Community participation in humanitarian action: unfulfilled promises
- Page updated onAugust 27, 2026
Community participation is a subject the humanitarian system has been failing year after year since the beginning of time, due to a lack of political will on all sides, despite occasional well-intentioned efforts.
Table of contents:
A revolution come to nothing: participation as a tool
Participation as an influence on decisions when there is no hurry?
The core humanitarian standard highlights the importance of community participation. Indeed, it states that people and communities affected by humanitarian emergencies should be able to influence decisions about the humanitarian assistance they receive and be an active part of the humanitarian response. However, it is also logical to understand that the level of community participation in an emergency humanitarian response cannot be the same as in development programs. Long-term interventions allow for a greater scope and transformative ambition that is unthinkable in acute crises.
Participation as dialogue
The Grand Bargain of 2016 began with a very high level of expectation around a "participation revolution", which gradually declined. This pact places, at least declaratively, the people affected by a humanitarian emergency at the centre of humanitarian decision-making. What is more, it even speaks of actively involving them throughout the entire decision-making process. To this end, it proposes that there must be a continuous dialogue with individuals, local actors and vulnerable communities through the channels they prefer and with which they feel safest. That dialogue has several aims:
- Provide key information to affected people about risks, threats, protection services and available humanitarian assistance, and how to access it. This is to enable people to make informed decisions for their safety and survival.
- To learn their views and perspectives on the performance, relevance and quality of humanitarian response.
- To learn about local practices and capabilities, as well as strategies used to cope with the crisis.
- Finally, ensure that, as a result of this dialogue, actions are taken to improve and adapt the response to local needs, and inform those affected.
Participation, as another process to be applied
Over the years and with this understanding of community participation in mind, many tools have been developed. These include repositories of good practice examples, a set of indicators, more specific guidance for Humanitarian Coordinators, tools for integrating the perceptions and opinions of affected people into needs analysis and humanitarian response plans, or methods for auditing the essential humanitarian standard for organizations, among many other things.
However, neither grand declarations have succeeded in transforming reality, nor are tools everything.
Advances in information and accountability to communities
Improvements have been made in obtaining information from individuals and communities affected by an emergency. This information on their perception of the context and the quality or adequacy of the response is fundamental. Moreover, there has also been improvement in the communication of information from organizations to the population.
In this regard, there have also been significant improvements in accountability to affected populations (AAP). Just a few years ago, comments and complaints from affected people were not systematically collected, but today it is the norm.
Again, however, these changes have not brought about a change in the relationships between the organizations that respond and the populations that are assisted.
Related blog articles:
The revolution in community participation is still pending
We have not gone beyond a minimum agreement
What the Grand Bargain promoted was not a transformative approach. On the contrary, it has been a minimal agreement, deliberately imperfect so as to be realistic in its application even in the most complex humanitarian contexts. Traditional humanitarian actors continue to hold the power to gather information, filter it, analyse it, interpret it, and thereby decide what humanitarian assistance is offered and how it is offered. Ultimately, the power dynamics in decision-making have not changed.
The reality is that organisations are still afraid of what the affected population might say, ask for and, above all, decide. Moreover, there is not much incentive to go beyond carrying out consultations on the terms set by these same organisations. What is more, the results of the consultations often go nowhere. If the responses to a survey say that humanitarian assistance is not meeting their main needs, or that they feel they cannot influence how it is delivered, what do we do? The logical thing is to stop running surveys and start opening up dialogues and participatory mechanisms to evaluate, redesign and re-plan. However, at times it seems that the aim of running the survey was, precisely, to have a survey done.
Some propose transforming the project cycle to allow for participation in the project.
There are different views on the subject. On the one hand, there are those who think that the revolution was never possible or realistic, given that the timeframes that are handled in humanitarian action are not sufficient for true participation. On the other hand, there are more and more voices that precisely ask for a change in those timelines, increasing the duration of the humanitarian program cycle (among other things), in order to facilitate more multiannual and flexible funding and the inclusion of local and national actors in the processes, so that response plans better integrate the nexus between peace, development and humanitarian action, and, of course, so that the participation revolution that never came to be can be rethought.
How to cite this page
Abarca, B. (August 27, 2026). Community participation in humanitarian action: unfulfilled promises. Salud Everywhere. https://saludeverywhere.com/en/humanitarian-aid-and-international-development/community-engagement-in-humanitarian-aid/
External links
- IASC. Strengthening accountability to affected people.
- ALNAP, 2023. Putting people at the centre: accountability to affected populations.
- Ground Truth Solutions, OCHA, 2022. Listening is not enough: People demand transformational change in humanitarian assistance.
- ODI, 2021. The Grand Bargain at five years: an independent review.
- Grand Bargain, 2017. Agreed, practical definition of the meaning of «participation».
- Asgary & Waldman, 2017. The elephant in the room: toward a more ethical approach with accountability toward intended beneficiaries in humanitarian aid.
- Chambers, 2004. Ideas for development: reflecting forwards.