Written evidence submitted by World Vision UK

1)   We welcome the opportunity to provide evidence to the International Development Select Committee’s inquiry into sexual exploitation and abuse in the aid sector.

About World Vision

2)   World Vision UK is part of the global World Vision Partnership. We are a Christian multi-mandated organisation implementing relief, development and advocacy activities for children, their families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. We work in around 100 countries and, in 2016, over 40m benefited from our work.

3)   In the UK, World Vision UK is a registered charity incorporated in England on 3 November 1982 as a company limited by guarantee.

World Vision UK: Views on the Current Response

4)   In terms of the current response, World Vision UK welcomes DFID’s focus and approach to safeguarding over recent weeks. We are working with DFID and other partners to ensure vulnerable people are safe and protected wherever they are.

5)   We support DFID’s approach to transparency and are working with all the relevant authorities and with other UK aid agencies. To this end, we have engaged constructively with DFID’s requests and immediate deadlines. It is important that all of us involved in international development come together to construct an effective, proportionate and deliverable response – which put the children and communities we seek to serve right at the heart of the system.

6)   As a child-focussed international NGO we have a zero-tolerance approach to sexual exploitation and abuse of any kind against children or adults. Across the World Vision Partnership, there are extensive policies and protocols in place to safeguard children and communities against sexual exploitation and abuse. We have mechanisms to enable communities, beneficiaries, and staff to report potential cases of abuse to our organisation.

7)   We encourage all organisations involved in international development to review their own policies, procedures and culture to take an objective look at their strengths and weaknesses. In our case we have identified and published the following commitments and have made progress in each of these areas:

a)      Increasing our dedicated safeguarding capacity.

b)      Taking a risk-based approach to improving our screening procedures, focusing specifically on those who have access to vulnerable adults and children and/or access to child-related information.

c)      Strengthening recruitment and references practices, ensuring that reasons for leaving previous and current employment are fully documented and checked.

d)      Improving safeguarding training at induction and throughout employment to ensure that staff fully understand their obligations in relation to polices, practices and behaviours and the consequences of non-compliance.

e)      Improving our systems and processes for recording and reporting allegations and outcomes.

8)   We are committed to participating in the working groups, commissioned by DFID and being co-ordinated by Bond.  We have identified experienced individuals to spearhead our contribution to each of the groups. These individuals are supported by subject matter experts from across the World Vision Partnership.

World Vision UK: Improving the System for Children and Vulnerable Adults

9)   We welcome the opportunity to contribute ideas and develop solutions with DFID and partners. We will urge that our collective response should be:

1. Globally applicable and include national/local NGOs: The solutions identified through this process must be internationally applicable and appropriate to different cultures and delivery mechanisms. To this end we would strongly urge that this review include appropriate representation from international partners and national/local NGOs.

2. Based on the best evidence: The recognition of existing standards is welcomed.  We need to gather evidence of, and learn lessons from, the current level of coverage, adoption and application we can then determine what new standards or standards bodies are required.

3. Locally appropriate: Guidance on common standards for full spectrum accountability and reporting are welcomed. Equally, we need to acknowledge legal context and jurisdiction.

4. Innovative and draw from the best: Ensuring that organisations put the welfare of children and vulnerable adults at the heart of their safeguarding practices and that all NGOs have access to information, guidance and readily deployable expert support, is to be welcomed. We should also seek innovative, effective and value for money approaches to determining how this could be achieved.  For example, many organisations, including World Vision, already have significant in-house expertise. We have particular expertise on child safeguarding, and DFID should seek ways in which particular expertise offered by agencies can be harnessed and shared.

5. Simple and effective: We are already strengthening our recruitment and referencing processes and would welcome international co-operation on registering and identifying perpetrators of exploitation and abuse both within the sector and through the co-ordination of national and international enforcement agencies.  The mechanisms to achieve this should be explored before, or at least in parallel with, the idea of “passporting” aid workers.

6. Address barriers to reporting: One of the biggest challenges are the cultures and practices that prevent beneficiaries from reporting abuse and exploitation in the first place.  Whilst agencies, including World Vision, apply policies and practices to mitigate the likelihood of abuse and exploitation and have community complaints mechanisms, the many and complex factors that prevent beneficiaries from reporting incidents – including children - remains a barrier to the prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse. We would welcome internationally co-ordinated action that will encourage and support greater beneficiary reporting.

7. Putting beneficiaries at the heart the response: We will bring forward evidence from our own work on Beneficiary Feedback Mechanisms, in which we partnered with DFID, to bring concrete learning and propositions into this commitment.

a)      World Vision UK is committed to a process of continual learning and improvement in this area and to making a meaningful contribution to this sector-wide debate.

World Vision UK is a registered charity no: 285908, a company limited by guarantee and registered in England no: 1675552. Registered office as above.