Accountability & Transparency

CARE is committed to meeting international standards of quality and accountability. Guided by our rights-based approach and programming principles, we focus on ensuring that our partners and the communities we work with have a voice in planning, implementing and evaluating our work. Given the particular vulnerability of disaster-affected populations, we place particular emphasis on integrating humanitarian accountability standards in our relief and emergency response work. CARE’s Programme Information and Impact Reporting System monitors the extent to which we are making progress to achieve our global impact goals, and our organizational data is published in our Annual Report.

Being accountable to our stakeholders means ensuring that we share information in a transparent way or, where we are unable to satisfy an information request, providing an explanation. CARE posts a substantial amount of information on the internet, including strategic plans, annual reports, advocacy policy reports, programme reports, research reports, external evaluations, and media releases; in our Information Disclosure Policy we also define the types of information that must remain confidential due to practical legal, operational, safety and security considerations. All stakeholders have the right to provide feedback to CARE, including a complaint, and to receive a response.

Reporting of Sexual Harassment, Exploitation or Abuse

We know people are sometimes reluctant to report sexual abuse or harassment. So we are committed to creating a working environment at CARE where people feel safe to come forward with sexual harassment, exploitation or abuse claims. We take reports extremely seriously and protect witnesses as well as victims. Reprisals against people for reporting are a breach of our code of conduct. We provide a website reporting mechanism for staff and anyone outside the organization. Concerns about any form of misconduct can be reported anonymously. We are committed to transparency around sexual harassment, abuse and exploitation involving CARE staff. See global transparency reports that summarize our cases from years 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2018. All reports from past years are accessible from CARE International’s site.

CARE has put in place a single global CARE Line for receiving reports of fraud, misappropriation, discrimination, sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse, support of terrorism, and other wrongful conduct – with support in over 100 languages, online or phone options, and anonymous reporting options. Any CARE employee or volunteer, partner, vendor, program participant, or other outside party, may use this service to report wrongful conduct. CARE believes that any stakeholder has the right to raise a complaint, have that complaint addressed and receive a response.

Here is the link to our CARE Line (EthicsPoint).

CARE is integrating its impact, organizational health and accountability behaviors into an organization-wide Accountability Framework, with French, Spanish, and Arabic versions, that guides the way we capture, report and receive feedback as well as share, learn, and make improvements to our work around the world. We are testing and learning from new approaches and technological innovations that can strengthen our ability to listen, learn and adapt what we do and how we do it for greater impact.

CARE’s latest global mapping of reach and impact data is available to all partners, donors, supporters and stakeholders. The World of Impact map for CARE consists of REACH data with information about participants in CARE’s projects and initiatives world-wide.

CARE defines accountability as explaining, being held responsible for and hearing the perspectives of others about how well we are meeting our commitments – and then actively making changes and improvements based on what we have learned and heard.

Representative CARE International Global Policies

CARE International Safeguarding Policy

CARE International Policy on Fraud and Corruption – Awareness, Prevention, Reporting and Response

CARE International Gender Equality Policy

English

CARE International Gender Equality Policy

French

CARE International Gender Equality Policy

Arabic

CARE International Gender Equality Policy

Spanish