Quality Project 

Humanitarian action has experienced upheavals over this past decade. While the financial mass of funds released for assistance to catastrophe victims has grown quite substantially, the number of actors involved in the field has increased just as much. And the roles of those actors have been in perpetual evolution since then; among specialised organisations from the United Nations, governments, multilateral donors and local authorities, NGOs are often seen as the «end of the chain», a link in direct contact with the victims.

Now, humanitarian actors are more and more aware of their «double responsibility» as far as (private, institutional) donors and beneficiaries are concerned. As a result, they are striving to improve the quality of their actions.

Therefore, intervention contexts become more and more complex, requiring an ever-higher level of professionalisation on the behalf of the various actors. At the same time, a more and more critical view is focusing on the action of the field «agencies», of whom increased responsibility awareness is requested with respect to the «beneficiaries» and greater transparency with respect to the donors. The days of improvised humanitarian work when deeds were more important than results is a time of the past.

SOME DOCUMENTS AND INFORMATION IN ENGLISH

Did Someone Say Quality? Contribution to a debate, The Quality Project: Reflections on the method, Groupe URD, November 2002.

Quality Project in Afghanistan, Mission Two : 15/01/2003 - 12/02/2003, Draft Mission Report

The Quality Project In Afghanistan First Mission : 20^th July – 24^th August 2002, Mission report Draft

The Afghanistan mission took place from 20 July to 24 August 2002. The following documents was distributed at the workshop organised at Kabul at the end of the mission.

        - Agriculture, Food Security And Economic Security

        - Health Sector  : Preliminary Observations

        - Shelter And Housing Sector

        - Nutrition : Préliminary Observations And Questions

Proceedings of the Launching Seminar for the Quality Project, 20th ant 21st February 2002, Groupe URD 

Activity Report : Quality Project Year 2001. Improving Humanitarian Practice : From Capitalisation to the training of Aid Workers. Case Study : The Natural Disasters in Central America, Groupe URD

The Responsability of Humanitarian Actors : A Complex concept in Nutshell, Véronique de Geoffroy, François Grünewald, Groupe URD, 5th May 2002

Mission report : Institutional framework for the inter-institutions evaluation process for Afghanistan, Groupe URD, March 2002.

Quality Project, General presention. From emergency to development : a project for improving the quality of humanitarian practices, Group URD, September 2001

Quality project, short presentation,  Group URD. A Word version is also available. 

The Dangers And Inconsistencies Of The Normative Approaches To Humanitarian Aid, Summary Of The Reflexions Raised, François Grunewald, Véronique de Geoffroy, Groupe URD, December 1999.

Iterative Evaluations With Mini-Seminars. Tree Years Post-Mitch. El Salvador After the 2001 Earthquakes : Mission n°2 Summary Report, François Grunewald, Groupe URD, September 2001. 

Iterative Evaluation With Mini-Seminars. The Case of El Salvador After The 2001 Earthquakes : Mission n°1 Summary Report, Véronique de Geoffroy, Eric Levron, José Carid, october 2001. (Word Version)

Meeting for the preparation of the first mission in Afghanistan within the framework of the Project Quality  : 26-29 May 2002

The first Afghanistan mission is due to take place from mid July to mid August 2002. The objectives of this meeting where the followings: 

-          clarify a number of methodological elements, notably on the questions of approach of the method " by questioning " such as conceptualized in the Quality Project. ;

-          design the approach for the consultation of the NGO partners, 

-          tentatively design an intinerary for the mission;

-          review the specific role of each of  mission’s team members