The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Task Force on Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) was established following a review conducted by personnel from the UN, NGOs, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC). The review identified a need to address the high risk of sexual exploitation and abuse in humanitarian contexts, the lack of progress within the humanitarian sector compared with the peacekeeping sector, the need to focus the humanitarian community on improving implementation of the Secretary-General’s Bulletin (ST/SGB/2003/13) and the need to engage humanitarian leaders at the highest level – which was argued throughout the review report as the most critical factor in securing progress in PSEA. The report also concluded that peacekeeping had undertaken significant efforts on the issue and that the inter-agency efforts needed to be brought back to the IASC.

The IASC Task Force took on the work of the Task Force of the Executive Committees on Humanitarian Affairs and Peace and Security (ECHA/ECPS). The IASC Task Force is a venue for collaboration among all IASC members (UN, NGO, IOM and IFRC) with cross cutting focus on the humanitarian, development and peacekeeping contexts. This Task Force merged with another IASC sub-group in 2014 and is known as the IASC Task Team on Accountability to Affected Populations and Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.