Interagency Study on Child-Friendly Feedback and Complaint Mechanisms Within NGO Programmes

This report presents findings of a survey designed to collect experience and examples of practice in setting up child-accessible feedback and complaint mechanisms in the programmes of five international non-governmental organisations: Educo, Plan International, Save the Children UK, War Child UK and World Vision. The survey represents the first phase of a collaborative study between these five child-focused agencies.

The survey seeks primarily to investigate accessibility of the mechanisms to children and youth, but also to collect information on general practice and management of the mechanism. The types of mechanisms considered were designed to either support children and youth to provide everyday feedback on programming issues, or  those that allow them to report on more serious issues that concern themselves or their families and for which the agencies have a responsibility to respond.

The findings show that the 15 country and regional programmes surveyed have succeeded in establishing feedback and complaint channels that children are able and willing to access. A list of these is included in the report together with information provided by agencies on their experiences of setting up these channels and establishing mechanisms for children. The survey findings also confirm that accessibility is not yet universal and some children remain unable or unwilling to use existing agency feedback and complaint channels.