We have some challenging news to share: after careful consideration, the Loop Governing Board and the Host Organisations' CEOs have made the difficult decision to temporarily hibernate the Talk to Loop platform.
Over the past three and a half years, Talk to Loop was funded as a pilot across six countries to deliver on the global calls for an independent feedback mechanism. During this time we have successfully onboarded over 750 organisations, referred 350 sensitive reports for further action, which have resulted in 35 investigations and another 60 referrals for assistance for people in crisis.
Our commitment to creating an adaptable, locally-owned tool that overcomes digital, literacy, and reporting barriers to closing the feedback Loop and reporting sensitive issues safely, has been unwavering. You can see some of our impact reports here, with more coming over the next few months.
The piloted Charitable Franchise Structure and our dedication to people-centred accountability and design processes as well as decentralised structures, and radical transparency are achievements we take pride in.
The feedback we've received and the statistics we have compiled, highlight the positive impact this tool has made in both humanitarian and development contexts, especially for the inclusion of minority and marginalised communities, primarily driven by people affected by crisis. It suggests a much larger impact that Talk to Loop as a tool could make if it were successfully adopted and integrated into humanitarian and development ecosystems in a sustainable way.
However, despite our successes, we face significant challenges, primarily due to insufficient sector-wide support for partnerships and funding. While we have experienced strong support from communities and key actors, sadly we have also seen low levels of responses back to communities for both open and sensitive feedback as well as a small number of stakeholders impeding transparent accountability processes, including threats to our staff and host organisations, as a result of sensitive reports being referred to them.
While Talk to Loop has shown potential for considerable impact, and a strong demand from communities, we are currently unable to offer the level and quality of service we aspire to due to these overlapping concerns. Recognizing the importance of timely responses in feedback mechanisms, we therefore believe it is more accountable to withdraw from providing a service that cannot meet these expectations and the duty of care we aspire to, rather than contribute to the lack of trust or confidence in two way feedback mechanisms by communities.
While we see some of these push backs to true accountability as a success indicator, we also acknowledge that achieving change and garnering support takes time. Unfortunately, we have been unable to secure the institutional support and resources needed to sustain Loop effectively for long enough to build this necessary trust and partnership.
It is therefore, with a heavy heart that we must announce the immediate hibernation of our operations to ensure we manage our existing grants accountably. The technology will be hibernated, with a plan to be able to reopen it, in the best structure, to influence long term inclusion and accountability for people affected by crises.
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We are committed to documenting and sharing our learnings to contribute to the broader efforts of shifting power and practising accountability and inclusion, across the humanitarian, development and technology sectors. To this end, in the coming weeks, Loop's team will spend time reaching out to partners, communities, and supporters to communicate this difficult decision.
If you are interested in learning more about how we arrived at this juncture then we invite you to join an open fire side chat about Talk to Loop's journey as a systems-level accountability tool, including the learnings, challenges, and potential for the future. Please join Loop's team for an open dialogue on March the 15th at 14:00 GMT, click here to register and please share your questions in advance.
We are also open to share more about the technological solutions that we co designed with communities, incorporation of oral dialects, automated language translation with a human review process, and other unique inclusive design elements. Our objective being to contribute to improving inclusive and accessible technology solutions wherever possible.
We will also be continuing to reflect and consult on how the Loop technology could be more strategically positioned within the humanitarian architecture at a country level, to have the mandate and credibility required to deliver an independent feedback and safe reporting mechanism for the sector.
If any of those ideas resonate with you or you believe in the potential of an independent tool like Talk to Loop, and have ideas or think that your organisation could help us find a path through, please get in touch with Alex at alex@talktoloop.org.
Finally to all of those individuals and organisations who have supported the vision of Loop in so many different ways, either as Host Organisations; Governing Board members; Advisory Board members; donors; tireless advocates; researchers and journalists; underpaid and over committed contractors and staff; and the thousands of accountability champions in over 18 countries, thank you for your help in proving that communities have full knowledge and capacity and will feedback and report when Aid is great and impactful and also when it is not.
To them we are sorry Loop has not yet borne the fruit we know they deserve.
Best regards,
The Loop Team.
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