Sexual Exploitation in the Aid Sector

Thursday 25th October 2018 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Penny Mordaunt)]

Following my oral statement of 20 February and my written ministerial statements of 20 March and 17 May, I am updating the House on the outcomes of the international summit that I hosted in London on 18 October, Putting People First: Tackling Sexual Exploitation and Abuse and Sexual Harassment in the Aid Sector.

The aims of the summit

Last week’s summit followed the event on 5 March which I co-hosted with the Charity Commission and where I announced new, enhanced safeguarding standards for the organisations DFID works with. The 18 October summit was attended by over 500 participants and focused on driving up the safeguarding standards of organisations worldwide who work in the international aid sector.

Aid must be delivered in a way which does no harm. If not, we will have failed in our duty to protect the most vulnerable. We must deter wrongdoing and hold perpetrators to account. This includes enabling prosecutions by law enforcement agencies if justified.

This work is driven by four things: our determination to prevent incidents of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and sexual harassment from happening in the aid sector in the first place; to listen to those who are affected when it does occur; to respond robustly but sensitively; and to learn from every case.

The summit helped provide a focus for the work driven by the UK since February. Our major partners were asked to attend the summit with concrete practical actions which will bring about significant changes. I am pleased that many of them rose to the challenge.

Donors (representing over 90% of global official development assistance in 2017), the United Nations, international financial institutions, CDC (the UK’s development finance institution) and representatives of around 500 major British NGOs, contractors and research organisations each presented commitments. In total, there were eight separate sets of collective commitments.

Each document stated what that group of organisations will do to achieve four long-term fundamental changes—or strategic shifts—to fundamentally rewrite the way the aid sector operates, from root to branch:

Ensure support for survivors, victims and whistleblowers; enhance accountability and transparency; strengthen reporting; and tackle impunity;

Incentivise cultural change through strong leadership, organisational accountability and better human resource processes;

Adopt global standards and ensure they are met or exceeded; and

Strengthen organisational capacity and capability across the international aid sector to meet these standards.

Specific initiatives unveiled at the summit

Measures announced to help deliver the four shifts included:

a new international vetting scheme for aid workers led by Interpol, to be piloted over five years with DFID funding, to deter abusers from entering the sector and to identify and arrest them quickly if they do;

UK NGOs with support from DFID will test a “passport” for aid workers to prove an individual’s identity, provide background information on their previous employment and vetting status;

a new disclosure of misconduct scheme across the NGO sector to prevent known perpetrators moving around undetected—organisations with over 50,000 staff have already signed up, and I expect the coverage to increase significantly in the months ahead;

agreement among 22 major donors on common global safeguarding standards which organisations must meet if they want to receive funding from those donors;

a resource and support hub funded by DFID to help smaller organisations understand and meet those standards, including access to specialist investigators;

all donors and other participants committed to have at least one named senior level champion accountable for work on safeguarding issues and to encourage annual discussions of safeguarding at board level as well as the recruitment and career development of women throughout organisations;

DFID and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will support the development of a United Nations statement of victims’ rights to allow people to understand their rights, and to have confidence that they can find help if those rights are threatened or violated; and

the Disasters Emergency Committee to test shared reporting hotlines for raising concerns in future emergencies, along with a review of how they respond to community feedback.

Next steps to ensure delivery

The measures agreed will help to deliver root-and-branch change in the way the aid sector approaches safeguarding issues. They send a powerful message to any individuals who might look to exploit power imbalances and the vulnerability of those who the aid sector is there to help. They also send a powerful message that survivors and victims’ voices must be heard.

In the interests of transparency and accountability the sets of commitments made by the UK with 21 other donors, and those made by our major domestic and international partners can be found at: https://www.gov. uk/government/topical-events/safeguarding-summit-2018. A fuller outcome summary is available online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safeguarding-summit-2018-hosts-outcome-summary along with other key documents from the day. My Department will continue to report on progress via its annual report to Parliament.

This remains a long-term agenda requiring leadership and culture change. That is why donors agreed to meet no later than October 2019 to assess progress on their commitments, while continuing to liaise regularly to keep up the pace of progress and share lessons. Donors also agreed to support the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) to formulate a new DAC instrument that in 2019 will set standards on preventing and managing the risks of sexual exploitation and abuse in development co-operation, and drive donor accountability in meeting them. The 12 commitments to change in the UK NGO document presented to the summit will become part of the Bond Charter, which forms the common vision, purpose, values and principles of the Bond network covering more than 420 international development and humanitarian organisations. Other commitment documents include similar tools for tracking progress.

The summit galvanised the whole sector and provided a framework which was previously lacking to drive further progress. I will continue to ensure this issue remains a focus across the international system as there is still much work to do. But the summit was a key moment to say “No more” and to deliver some of the practical tools to give the people that the aid sector is here to help the protection that they need.

[HCWS1033]