Determine the indicator's value by using the following methodology:
1) In collaboration with the protection specialists and local stakeholders (e.g. members of community-managed protection mechanisms, project staff, relevant authorities), define when a community-managed protection mechanism can be perceived as “effective”. The criteria can include, for example:
- local presence of people with specific roles and responsibilities for protection of vulnerable group members
- meetings held at a regular frequency, defined at formation / training stage
- a shared agreement exists among the relevant persons on how a referral system should be working
- referral system is used
- protection incidents are recorded / managed / followed-up according to the training received
When setting such criteria, avoid being overly ambitious, so that the protection mechanisms can meet them considering their human resources, available time, expertise, commitments, etc.
2) Decide whether all or only some criteria need to be met in order for the protection system to be considered “effectively operating”.
3) Conduct interviews and reviews of relevant documents with people responsible for / involved in the protection mechanism to identify which of the criteria are met.
4) To calculate the indicator's value, sum up the number of community-based protection mechanisms that meet the minimum number / types of the criteria and therefore can be considered as “effectively operating”.
