The global Food Security Cluster (gFSC) developed the original “Checklist to mainstream people centric issues in the Humanitarian Programme Cycle”, building on experience from country operations in countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Philippines, South Sudan and Somalia during 2012-2014. The purpose of the checklist was to guide cluster coordination teams and their partners on the integration of four core people-related issues; age, disability, gender and protection, with the aim of improving accountability to affected populations (AAP) in a more holistic way. The guidance has been reviewed and updated to ensure relevance to both food security and nutrition actors, as part of a joint agreement between the gFSC and the Global Nutrition Cluster (GNC) to scale up efforts to meet collective commitments on AAP. Communication with communities (CwC) has been added as an additional core theme.

This guidance aims to support national clusters to implement their commitments on AAP and core people-related issues both before the beginning of a response (preparedness) and thereafter, throughout the Humanitarian Programme Cycle (HPC).