAP WG is to establish collective approaches for engagement with affected people, communities, and local actors to ensure a more principled, effective, and accountable humanitarian response to the current economic crisis in Sri Lanka. The AAP WG is guided by an AAP Action Plan and the forthcoming extension of the Sri Lanka Humanitarian Needs and Priorities (HNP) Plan for October–December 2022, which includes AAP as a priority area of focus.
The AAP WG Chair is the OCHA AAP/PSEA Officer, and work is underway to identify an NGO Co-Chair. The AAP WG meets on a fortnightly basis. The AAP WG engages closely with other relevant coordination structures such as the PSEA Inter-Agency Network and Protection Sector.
The AAP WG has mapped AAP and community engagement activities, and provides technical advice, analysis, and advocacy to organisational and response decision-makers, including the HCT, Inter-Sector Coordination Group (ISCG), sectors, and working groups. To ensure strategic response planning reflects the needs and priorities of affected people, the AAP WG convened a series of consultations in Sinhala, Tamil, and English with more than 40 local and national NGOs and CSOs to inform the extension of the HNP Plan.
The AAP WG will develop common messaging documents for priority sectors in appropriate languages and formats and undertake an online perception survey with affected people to determine their level of satisfaction with the delivery of humanitarian assistance. The AAP WG is also exploring opportunities to scale up existing agency feedback and complaints mechanisms to create inter-agency reporting channels, including a tollfree telephone hotline and email address.
Government links: N/A.
Leads/Chairs/Co-Chairs: The AAP WG Chair is Emma Cliffe, AAP/PSEA Officer at OCHA.
The AAP WG welcomes expressions of interest from NGOs for the AAP WG Co-Chair role. NGOs should already be HNP Plan operational partners engaged in one or more relevant sectors.
Interested NGOs can nominate themselves by sending a message to Emma Cliffe, AAP/PSEA Officer at OCHA: emma.cliffe@un.org. The NGO Co-Chair selection will be approved by the full AAP WG membership.
National and international actors involved: The AAP WG is currently comprised of nine participating UN, NGO and donor agencies including FCDO, Islamic Relief, OCHA, RCO, Save the Children, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNOPS, and WFP.
The AAP WG encourages participation from any organisations responding to the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka. Interested organisations can request membership by sending a message to Emma Cliffe, AAP/PSEA Officer at OCHA: emma.cliffe@un.org with contact details of a nominated primary representative and alternate focal point.
