Putting action into words

Q&A Open fireside chat: Talk to Loop's Journey as a systems' change tool

As we face challenges in securing sustainable funding, survey results on people's opinion of how Loop should be funded suggests that donors, UN/INGOs should fund through as a public good and through program m&e budgets

Addressing engagement and humanitarian challenges in Poland & Ukraine Loop Report - Q3 & Q4 2023

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital platforms, the year 2023 brought forth a deeper understanding of the pivotal role language plays in fostering inclusivity and accessibility.

Half-Year Report Somalia

Somalia Trends and Analysis November 2023

Loop is committed to reducing barriers to feeding back and to having access to that information by local people.

The Ministry of Education of Zamabia, under the HIV/AIDS unit, partnered with Talk to Loop in Zambia, a charity hosted by the Zambian Governance Foundation, to deliver a series of 5 trainings in Safeguarding in secondary schools in Lusaka as a pilot.

We have received 158 bits of feedback with only 33 replies, as well as 42 sensitive reports into Loop from Zambia during this reporting period of January to July 2023.

Ukraine and Poland Mid-Year Report / January 2023 to July 2023

There has been a significant increase in reporting to Loop since the 17th of August, as a result of a joint project between the PSEA Network and UNICEF. They have been advertising the Loop short code free number to communities via a radio program telling people about their rights and how to report for 9 days on 5 local

As a humanitarian sector we are falling short on the SDGs and the Grand Bargain. Crises are on the rise and trust in charitable institutions is decreasing from individual givers to affected populations and local actors.

Somalia is recovering from the effects of prolonged droughts that severely hit many parts of the country. The country has in the recent past experienced other calamities such as locust infestation, floods, conflicts (including government-led offensives against Al Shabaab and their retaliatory attacks) as well as the gl

During the prototyping, networking and wider research that went into the design and development of the Loop platform, we came across hundreds of other innovations and technical solutions being used and developed for humanitarian, development and peace contexts. A few have stood out as being designed in decentralised,

How to give sensitive feedback on Talk To Loop is the latest short explainer video from Talk To Loop, giving a simple, clear explanation about how sensitive feedback relating to abuse, fraud or malpractice, can be reported on the Loop platform safely.

Did you know Loop has a Quick Route page and QR code to help you get to where you want to be even quicker: wherever you are in the world?

How to read statistics on TalkToLoop.org is a short explainer video which helps staff of organisations in the humanitarian and development aid sector to easily utilise the quantitative and qualitative data on the Talk To Loop platform.

How to sign up to Loop to receive notifications about feedback is a short explanatory video which shows you in quick, easy steps how to make sure that you are always notified when somebody mentions your organisation in feedback

Loop's learnings over the incredibly busy year of 2022 are wide and incredibly useful in driving forward our commitment to raise the voices of people in affected communities globally. Much of our learning is brought to life in our case studies presentation.

Leading global affairs think-tank ODI has partnered with humanitarian technology charity Loop on a unique project to give recipients of development and humanitarian aid greater access to independent feedback tools.

Watch our three minute video featuring Loop team members and supporters from around the world to get a quick idea of what Loop is, what its impact can be, and why you should join us in moving forward to greater accountability in humanitarian and development aid.

Join the Live Premiere of Make All Our Voices Count on our YouTube channel on March 20th at 10am UK time.

During the roll out of Loop, as part of the Ukraine Response, we have been very sensitive to the issue of how much Personally Identifiable Information we should share on the Loop open platform.

According to the recent 2022 State of the Humanitarian System (SOHS) report, only a third of aid recipients surveyed reported that they could complain about services, that aid groups communicated well, or that aid met their most important needs. Aid recipients in Yemen, DRC, Venezuela and Lebanon described responses to

On December 5, 2021, the sky suddenly darkened over Lumajang, a region on the Indonesian island of Java. Clouds of smoke and hot ash shot out of the Semeru volcano. Liquid lava came out of the crater. The ash mixed with rain and a sea of mud buried roads, houses and rice paddies. Thousands of people fled - and were sud

The Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability (CHS) emerged in 2014 from an extensive consultation process and is now an industry standard and membership Alliance. 

On December 4th 2021, Semeru Volcano in Lumajang, East Java erupted, emitting volcanic ash and lava. Fifty-four people died, 1027 houses were damaged and more than 9,000 people were evacuated. 

We are very excited to announce Interactive Voice Response and Reply (IVRR), a new technology letting people speak to each other across languages and input channels is now working in Somalia! We wrote about how and why it was designed in 2021 in conjunction with local populations, NEXUS members and the Dutch Government

In this interview Loop’s Tarisai Jangara catches up with Geoffrey Kateregga, who currently serves as the Community Manager in the Eastern and Southern Africa Hub of OpenStreetMaps Team.

Loop is proud to be a signatory to the following open letter from the National Network of Local Philanthropy Development in Ukraine. Founder and Managing Director of Loop, Alex Ross, explains why Loop stands in solidarity with the message of the letter:

Loop began operating in Poland in March this year, with the aim of supporting people affected by the Ukraine crisis. The intention is an accessible service both for refugees from Ukraine, and for Ukrainians staying in their own country, as well for those supporting them.

It seems like no time at all since we were celebrating having our one thousandth story on the Talk To Loop platform. It is practically no time at all! We reported the 1,000 story milestone on our blog at the end of June.

PREDIKT, a social enterprise specialising in the field of Disaster Risk Management has been leading the roll out of Talk To Loop in Indonesia. For Predikt, Talk To Loop addresses an existing gap in the humanitarian response: accountability to the affected population. PREDIKT believes that Talk To Loop can help people a

In this Interview, Caesar Ngule, Programmes Director, Kenyan Community Development Foundation (KCDF) reflects on what it means to be accountable to local people. KCDF is a Kenyan public foundation that supports community driven development initiatives. It was founded to promote the sustainable development of communitie

The principle of ‘Do No Harm’ has its origins in medical practice and stems from the Hippocratic Oath. It has been applied to the humanitarian and development sectors to ensure that there are no negative effects to aid; that is, that humanitarian and development actors should cause no further damage or suffering as a

This anonymous feedback is just one of the many stories that is received by the Ecosystems Work for Essential Benefits (ECOWEB) in Philippines on the Talk To Loop platform.

The Alliance for Accountability Advocates Zambia (AAAZ), a youth-led and youth focused Non-Governmental Organisation that seeks to support youth and citizenry-led accountability is set to promote social accountability in Zambia using the Talk To Loop platform. In an interview, the AAAZ Executive Director, Mr Luchembe M

A rapidly growing number of organisations have registered to use the Talk to Loop platform as they recognize that it can improve the effectiveness of their efforts, strengthen their accountability, encourage meaningful participation, and establish stronger relationships with communities they serve.

“I am sorry I cannot speak with you. Last time I was promised money in exchange for my data but I was never given anything. I also shared information on how the project had transformed my life but I did not know that the information was going to be aired on national television,”

The Loop team around the world was saddened to watch the BBC documentary and related articles about whistleblowers' experiences within the United Nations system.

I had typewriter lessons at school in New Zealand, where only girls attended such classes while boys focused on woodwork. I carried floppy disks around university to use on shared computers and used brick satellite phones to confirm I was still alive on a fortnightly basis to the Headquarters while in rural Iraq for 2

To mark World Refugees Day, @Talk to Loop caught up with La Strada Ukraine, a human rights organisation working to ensure gender equality and peace building. They work on the prevention of gender-based violence, including domestic violence as well as combating human trafficking.

I had typewriter lessons at school in New Zealand, where only girls attended such classes while boys focused on woodwork. I carried floppy disks around university to use on shared computers and used brick satellite phones to confirm I was still alive on a fortnightly basis to the Headquarters while in rural Iraq for 2

Loop is an independent charity, whose sole purpose is to provide a safe mechanism for people to raise their voices to improve services at scale.

Helping to launch the first day of Public Sector Insight Week, Loop founder and MD Alex Ross gave a presentation on the theme "Listening to the people: closing the accountability gap in humanitarian aid."

Loop is a growing organisation and is now seeking new Governing Board Members to help shape the direction of the organisation as it spreads globally to empower local communities to participate in discussions on the aid they receive from organisations.

As those who’ve experienced a mismatch between their needs and the aid they received explain, they’re often frustrated by not knowing who to contact, feedback mechanisms that use technology or languages they’re uncomfortable with, or concerns that reporting a problem or making a request could jeopardise access to cruci

When the Super Typhoon hit the Philippines on the 16th of December 2021 there was an immediate need for affected people to feedback about their needs and the type of support they were getting. Loop was only in its infancy but any organisation that was aware of Loop could use it in their response activities directly.

As one part of a larger Localised Humanitarian Action program, funded by the Dutch Relief Alliance, NEXUS members wanted to explore using innovative approaches to receiving open honest collective feedback.

These are the words of Chipa Chikulaluo of Mandevu township in Lusaka. He is an active resident of Mandevu who takes part in community projects, attends weekly meetings with the Zambian Governance Foundation, and also participates in Saving Groups. When the Talk To Loop Zambia Team and BongoHive decided to do their pro

The past few months in Zambia have been spent launching the Talk to Loop platform, which allows individuals to provide feedback on the humanitarian or development aid they receive. We have learned a lot along the way, and we have had the opportunity to meet people, share information and show organisations the benefits

Loop is free to use, available in multiple languages– and designed to be completely safe. 

One barrier to feeding back for many people is language. If they do not speak one of the primary languages of the country or service provider, then they miss out on vital information and opportunities to input and engage. For this reason, it was essential for Loop to be accessible to underserved populations, in multip

Nanette been an activist humanitarian-development worker for about 30 years. She is the founding Executive Director of the Ecosystems Work for Essential Benefits, Inc. (Ecoweb), a national NGO in the Philippines working on the issues of poverty, conflict, environment, climate change and governance.

Loop is an independent charity, with the sole purpose of providing a safe mechanism for people to raise their voices to improve services at scale. As part of our duty of care we have developed a way to safely receive and refer on, sensitive stories that would do harm if they were posted on the open platform. This could

As the Governing Board member of Loop, I am heartened to hear the call of Mr Mark Lowcock to establish an independent commission for voices in crisis. Myself and the rest of the Loop team, agree with his assessment that “one of the biggest failings” of the system is that agencies “do not pay enough attention” to the vo

Our vision is a world where everyone, including those who are marginalised, vulnerable and underserved, can share their opinion and experience in a safe, open and transparent way, to affect positive social change at the individual, community and global level. 

In October the Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities Network (CDAC) Annual Public Forum 2020, hosted an event called: 

The CHS Alliance’s biennial flagship publication, the Humanitarian Accountability Report (HAR) 2020 explores this fundamental question. 

‍As a sector we have made progress in creating systems that ensure accountability and recognise the need to communicate with communities and people affected by crisis. However, despite the growing awareness of the need, there has been no significant shift in practice. Data corroborates my own experience that as a secto

In the humanitarian and development field, it is widely accepted that the needs and perspectives of the most marginalized, vulnerable, and underserved people are not effectively incorporated into the design and funding of the services aimed at supporting them. They are treated as charitable beneficiaries rather than ac

As a mother, a New Zealander, a woman, a white person, a person who has lived on every continent but often as a privileged minority, I am excited that others are ably expressing a frustration and unease I have been sitting with for years now.

In the face of the global COVID-19 crisis, we can see the drive and motivation of governments, civil society, and healthcare providers but also the disconnect between the way they organise themselves to support the same people. It seems as though none of the systems are able to communicate with each other efficiently i

I believe that we are only at the beginning of a technological revolution globally. Similar in scale and impact as the first industrial revolution, where over a few decades it resulted in changing the way and places we lived, what sort of work we did, how we socialised with each other and who had power. It lifted milli

There is a plethora of reports, articles and think pieces making the case that the humanitarian system is failing and needs to make changes (Voices to Choices – IARAN, Civil Society Futures – PACT, World Disaster Report – IFRC). The Red Cross Movement (RCM) being the largest humanitarian organisation in the world and t

50 years ago, the Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement were developed and continue to hold astounding relevance to the very different global context within which we apply them today. So much so, that four of the Principles: Humanity, Impartiality, Neutrality and Independence, have been adopted