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The Community Trust Index

The Community Trust Index, an evidence-based tool designed to measure and cultivate trust between humanitarian organizations and the communities they serve, owes its success to the collaboration and dedication of National Societies.

Initiated in 2022, the Community Trust Index is spearheaded by the CEA team, working hand in hand with National Societies from each country. The ownership and implementation of the national survey and its results lie squarely with the National Societies themselves. The development of the Community Trust Index, primarily focused on assessing community trust towards Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies, was made possible through cognitive research on Trust in Argentina, Azerbaijan, and Argentina. Special thanks are extended to the National Societies for their participation in the design and pilot phases, which were instrumental in refining the tool’s effectiveness. The pilots were conducted in Zambia and Argentina, marking crucial steps towards enhancing our understanding of community trust dynamics and improving humanitarian response strategies.

Methodology Note
(Coming soon)

Community Trust Index

Community Trust Index
Institutional Trust

Understanding the complex relationship between competencies and values is paramount to building trust with communities. The Institutional module seeks to measure this relationship by providing an analytical framework for assessing and improving levels of trust within various sub-dimensions. This module operates on a two-axis framework, anchoring its assessment in competencies and values. Competencies encompass the efficiency, skills and abilities demonstrated by the organisation and it's staff, while values describe the perception of ethics and integrity upheld in their actions and decisions with communities.

  • Competencies
  • Values
Capability
Capability
To evaluate the perceived ability that the organisation provides support in a timely manner.
Responsiveness
Responsiveness
To evaluate the perceived ability that the organisation provides support in a timely manner.
Awareness
Awareness
To evaluate how well the organisation is perceived as being knowledgeable of the community needs.
Accessibility
Accessibility
To assess the perception of the organisation as accessible and welcoming to the community
Openness
Openness
To evaluate the perception of the organisation's approachability specially when it comes to making a complaint.
Relevancy
Relevancy
To evaluate the perception of the NS ability to provide quality information to the community
Effectiveness
Effectiveness
To evaluate the perception of the NS effectiveness in providing the right kinds of aid and assistance to the target communities it supports

The Community Trust Index, developed by the IFRC Community Engagement and Accountability (CEA) Unit, is an evidence-based tool to measure and enhance trust between humanitarian organizations and the communities they serve. The Community Trust Index is measured through Competencies and Values.

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Planning is the first phase of the Community Trust Index Journey. It entails building consensus, engaging National Societies’ leadership for buy-in, secure a team, preparing information, trainings, developing research protocols, obtain ethical approvals, and ensuring technical and financial support is available for to collect, analyse and act on data. The Community Trust index can be integrated within existing research activities, such as perception surveys and other assessments, or implemented as standalone provided technical and financial support from a research partner.

In the data collection phase, the team will implement the standardized Community Trust Index survey in using a sampling approach recommended by an expert. To expand the Index to other thematic (climate change, disaster law and auxiliary law) and population groups (women, population on the move, religious groups), annexes to the original survey will de added. To further unpack surveys’ results, NS are recommended to collect qualitative data using key informant interviews, focus group discussions, observations, to grasp the social, historical, political, and behavioural aspects of trust in targeted communities. A guide to qualitative research for the Community Trust Index will be developed. A data storage and management system will be established within existing platforms used by National Societies and IFRC, where resources, tools and instructions can be shared to help National Societies implement the Community Trust Index. A data safeguarding plan will be developed with clear requirements for data storage and sharing.

Data will be analyzed both quantitative and qualitatively to produce key results, which should be disaggregated to look at the variation of trust according to socio-demographic features and population groups. Data from the Community Trust Index should be triangulated with other type of data on trust available in the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement and beyond. Findings and recommendations should be discussed internally to explore themes further to feed the final report. Although the global Community Trust Index data is owned by the IFRC, the decision to make the data open access or protected from third parties must be made on a case-by-case basis and taken by the National Societies and branches participating in the Index. Different reports and briefs will be produced and tailored to different types of audiences (internal and external).

This phase considers how findings inform NS and IFRC strategies, plans, and frameworks to improve community trust.

To turn data into action requires recurring dialogues, exchange, and collaborations between the research team, National Societies, key decisionmakers, and CEA personnel to ensure uptake of recommendations aiming to restore or build community trust. Findings will inform operational planning and strategic decision-making at the IFRC and National Society levels, and transformed into evidence-based principles, attributes and indicators to access, assess, and certify National Societies.

PlanningData CollectionData AnalysisFindings & RecommendationsAction plans