Promoting collective accountability and Disability risk mapping among AAP WG-E members, OPDs, INGOs, UN Agencies and government partners. This project is expected to strengthen Accountability for Affected Population (AAP) and disability inclusion in humanitarian action in Ethiopia, through capacity building, awareness raising and data collection. The project will also contribute to the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) AAP Action Plan by increasing capacity of members of the AAP Working Group-Ethiopia (AAP WG-E) on accountability concept, disability mainstreaming and methods towards collective accountability.

This project will support the strengthening of AAP capacity of humanitarian response partners and stakeholders through training programs on community engagement and accountability and awareness-raising among affected communities on their rights as active participants in the response. To build on the accomplishments of the previous EHF-funded project, capacity building activities will be implemented with the regional AAP WGs and field-level implementers. In addition, all EHF proposals during the project period will be reviewed by AAP and disability inclusion technical experts to ensure mainstreaming and strengthening of AAP and DI in EHF funded projects.

IOM will build the capacity of humanitarian actors on inclusion of persons with disabilities in humanitarian response in Ethiopia, through capacity building and awareness raising by IOM and Organizations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) for government protection cluster actors, IOM staff, partners, and the community on disability concepts, as well as a training on Universal Disability Friendly Design Standards to build capacity on how to remove the barriers to participation for people with disabilities. Furthermore, IOM will train OPDs on disability identification tools (Washington Group Questions), pilot two rounds of disability identification surveys in Saba Care 4 IDP site to enable OPDs to have concrete disability prevalence data to then better advocate for the need for policy reform within Bureau of Social Empowerment and Gender Equality.

A nation-wide baseline assessment will be conducted through IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) to provide a picture on the priority needs and primary barriers people with disabilities face in accessing humanitarian service in the target locations. DTM will conduct Site Assessment (SA) round  34 and Village Assessment Survey (VAS) round  17 ( August 2023) including the Disability Barrier Data Collection indicators and AAP indicators. This will strengthen identification of barriers for the Humanitarian Need Overview (HNO) which sets forth clear needs to strengthen inter-agency collaboration for humanitarian needs. Additional indicators specifically related to AAP will be part of the assessment to identify priority needs and concerns of communities affected by the crisis according to their views and perceptions. Regional level community perception surveys will also be conducted to focus on challenges to operationalizing AAP in specific contexts.

The findings of these nation-wide and regional level assessment will strengthen the advocacy for humanitarians to recognize affected communities as partners and active participants in the response. It will also help identify gaps and recommend ways to improve in engaging communities, how humanitarian actors coordinate with each other, and how to strengthen collective approaches to community engagement and accountability. The recommendations from communities on how to improve the response can also feed into the planning for the transition to development projects.

The project will target government agencies working in emergency humanitarian response, AAP WG-E members, AAP focal persons, OPDs, humanitarian organizations (NGOs, INGOs, UN agencies, etc.), members of the Disability Technical Working Group, and the crisis affected population throughout the country.