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Staff are already being fired, country operations are closing and essential Aid is being reduced or put on hold. Many organisations are reviewing their budgets and trying to find ways to streamline their costs to stay afloat, and maintain essential work in communities.
One area that is often the first to be cut when finances are thin is budget lines for staff and associated costs for: Communication with Communities; Community Feedback Mechanisms; safe reporting mechanisms; and ongoing accountability and engagement with communities work, including call centres and hotlines.
We are extremely concerned about such cuts removing the ability for communities to request urgent assistance, safely report fraud, corruption, gender based violence (GBV), child protection, and sexual exploitation and abuse.
In addition, with the anticipated decrease of oversight and lack of tight accountability systems, combined with the pressure ensuing from decreased services we know that this will lead to escalating abuse of power resulting in more marginalisation, discrimination and protection risks of communities in need. These risks are greatest in countries with high dependencies on Aid, where governance is poor, and where protracted crises or conflicts, climate shocks and other crises consistently affect communities putting pressure on critical resources and essential services.
Data on Loop in Somalia since January 24th shows a marked reduction in organisations ability to respond to referrals for assistance, especially GBV, so far. This will increasingly result in direct harm to the most vulnerable in communities and the increase of potential fraud and corruption of the limited Aid going to humanitarian and development contexts. It is critical that community voices and experiences remain central to the provision of safe, equitable Aid. Organisations reducing budgets must maintain the capacity to respond to reports, and as a sector we can save costs by collaborating to provide a more efficient reporting mechanism to safely get reports to these relevant trained actors.
In response to this real and actual risk, Loop is proposing an adjusted emergency approach to help fill this gap through a low cost, collective mechanism, while maintaining our high standards of data protection and safe referrals which have been tried and tested over the past 4 years.
A global service for national and international actors to promote Loop as a safe, anonymous reporting mechanism. This service will be able to:
Receive reports in English, French, Arabic and Somali dialects in the short term, adding on other languages based on demand and Loop’s capacity to handle and refer reports ensure proper informed consent procedures are followed by native speakers.
Receive reports via the web, WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger and increasingly via SMS and Voice through mobile networks in key locations. We have a simple QR code and standardised images to invite communities or partners to feedback.
Refer reports of fraud and corruption to relevant organisations focal points, who can register on Loop and respond accordingly.
Within certain parameters, Loop will also strive to handle protection reports that are received by referring them to relevant organisations using in-country referral pathways maintained by the Protection Cluster, MHPSS TF, GBV AoR and Child Protection AoR. However, it should be noted that due to a lack of country-level presence of national staff to conduct regular context analysis and service mapping, especially during a period of rapid change in the provision of services, Loop’s timely handling of these reports will be reliant on the availability and accuracy of country-level referral pathways. In some key focus countries, we foresee that it is best to partner directly with clusters and AoRs to support handling of these referrals in order to ensure the timeliness of the response.
Deliver open, fortnightly online onboarding sessions with open Q&A sessions for technical specialists to understand what to expect.
If needed, sign a standardised Data Sharing Agreement (DSA) in line with GDPR requirements and our Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA). This aligns with our sensitive reporting framework.
- Streamline their country and organisation-level safe reporting channels, and prioritise keeping their critical staff to actually manage reports when they do come in.
- Reduce overhead costs (temporarily or until further notice) of call centre staff, phone lines and investments in digital infrastructure.
- Use existing promotional material to promote Loop in communications materials as their organisational reporting channel.
Encourage national organisations to also use Loop to manage gaps in their communication with communities, as donors and partners reduce their funding and footprint in each country.
Organisations would pay a monthly fee of €1,000 per month (€100 for national organisations). This would be flexible on an as needed basis, enabling them to switch back to their own direct reporting channels if other funding streams or plans come into place.
Additional online onboarding, training and support is available at an extra fee of €3,000 per session for up to 20 people from any organisation. It has been our experience that a successful accountability journey through Talk to Loop requires onboarding so that staff have the tools to share the new input channels with communities, clearly communicate the scope of service of the new feedback mechanism and listen, engage and take action as a result of community feedback in a safe and timely way.
This is not a complete, fail proof service. This is an incomplete safety net, in a challenging situation, for some actors who do not want to leave an empty vacuum or cannot ensure a simple, safe reporting channel in key contexts.
The wider system level gaps are inevitable, for example gaps in service provision, the ability to provide assistance and out-dated referral pathways leading to delays in referrals and reduced response rates to referrals made.
There will also be a lack of in-country technical knowledge and networks that have been a prerequisite in normal times for Loop. The accessibility will be lower than Loop’s usual standards for delivering the service. But, this is an opportunity to deliver a collective approach that can proactively mitigate against inevitable gaps in accountability. We believe that providing something is better than leaving a complete vacuum of ways for communities to raise their voices and report fraud or abuse.
We are calling on organisations to:
- Consider Loop to ensure ongoing communications with communities as you scale down your presence and programs in any context.
- Consider Loop to ensure your local and national partners can maintain positive communications with communities during this difficult time.
- If you have an existing mobile network contract in your country of operation which has a short code, reverse charge number and are thinking about putting it on ice or abandoning it, then get in touch with alex@talktoloop.org to see if we can partner to bring more accessible input channels to your country quickly and efficiently.
- Share country level focal points for relevant clusters and AoRs interested to work together to support the handling of future referrals to contact camille@talktoloop.org to discuss further.
We are calling on donors to:
- Support this backstop service and help us to add on new languages, new voice input channels and staff up to manage the scale.
- Discuss specific country focused roll outs and scale up where needs are strong.
- Share this offer with your partners to consider cost saving approaches.
Everyone else:
- Join our call in advocating for the importance of community voices and in not compromising on the value CFMs and safe reporting channels bring to communities.
- If you are leaving a role, reducing budget lines or concerned about community voices staying at the centre of effective Aid, then please share this with relevant decision makers and feel free to contact us for additional information and ideas to partner.
We will continue our in depth, nationally integrated, collective services in Somalia and possibly the DRC.
In addition, in the short term, we will pivot to provide a lighter touch, collective service across Africa and the MENA region, as a safety net for safe reporting of fraud and corruption, as risks for communities increase.
We will aim to add on additional national numbers for non literate and non digitally connected people if there is strong demand and if we find partners to work together with in more countries - specifically linking existing Mobile Network contracts to the Loop infrastructure. We will prioritise countries with high dependencies on Aid, where governance is poor, and where protracted conflicts, climate shocks and other crises consistently affect communities, putting pressure on critical resources and essential services.
We plan to add voice (in Arabic, English and French) as an input option via existing online input channels: WhatsApp, etc. This will help to hear from low literate communities if no mobile Network contract (SMS or IVRR - Voice feedback through phone) is yet possible.
Based on demand we will scale up our staffing to provide more onboarding and training where needed.
In the mid-term we will continue to push for Loop to be hosted and managed in each country nationally, where there is greatest local demand. With this more in-depth presence, Loop as a service can invest in wider mapping of organisations and referral pathways, as well as adding on new national languages and addressing context specific barriers to safe reporting based on the needs of communities.
We would also continue to write analytical reports of the trends in feedback and sensitive reports coming into Loop in each specific context when we have this national ownership and leadership such as in Somalia.
We will also find a sustainable way to maintain a scalable (up and down), nationally owned (in multiple countries), independent mechanism that receives feedback and reports safely on behalf of the collective. The aim is to ensure that no matter what happens to the scale and size of funding, communities' voices are at the centre of effective and safe Aid.
We thank you for your commitment to accountability, community power and efficient service delivery and remain open to start conversations right away.
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