North-East Nigeria: Community Engagement, Accountability and Localization (CEAL) Working Group

The community engagement, accountability and localization (CEAL) promote humanitarian action that is accountable to affected people, and it facilitates coordination approaches that integrate gender, age, disability and other vulnerability considerations into all aspects of humanitarian response.

Accountability to affected people is:

The process of using power responsibly by taking account of, giving account to, and being held accountable by the people we see to assist. (Adapted from the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS)).

Accountability supports a rights-based approach. It recognizes and supports:

• the right to life with dignity
• the right to receive humanitarian assistance
• the right to protection and security
• the transfer of resources to minimize harm and promote positive effects
• meeting needs
• ensuring humanitarian action promotes a positive message
• improves programme relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and impact
• improves quality of services by ensuring that the response meets what the affected people feel are their needs, not what others may feel are their needs