This step involves gathering information about the grievance to determine its validity and resolve the grievance. The merit of grievances shall be judged objectively against clearly defined standards. Grievances that are straightforward (such as queries and suggestions) can often be resolved quickly by contacting the complainant. GBV CASES SHALL BE REFERRED by the GBV specialist to the various service providers AS APPROPRIATE.

The GRC is the main structure charged with the responsibility of grievance resolution. They shall be two types of GRCs. The Central/PMU-Level GRC and the Community/Site-Level GRC. The Central/PMU-Level GRC The Central GRC will be hosted at the PMU and shall comprise the following: Director-FDD, Project Manager; PFMU Team Lead; Social Safeguards Specialist; Gender and Gender-Based Violence Specialist, Communications and Community Engagement Specialist, Representative of the aggrieved (as appropriate); Representative of Civil Society and Representative of the Freetown City Council. The Community/Site-Level GRC shall comprise of selected traditional local authorities, religious leaders, members/employees of the local government structures, Service providers, Sierra Leone Police/Family Support Units (FSU), CBOs, and NGOs, as the case may be.

The GRC shall sit on a weekly basis, as required in order to make timely resolutions of all complaints reported.

The other forms of complaint/grievance will require an investigation into the complaint that might entail field visits for data gathering and analysis to inform the resolution of the grievance. Potential actions include responding to a query or comment, providing users with a status update, imposing sanctions, or referring the grievance to the appropriate national mechanism for further action.

Investigation/inquiries will be done at either the Community/Site GRC level or the Central or PMU GRC level, depending on the category of complaint/grievance (see Table 2). All grievances/complaints received, regardless of the GRC level, shall go through a process of sorting before being processed. Various types of grievances typically require different follow-up actions. Some grievances can be resolved by means of a simple explanation or apology, while others may require more extensive investigations and sometimes court action. To this end, grievances shall be categorized, assigned priority, and routed to the appropriate agency. The GRM will be designed to respond to the following types of complaints, but are not limited to:

• comments, suggestions, or queries;
• complaints referring to an activity that falls outside the scope of the RUSLP
• complaints concerning the perception by a community or individual that they were unfairly excluded from participating in the project.
• complaints involving allegations of corruption, misuse of project funds, or bias in procurement.
• complaints involving alleged environmental or social harm caused to communities by project interventions.
• complaints involving any other deviation from the project’s stated goals and principles, including allegations of poor performance or improper behavior by project staff, members of project committees, consultants, and contractors.
• complaints involving sexual exploitation, abuse, and sexual harassment between project staff, PAPs, communities, and other parties.

Grievances received will be logged into the database by the Social Safeguards Specialist and the GBV Specialist GRCs will investigate the details of and grounds for the grievance depending on the category of complaint with assistance from the PMU. Additional support or information may be gathered from any other sources in order to clearly describe the cause and effects of grievance, it's level of urgency or severity. The PMU may require that a community representative supports the grievance in order to assist in investigations and confirm details of the grievance. Investigations may include site visits and meetings to determine the scale and impact of the grievance and available options for appropriate responses or resolutions.

The PMU GRC will be responsible for monitoring the complaints-handling performance of the system. The Social Safeguards Specialist/Gender and Gender-Based Violence Specialist will accept and register the complaint in a complaint’s registration form. An online Complaint registration Form shall also be hosted on the Ministry of Finance website to be used by project stakeholders to make complaints. The complaint register will include all relevant data on the complainant and complaint, as shown in the proposed Grievance Redress Registering Form in Annex 2.