Disaster & Emergency Management Evaluation
Nancy Peek, MPP
Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor
USAID, Social Solutions International, United States
Location: Room 205
Abstract Information: USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance seeks to improve accountability and learning from evaluations of emergency programming by developing evaluation, monitoring, and reporting strategies, policy, and guidance for emergency activities. Evaluation is increasingly critical as agencies are forced to prioritize funding and interventions for emergency responses. However, any requirements for collecting data for evaluations cannot hinder in any way the ability to deliver life-saving assistance to affected populations. This roundtable discussion aims to bring together partners with on-the-ground experience collecting data in emergency settings. The discussion will focus on practical challenges--e.g., accessibility, time and resource constraints, methodological issues--and solutions for collecting data and evaluating in emergencies. Creative and resourceful insights are needed, and this roundtable will bring together practitioners to discuss their experiences to mitigate the issues around conducting evaluations in emergencies.
Relevance Statement: Increasingly, man-made disasters are leading to protracted crises and creating uncertainty across the world as drivers of forced migration and destabilization as well as hunger and poverty. The mission of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) is to save lives, alleviate human suffering, and reduce the physical, social, and economic impact of rapid and slow onset disasters by supporting at-risk populations to build stable foundations for their future. Through its emergency awards to UN and NGO partners, BHA provides humanitarian assistance to support populations affected by both acute and protracted emergencies. BHA responds to emergency situations, or crises, where life is severely disrupted and populations lack access to sufficient food and non-food items. Such situations may involve drought, floods, earthquakes, and/or civil conflict.
As the demand for life saving emergency assistance grows, the pool of available international resources has not kept pace to meet these needs. Evaluation is a critical tool ensure the effective and efficient use of resources and improve and refine program design and implementation in order to achieve the best possible life-saving outcomes. This is increasingly critical as agencies are forced to prioritize funding and interventions for emergency responses. However, conducting evaluations in most emergency settings can be fraught with difficulties. Within many conflict-related emergencies, humanitarian access is restricted due to insecurity. In these areas, access to populations in need may frequently be negotiated through governments, non-state actor interlocutors, or peacekeeping forces, all of which present challenges of their own. In the event of a natural disaster, the emergency response prioritizes an “all hands on deck”, life saving effort, often leaving the resources (human and monetary) for evaluation inadequate. Methodological issues arise around ensuring data quality and sampling issues when working with displaced and migratory populations.
Despite these challenges, BHA seeks to improve its accountability and learning from evaluation and monitoring of emergency programming by developing policy and guidance for emergency programs. However, any requirements for collecting data for evaluations cannot hinder in any way the ability to deliver life-saving assistance to affected populations. This roundtable discussion aims to bring together partners with experience in complex, emergency settings. The discussion will focus on practical challenges and solutions for collecting data and evaluating in emergency settings. Creative and resourceful insights are needed to mitigate the issues around emergency evaluations.