Mercy Corps Closes Its Commitments to Action
Final report details comprehensive efforts to fulfill 23 commitments to action made in 2020
Mercy Corps today released its seventh and final report fulfilling 23 commitments to action made by the organization in February 2020. The list of commitments followed an independent, external review examining Mercy Corps’ handling of reports of sexual abuse by Mercy Corps’ late co-founder brought to the organization’s attention in 2018.
“Fulfilling our commitments to action reflects the significant efforts we have made over the last three years to cultivate a strong culture of integrity and accountability anchored in the right structures, policies and systems. This work has made us a better, stronger organization and we are committed to continuous and ongoing improvement in these important areas,” says Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, Chief Executive Officer of Mercy Corps.
Since early 2020, Mercy Corps has made significant investments in restructuring and strengthening the organization’s legal, ethics and safeguarding functions, policies and governance. These include, but are not limited to:
- Restructured legal, ethics and safeguarding functions with a Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer, independent of both the legal and human resource departments, unifying all safeguarding and ethics investigations functions and reporting to the CEO and the Board of Directors.
- Significant safeguarding investments to support prevention and the intake, case management and investigative oversight for alleged ethics violations, including safeguarding. We have more than 170 safeguarding support roles across all countries where Mercy Corps operates, have updated our safeguarding policies, and developed additional and mandatory Safeguarding and Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) training for all team members, senior management and Board Directors. To provide transparency and accountability around safeguarding, we release a Global Safeguarding Report annually.
- Developed a Community Accountability Reporting Mechanism (CARM) policy to ensure community members can provide feedback and voice complaints in a safe, confidential and accessible way, with CARM focal points in place in all countries where Mercy Corps operates to ensure we are accountable to the communities we serve.
- Strengthened Board governance, oversight and accountability, including creating a Joint Ethics and Safeguarding Board Committee, committing to Board diversity goals, and carrying out a comprehensive governance review. The review promoted several improvements including establishing and codifying term limits for Board Directors. Mercy Corps’ Board has recruited 16 new Board Directors since January 2020.
- Published the report of an independent investigation to determine the extent of the abuse perpetrated by Mercy Corps co-founder Ellsworth Culver and any other abusers who might be identified, and to review the response of the Mercy Corps Board in 1992 and 1993 when the organization was first made aware of the abuse.
A complete summary of Mercy Corps’ response to details of abuse by co-founder Ellsworth Culver, including the organization’s commitments to action, can be found on the Mercy Corps website here.