Community Engagement and

Accountability
Self-assessment and planning workshop

Public
 Purpose of this workshop

Explore the factors that Self-assessment to Develop action plans to Vote on which
are supporting the measure how well the strengthen CEA activities should be
National Society to be National Society and its institutionally and within prioritized and
accountable to programmes and programmes and included in the
communities and the operations are meeting operations – including National Society’s
factors that are holding it the minimum actions resources, responsibilities CEA Strategy and
back - and how to for CEA and timelines work plan 2

overcome them
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 What is community engagement & accountability?

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 In pairs discuss…
(5 mins)

Introduce yourself – name, role

and where you work

Why did you want to come to

this workshop?

Why do you think engagement

with communities is important?

How accountable is the National

Society to communities now?

Expectations for this workshop

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 QUESTIONS?

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 Force field analysis exercise

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 What is a force field analysis?
Using a “force field analysis”

Strong community
Supporting engagement and Preventing
accountability

At the institutional level

Purpose: Understand what is supporting the organisation to be accountable to communities, and what
is holding it back – at the organisational level - and brainstorm potential solutions to overcome these 7
barriers, including who can lead on each solution and the resources needed
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 Developing a shared understanding

What do we mean by What do we mean by

institutionalizing
CEA?
Making it part of the
organization’s DNA, or
business as usual
Integrating CEA in strategies,
policies, plans and processes
Ensuring it is a predictable,
systematic part of every
activity, at every stage of the
programme cycle or disaster
response
factors?
Factors are things that can
increase or decrease
Factors can be either tangible
items, such as policies,
systems, funding, processes or
staffing
Or intangibles, such as
feelings, attitudes, culture or
relationships

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 Force Field Analysis – Stage one (50 mins)
Enabling strong CEA →
These are elements or forces that
exist now that support the National
Society to be accountable to
communities in a systematic and
reliable way. Factors could be
policies, behaviors, structures,
processes, and attitudes at the
branch or HQ level, or within
Movement partners
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← Preventing strong CEA
By contrast, these are elements or
forces that work against the
National Society being
accountable to communities. The
factors may disrupt processes,
hinder good practice, or
disincentivize systematic
approaches to CEA. These features
are often most intuitive to identify.
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 QUESTIONS?

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 Force Field Analysis – Groups

Group Group Group Group

1 2 3 4

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 Force Field Analysis – Stage two (50 mins)

Who – which What

Barriers to strong
Causes Effects Solutions positions or resources are
CEA
teams? needed?

No evidence Limited understanding of CEA is not well Briefing and CEA Manager Funding for
No training CEA implemented training rolled Leadership to training
or included in out for all staff support, fund Training
programmes and make materials
mandatory A CEA
expert/manager

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 Self-assessment exercise

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 Self-assessment exercise (70mins)
Instructions:
1. Complete the
institutionalization checklist by
discussing each question in
your group and answering yes,
no or sometimes or somewhat
2. If you don’t know the answer
leave it blank
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1. Strengthen community engagement and accountability
understanding and capacity at all levels in the National Society
YES NO SOMEWHAT
Is there leadership buy-in and
support for CEA?
Does the National Society have a
CEA policy?
Does the National Society have a
CEA Strategy or plan?
Does the National Society have key
performance indicators that
measure levels of accountability to
communities?
Have staff and volunteers been
trained on CEA? 15
 Self-assessment exercise (70mins)
Instructions:
1. Complete the programmes section by discussing how well your programme – or the National Society’s programmes in
general – meet each of the 14 CEA minimum actions
2. Calculate the gap between how well the National Society meets an action now – and how well it should be done
3. Decide which CEA minimum actions should be a priority for the National Society and so be included in a CEA strategy or
plan. It could be actions with a big gap, or actions that are very important for your National Society
4. Follow the same process for emergency response operations

Minimum actions for community 1. How often do 2. How well do you 3. How well would 4. Gap between 5. Is this
engagement and accountability you do this do this action? you like to do this how well you do it action a
(As per the CEA Guide) action? 5 = excellent action? now, and would priority?
Always 5 = excellent like to do it Yes
4 = good
Sometimes 4 = good Calculate the gap No
3 = ok
by taking box 2
Rarely 2 = needs 3 = ok
away from box 3
Never improving 2 = needs
1 = poor improving
During assessments 1 = poor
1. Search for existing information about Sometimes 3 4 1 (e.g., 4– 3 = 1) No
the community
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2. Involve the community in planning the Rarely 2 5 3 (e.g., 5 -2 = 3) Yes
assessment
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 Action planning exercise

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 Action planning exercise (90mins)
Instructions:
1. Complete the action plan template by listing which CEA minimum actions for institutionalization, programmes
and operations you identified as a priority, how, who will do this, resources required and potential challenges
2. Groups do not need to complete all sections if they only focused on one area in the self-assessment
3. Use the findings from the force-field analysis and self-assessment exercises
4. Add more boxes if needed, but be realistic about what can be achieved in the timeframe

CEA Action Plan

Priority CEA Activities Who Resources Timeline Enablers Barriers Solutions /

minimum mitigation
actions
Outcome 1 Institutionalization: Community engagement and accountability is institutionalized within the
National Society’s ways of working
Strengthen 1) Deliver the CEA Manager Funding for By end of Q1 Leadership Other Leadership to
CEA capacity CEA Foundation & IFRC, other the training, support for departments help
and Training dept to training CEA not seeing CEA encourage
understanding attend materials, staff as their other
at all levels time to responsibility departments 18
to attend
participate
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 Thank you for attending
Final questions?

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