Setting the standard: CWS trains other organizations in quality & accountability
Thursday, October 15, 2009

The chaos that follows a disaster, such as the recent earthquake in Indonesia or the massive flooding that gripped the Philippines, often makes delivering quality humanitarian aid a challenge. Equally problematic is ensuring that agencies engaged in delivering aid to people in need are accountable to supporters and those they serve.

CWS staff are helping to train humanitarian aid workers to meet international  standards, increasing the effectiveness of emergency response efforts across the board. Photo: CWS

By Matt Hackworth/CWS

The chaos that follows a disaster, such as the recent earthquake in Indonesia or the massive flooding that gripped the Philippines, often makes delivering quality humanitarian aid a challenge. Equally problematic is ensuring that agencies engaged in delivering aid to people in need are accountable to supporters and those they serve.

Through its quality and accountability training programs, Church World Service is working to bring order and responsibility to the times of disorder and confusion.

“We’re trying to make sure the people who need help get the absolute best help possible while making sure those who support the work are also served,” said Marvin Parvez, CWS Asia-Pacific Regional Coordinator.

In November 2005, the CWS Pakistan-Afghanistan launched trainings on the set of humanitarian aid standards known as “Sphere standards.”   More than 280 humanitarian aid organizations have participated, training more than 850 aid workers from local, national and international non-governmental organizations, donor agencies and the United Nations.

Additionally, CWS created publications (handbooks, posters and leaflets) on the Sphere standards, translated them into Urdu, English, Pashto and Dari, and distributed them to 5,417 aid workers.

“As disasters increase and impact is biggest in areas where state investment is minimal and resilience to disasters is low, it becomes hard for agencies to sustain a response,” Parvez said. “These standards help provide well organized and planned responses that are more time and money effective. Training on quality and accountability themes is an investment for better and more efficient responses in the future.”

CWS will likely deploy staff to coordination centers in the Philippines and other Asia disaster areas to provide training on quality and accountability, bringing some order to chaos.

Media Contact:
Lesley Crosson, 212-870-2676, lcrosson@churchworldservice.org
Jan Dragin, 781-925-1526, jdragin@gis.net

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