Do no harm/safer programming

Behaviour

Leaders are informed about the specific local or contextual challenges to implement good safeguarding practice and ensure this is reflected in planning.

Discuss the behaviour

Consider how the behaviour relates to your working environment and your interactions with colleagues and others outside the organisation. Pose your own questions where relevant and make notes on your discussion.

Questions for you to consider

What are the processes to analyse local and contextual safeguarding risks and issues and how are you involved in understanding the specific local mapping of safeguardingrisks and challenges?
How do you ensure that your safeguarding systems consider local risks so that they are genuinely effective?
How do you know that the same high standard of safeguarding is expected in programmatic work across all geographies so that local or contextual challenges do not become an excuse for poor practice?
How are you supporting local partner organisations and individuals to improve safeguarding practice?

Session notes (you can download these at the end)

What actions would you implement to make a change?

Using what you discussed, decide what actions you plan to take as an organisation. Note down who is accountable for ensuring these are implemented and when you aim to achieve them. Note that the "Actions for leaders" are a starting point, not an exhaustive list. You can add specific actions that are relevant to your organisation.

Leaders

When we speak about “leaders” we mean those people within an organisation that have the authority and power to make decisions and allocate resources. Depending on the organisation, this could be a CEO, directors, senior management teams, country directors, safeguarding leads or other decision-makers.

Safeguarding

Safeguarding is about all the preventative and responsive measures we take to ensure we do no harm to anyone in our organisation and anyone we come into contact with as part of our work. This tool was developed with tackling sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment (SEAH) in mind, but is applicable beyond that.You can find a more comprehensive definition on the Bond website

Local or contextual challenges

Safeguarding or protection must be appropriate to specific to local contexts, including different social or cultural norms and legal contexts.

Expertise and experience

Working with local experts can help you identify safeguarding or protection issues that are specific to local contexts, such as Female Genital Mutilation, and cultural and legal sensitivities that impact your ability to respond to victims and survivors safely - for example, settings or contexts where reporting issues of sexual exploitation, abuse or sexual harassment to law enforcement agencies may place victims and survivors at increased risk of harm.

Safeguarding Leadership Tool