Is the Core Humanitarian Standard fit for the future?

The Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability (CHS) emerged in 2014 from an extensive consultation process and is now an industry standard and membership Alliance. 

Now through 2022 and 2023 the CHS Alliance is revising the Standard through consultation. Some of the key questions being explored in this revision include: 

• How can we make the standard more accessible and powerful for vulnerable people to hold organisations to account? 
• How can we leverage the standard to support more equitable relationships with vulnerable people and communities? 
• How can we expand support and use of the standard beyond the humanitarian sector to better link to other global accountability initiatives? 
• How can we make the CHS simple and accessible?

A4EP, a network of national organisations have contributed a very thoughtful and proactive piece to the revision process. They suggest among other things, the following recommendations for the revised CHS:

• A revised CHS should signal more clearly that feedback and complaints mechanisms fall short of genuine participation, already in the analysis and design of the intervention phase and that aid agencies, and the sector, should aim for the latter.
• In the revised version, be more explicit about different types of relevant capabilities, emphasising that those enabling the operational provision of assistance and protection are ultimately more important than administrative management ones.
• An absolutist instead of pragmatic and contextualised interpretation of ‘neutrality’ is factually not correct, including for most international agencies doing relief, nor is it desirable in the world of today and tomorrow.

Read more A4EP recommendations here and we encourage wide participation in the CHS revision process. If you are not sure how to engage then feedback using Loop and we can get it to the right place.