Pakistan: Complaints Handling Mechanism - HAP International

CASE STUDY
Medair Pakistan Earthquake Response Programme
Complaints Handling Mechanism, March 2006
1. Executive summary
Medair responded to the Kashmir earthquake on 8 th October 2005 with an emergency shelter programme. In
order to cope with the deluge of requests for help and complaints being received, Medair implemented a
complaints handling mechanism in December 2005. The complaints mechanism was simple and proved
effective, allowing Medair to maximise its programme coverage in Poonch district and to cultivate a good
level of trust within the community.
2. Medair Pakistan Programme
At 8:50 am Pakistan time on 8 th October 2005, an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale hit Northern
Pakistan. The affected area was approximately 30,000 square miles leaving 2.5 million people homeless
(Government of Pakistan figures).
A Medair team was on the ground 5 days later and focused on Poonch district in Pakistan administered
Kashmir, largely because it had been neglected by other International agencies. The initial survey revealed
the majority of buildings in Poonch were damaged or destroyed by the earthquake, 95% in some areas.
Medair implemented an emergency shelter and NFI (Non Food Item) programme providing 6,100 families
with temporary shelter materials or a winter tent and around 10,000 families with an NFI package to ensure
survival over the winter months.
Medair targeted the most vulnerable families whose homes had collapsed or had become uninhabitable. The
team visited earthquake affected villages to explain our criteria for providing assistance, as well as our
organisational mandate. The community provided Medair with lists of damaged houses. In turn, Medair sent
out ‘Assessment, Verification and Monitoring Teams’ to the villages to verify house-by-house the names on
the list. Once verified the Distribution Team used the lists to distribute temporary shelters. This system,
although appropriate at the outset, was crude and the team quickly realised a complaints mechanism was
required to address two particular issues:
2.1 Amount of requests
Villagers were coming to the sub-offices at all times, petitioning Medair staff for help. Furthermore teams in
the field would be regularly harassed by people overlooked from the initial assessment and verification. A
small scale industry in the project area was set up by entrepreneurial printing shops, producing request and
complaints forms, translated into English, meaning that with very minimal effort anyone could complain.
The volume and method of collecting complaints resulted in a major hindrance to programme staff, and also
meant complaints were handled initially in an ad hoc way.
2.2 Bias in requests
Many of the requests coming from government officials were unreliable due to bias in the communities. In
Poonch district there are very strong extended family systems, 5 dominant tribes, 2 religious groupings of
Islam, and 3 highly active and socially engaged political parties. Some community members considered
these affiliations to be their ultimate loyalties. Therefore it was essential to verify all requests fairly and
thoroughly.
3. The complaints mechanism
Initially, one specific hour was dedicated to complaints handling per day at each base. During this hour, the
complainant could speak to either the Administrator or if necessary the Office Manager and describe their
issue. The complainant could submit their own complaint form, Medair also completed a standard

complaints form, detailing all the relevant information to pass on to our assessment teams to check in the
field. This was the only time and place that Medair would receive complaints. The information describing
the complaints mechanism was posted outside our offices, and was also communicated to the community by
Medair field teams.
The main complaint received was from earthquake survivors who had not been selected to receive a shelter
but felt they were deserving. Many complaints were received from people outside Medair’s project area, in
which case Medair lobbied the responsible agency and if nothing happened, Medair considered providing
help ourselves.
Complaints were filed according to location. The breakdown of the data was entered on a spreadsheet,
detailing; numbers of complaints per village, details of how many complaints had been addressed, how many
had not, and the total percentages for both. This was updated daily and allowed the teams to assess their
progress as well as linking into programme planning. The Assessment team took the complaints to the
specific village and verified whether they were legitimate or not. If the complaint was upheld, the
beneficiary received assistance, depending on Medair’s resources.
Complaints relating to Medair staff members were filtered to the Project Manager at each base and
investigated personally.
Complaint not
from Medair’s
project area
Responsible
organisation
lobbied with
complaints
Complaint received
Information compiled by
office team and
disseminated to field team
Assessment team verifies the
complaints in Medair project
area
Complaint from Medair’s
project area
Complaint upheld
Complaint not upheld
Beneficiary receives
shelter or NFI
Complaint rejected
4. Results
At the end of the emergency phase of the Medair programme, approximately 70% of complaints had been
addressed. Of the complaints addressed 18% were upheld, which in turn meant that 82% were spurious.
Abbas Pur base Hajira base Total
Total No of complaints received 1257 1033 2290
No. of complaints dealt with 880 710 1590
No. of complaints verified 140 150 290

The reason that 100% of complaints were not addressed was that by March 2006, Medair had exhausted
project funds and did not want to verify any further households thereby creating a false expectation that we
could respond, when Medair no longer had any materials. Furthermore the vast majority of homes, 5 months
after the earthquake, had since been rehabilitated and the harsh winter conditions had passed
Complaints relating to staff resulted in personal investigations by Medair management. 3 of these
investigations resulted in the premature termination of contracts. These staff members had abused their
responsibilities by favouring tribal or family members.
This sort of check and balance was made possible through a transparent and open complaints mechanism
where beneficiaries felt they could express problems about field staff to management. As a result of these
complaints, systems were reviewed to ensure that bias could not influence distributions again.
5. Benefits to the programme
The complaints mechanism saved Medair teams a significant amount of time and hassle in the field and the
office. From a programme point of view it also saved Medair time in identifying gaps in coverage.
As a result of the complaints mechanism we were able to serve 290 additional families who otherwise would
have been overlooked. The integrated nature of the system allowed for a rapid response and a limited time
burden to the teams.
Being a new organisation to Pakistan, the complaints mechanism helped compensate for our limited local
knowledge and acted as a check and balance against staff dishonesty. By the end of the project communities
would contact Medair about any discrepancy they felt in the distributions, confident that Medair would carry
out an investigation.
6. Lessons Learned
6.1 Early implementation
The complaints mechanism started from mid December 2005, 2 months into the emergency. It was still very
useful and began before the onset of harsh winter conditions, but more benefits would have been realised,
had this approach been implemented at the start of the programme.
6.2 Signboards and suggestion boxes
A method which encouraged the most vulnerable in villages to complain would have been helpful.
Signboards could have been erected in the local language in each village, detailing beneficiary selection
criteria, organisational mandate, and information on the Medair complaints mechanism. There could also
have been a suggestion box at each signboard ensuring anonymity for sensitive complaints.
6.3 More dedicated staff
The complaints mechanism was successful in this emergency as it was simple and integrated. It was felt that
an autonomous complaints body would have been time consuming and less responsive. In retrospect more
Medair staff could have been dedicated to handling complaints
7. Conclusion
The complaints mechanism was simple, effective and cost efficient. The integrated approach allowed the
teams to implement the mechanism without changing the programme or staff structure and assisted Medair
in improving overall coverage. Importantly the mechanism built up a level of trust between Medair and the
communities and enabled Medair to be seen as accountable and responsive.
John Primrose, Medair Project Manager, Kashmir – March 2006.