PHILIPPA TUBB: I think for all organisations, safeguarding is never done. It’s something that we have to continually work on to improve our systems. To learn how we work together with our collaborative partners is really important. It doesn’t work if we impose a UK-based model of safeguarding within an international context. We need to be really aware of the power imbalances that can exist between individuals and between organisations and ensure that all partners that are working together on programmes have an equal voice and an equal say in how safeguarding is implemented.

MANDY JONES: I think Oxfam’s failings in regards to safeguarding are well-reported and well-known, and there’s an acknowledgment from the organisation about some of those failures. We certainly have had the scrutiny and oversight from our regulators – charity regulators, the Charity Commission. But we are in a different space now. I think the Charity Commission has confirmed that we have improved our safeguarding measures significantly. But not only that, there’s been a culture shift as well. And whilst it has been acknowledged that Oxfam has improved significantly its safeguarding responsibilities, there’s no room for complacency. It’s a continuous journey. We have increased our safeguarding resources. We have safeguarding focal points in every country that we work in.

We have mandatory safeguarding training, and we continue to learn from every case that we work with.

PAULA GIL: In MSF, we have activity from past safeguarding experiences that regardless of the efforts we will make to build an organisation free from abuse, there will be always cases. Because we work with people, people from different cultures with different points of view, in many countries, in countries where women are considered less than men, with high rotation of staff, in places where the population is affected by humanitarian crises and conflicts. So, there will be always cases.

So, then, we need to put all our energy to put in place different measures at all levels, starting by safe recruitment, having clear policies, codes of conduct, involving staff and communities in prevention activities, ensuring accessible reporting channels is essential to have a very professional team in charge of conducting administrative investigations – a diverse team with different points of view to put in place clear sanctions, and being transparent, sharing data, lessons learnt, mistakes, with the whole organisation.

safeguarding event in 2019 involving horrific allegations against our deceased co-founder, and that really shook the organisation to its core. It was profoundly impactful and led to significant changes – in terms of leadership itself, and then, really, a strong reckoning with the past, a real commitment to transparency and to uncovering as much of the truth about the past as we could in a survivor-centred way and being transparent about that.

We created a dedicated joint ethics and safeguarding committee to provide real governance on safeguarding and restructured internally significantly, created a standalone ethics and compliance department, which previously was part of our legal department, and added a new role, a new executive role, of the Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer. We added significantly to our internal safeguarding team – added a director, a safeguarding role. We were already focused, but really continued our focus on building up our in-country support roles. So, we now have a network of over 150 safeguarding focal points and champions who engage directly with their teams and programmes at a local level and work to raise awareness, and deliver face-to-face trainings and support programme teams.

They also create and maintain a database of survivor support resources, so that we’re able to provide real-time support to survivors as needed. And importantly, we now have a representative multilingual diverse team of safeguarding investigators that sit in our regions – both lead investigators and a network of trained co-investigators in our country offices.

ANDREW AZZOPARDI: What happens now in this organisation is that we appoint one person to case manage the investigation or the assessment and a different person to support and accompany the victim. So, if there is a conflict of interest in that role, we chose to separate that. And in hindsight, it has been – we’ve had this approach now for about a year – it really works. Safeguarding is about being victim centred. It’s about being survivor centred. But it’s also about being fair, and we need to be fair with everyone. Being victim centred does not mean that we berate a person who is subject of a complaint, because for all you know, the subject of the complaint is the victim.

Till you investigate, till you assess, you don’t know. So, you need to remain impartial, remain professional in all your approaches, and learn from the journey.

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