2. Definitions

Programme quality when responding to humanitarian crises means addressing immediate needs in an appropriate, effective and timely manner. Good quality cannot be achieved without accountability. Only when people whose lives are affected by crisis are meaningfully engaged in programme design, delivery and review will their needs be met and will they be supported by CARE to become empowered, less exposed to risk and more resilient in the long-term.

Accountability is the responsible exercise of power and therefore must be a built-in feature of an agile response management practice: how decisions are made in a response, how performance of a response is managed, and how success of a response is defined and measured . CARE must be accountable from top to bottom, bottom to top, inside and out, and to every stakeholder. Most important of all, the decisions CARE makes at every stage of a humanitarian crisis must be determined by the needs, concerns and interests the women, men, girls and boys whose lives are affected. CARE must make those decisions in the spirt of openness and transparency and be accountable for their impact.