{"title":"Accountability to children in humanitarian action: a rapid review of definitions, guidelines, barriers and gaps","authors":"Camilla Fabbri , Sanjana Kuruppu , Yvonne Agengo , Eleonora Mansi , Diana Ihring","doi":"10.1016/j.chipro.2025.100225","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>There is increasing effort in the humanitarian sector to improve accountability to affected populations and promote meaningful participation of children in humanitarian action. However, effective systems for accountability to children, both in the protection and non-protection sectors, remain minimal. This review aims to identify definitions, gaps, barriers and enablers of accountability to children and present examples of existing systems and best practices to support the development of child-centred accountability approaches in the humanitarian sector. A rapid appraisal approach was adopted. Searches were conducted across a variety of practice focused databases using search terms such as “participation”, “accountability”, “children”, and “humanitarian” looking for publications from 2004 until 2024. The review identified a total of 64 publications, 25 of which met the inclusion criteria. This review demonstrates that humanitarian actors have produced a wealth of guidance and toolkits to inform the creation of systems of accountability to children. Conceptually the sector shares clear and consistent definitions of accountability to children; however, practical resources often remain too general and theoretical to guide real life implementation. Existing resources rarely provide specific examples or instructions on how to operationalise accountability across sectors and include only limited considerations on the factors required to ensure adequate inclusion of children from marginalized groups. Systematically documenting case studies, success stories, and the experiences of both humanitarian actors and affected populations of how accountability to children is realised in the context of different types of humanitarian crises is warranted.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100237,"journal":{"name":"Child Protection and Practice","volume":"7 ","pages":"Article 100225"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Child Protection and Practice","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2950193825001330","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
There is increasing effort in the humanitarian sector to improve accountability to affected populations and promote meaningful participation of children in humanitarian action. However, effective systems for accountability to children, both in the protection and non-protection sectors, remain minimal. This review aims to identify definitions, gaps, barriers and enablers of accountability to children and present examples of existing systems and best practices to support the development of child-centred accountability approaches in the humanitarian sector. A rapid appraisal approach was adopted. Searches were conducted across a variety of practice focused databases using search terms such as “participation”, “accountability”, “children”, and “humanitarian” looking for publications from 2004 until 2024. The review identified a total of 64 publications, 25 of which met the inclusion criteria. This review demonstrates that humanitarian actors have produced a wealth of guidance and toolkits to inform the creation of systems of accountability to children. Conceptually the sector shares clear and consistent definitions of accountability to children; however, practical resources often remain too general and theoretical to guide real life implementation. Existing resources rarely provide specific examples or instructions on how to operationalise accountability across sectors and include only limited considerations on the factors required to ensure adequate inclusion of children from marginalized groups. Systematically documenting case studies, success stories, and the experiences of both humanitarian actors and affected populations of how accountability to children is realised in the context of different types of humanitarian crises is warranted.