Mercy Corps Commitments to Action Progress Report

30 July 2021

Biannual report includes completion of external investigation, safeguarding and community accountability support added to all Mercy Corps countries of operation 

Mercy Corps today released its third report detailing progress delivering on 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. 

"We continue making progress delivering on our commitments to action and we know that the work to strengthen our safeguarding systems, governance and accountability mechanisms is never truly complete,” says Tjada D'Oyen McKenna, Chief Executive Officer of Mercy Corps. "Importantly, we now have safeguarding and community accountability resources in place across all of our countries of operation. This additional resource strengthens our ability to protect our program participants from harm and respond to feedback from the communities we serve.”

Following its second progress report, published in January 2021, Mercy Corps has:

  • Published in full 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. Read Mercy Corps’ statement in response to the report here. 
  • Continued adding resources to strengthen safeguarding systems, with 180 safeguarding support roles now operational across all countries where Mercy Corps operates. This global support team includes a mix of Safeguarding Focal Points, Co-Investigators and Champions. The Safeguarding Prevention Team has joined the Ethics and Compliance Department in order to ensure a more holistic approach to addressing safeguarding issues. Mercy Corps’ third annual Global Safeguarding Report will be published in Fall 2021.
  • Built out its Intake and Investigation (I&I) Division, within the Ethics and Compliance Department, which now includes a multilingual safeguarding investigations team consisting of a Washington, DC- based case manager, and full-time investigators based in Nairobi, Kenya and Amman, Jordan. Similar investigative teams are in place for human resources and fraud and corruption.
  • Completed the rollout of Mercy Corps’ Community Accountability Reporting Mechanisms (CARM) policy, in effect as of January 2021, with CARM focal points now in place in all Mercy Corps countries as well as regional CARM advisors to provide targeted technical support to country programs.
  • Completed a comprehensive governance review and welcomed four new Board Directors in July 2021, bringing the total number of new Board Directors appointed since January 2020 to nine. The Board is appointing a permanent Safeguarding Director to the Joint Ethics and Safeguarding Committee, which was established at the end of 2020. 

Updates detailed in the third biannual report add to ongoing progress made throughout 2020-2021 against the commitments to action, including the hiring of a new Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer overseeing a stand-alone Ethics and Compliance Department, Safeguarding and Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) training for all executives, senior management and Board Directors, and initiating a global team survey on workplace culture. 

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.