Tearfund Quality Standards
The following Quality Standards summarise all the relevant external and internal standards, codes, guidelines and principles that are committed to by Tearfund in the way emergency responses are to be undertaken at the community level. Their purpose is to increase the quality, effectiveness and impact of our emergency responses.
- Values: We are committed to outworking our core values through our staff, in relationships with project participants and all those with whom we interact. We adhere to a Supporters' Charter that sets out how we respond to our supporters' needs, queries and complaints.
- Impartiality and Targetting: We are committed to impartiality. The assistance provided is intended for the most vulnerable. Project participants are selected on the basis of need alone, regardless of their race, religion or nationality.
- Accountability: We are committed to transparency, participation, feedback and learning with our project participants.
- Disaster Risk: We are committed to reducing the risk of future disaster by strengthening local capacity and reducing future vulnerability to disaster hazards as well as meeting short-term needs. For more information on Tearfund’s approach to Disaster Risk Reduction click here.
- Technical Quality: We are committed to the high technical quality of our projects and to ensuring that they reflect communities’ own relief and recovery priorities.
- Children: We are committed to ensuring that programmes are child-sensitive by incorporating child development and child protection in their design, planning and implementation. To read our Child Protection Policy for all staff and individuals who represent Tearfund in any capacity, please click here.
- Gender: We are committed to transforming communities through restored relationships between men, women, boys and girls and ensuring equitable value, participation and decision-making by all.
- HIV: We are committed to addressing the HIV pandemic and people’s vulnerabilities to HIV.
- Conflict: We are committed to designing activities that are sensitive to situations of conflict and the safety needs of project participants, and that contribute to building their capacities for peace.
- Environment: We are committed to protecting the environment through sustainable resource management.
- Sustainability: We are committed to seeing that projects have a lasting benefit, being built on local ownership and using local skills and resources, as appropriate to the situation.
- Advocacy: We are committed to influencing key decision-makers to make and implement policies and practices that work in favour of people who are vulnerable to disaster.
International Codes and Commitments
Tearfund’s operations are designed and run according to internationally recognised standards, respecting and promoting the enforcement of humanitarian principles, standards and codes. Our Quality Standards are informed by the following international codes and commitments:
Consistent with our commitment to Accountability, Tearfund has been a member of the Humanitarian Accountability Partnership (HAP) since it was established in 2003. HAP certifies members that comply with the HAP Standard in Humanitarian Accountability and Quality Management using a system of independent verification against industry recognised standards carried out by external auditors. Tearfund achieved quality assurance certification for its Emergency Responses on 18 June 2008. The certification is granted for a three year period. Tearfund has an action plan to guide continual improvement against its Accountability Framework available here.
Tearfund is signatory of the Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief. The code sets out ten foundational principles and signatories are required to endeavour to incorporate these principles into their work based on voluntary compliance. This code includes principles such as impartiality, accountability, participation, dignity, building capacity and reducing vulnerability which are reflected within Tearfund’s Quality Standards.
We are committed to the technical quality of our projects as laid out in the
Sphere Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response and reflected in our Quality Standard focusing on Technical Quality. The Sphere Handbook, last updated in 2004, sets out what people affected by disasters have a right to expect from humanitarian assistance, with the aim to improve the quality of assistance provided and to enhance the accountability of the humanitarian system in disaster response. Adoption of Sphere standards by organisations is based on a system of voluntary compliance.
Tearfund was a founding member of the Keeping Children Safe Coalition, first established in 2003, and has a child protection policy which was last updated in 2009. The Coalition is made up of agencies who are committed to child protection, aim to achieve the highest level of protection for children with whom they come into contact and to work towards achieving the international standards developed by the Keeping Children Safe Coalition through voluntary compliance.
Tearfund became a signatory to the Statement of Commitment on Eliminating Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by UN and non UN Personnel in 2008. The statement commits signatories to incorporate core principles relating to combating sexual exploitation and abuse into their codes of conduct and staff rules and regulations.
Our commitment to addressing HIV is guided by the
Code of Good Practice for NGOs Responding to HIV. The Code sets out key principles, practice and evidence base required for successful responses to HIV. In endorsing the Code, organisations commit to continuous improvement and accountability.
Tearfund’s standards in employment practice and management are verified compliant with the
People in Aid Code of Good Practice in the management and support of Aid Personnel, an internationally recognised management tool that helps agencies enhance the quality of their human resources management. Tearfund was a founding member of People in Aid and was first verified compliant in 1999. Verification is awarded through an external process based on a social audit model. Tearfund was last audited in 2009 and as a result continuation of Tearfund’s verified complaint status was confirmed.
Tearfund also makes reference to UN declarations to guide its quality commitments:
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989, sets out the rights of children relating to basic human rights, civil rights/freedoms, the family, health and welfare, education and leisure and special protection.
On 10 December 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations.
The UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement identify rights and guarantees relevant to the protection of persons from forced displacement and to their protection and assistance during displacement as well as during return or resettlement and reintegration.
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly, defines what constitutes discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for national action to end such discrimination.
Tearfund is a member of the UK’s Disasters Emergency Committee, an umbrella organisation which unites the leading independent humanitarian agencies in the UK in their efforts to maximise income through cost effective media based appeals to finance humanitarian relief for major disasters overseas.
Tearfund participates in over 150 national and international networks and alliances, including: British Overseas NGOs in Development (Bond); Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC); European Union – Christian Organisations in Relief and Development (EU-CORD); Micah Network; and Integral Alliance.