Transcript The Tsunami Evaluation Coalition A Selection of TEC Findings and Recommendations Relevant to GHD Principles 16-17 February 2006 Montreux Niels Dabelstein.

The Tsunami Evaluation Coalition
A Selection of TEC Findings and
Recommendations Relevant to GHD
Principles
16-17 February 2006
Montreux
Niels Dabelstein
The Tsunami Evaluation Coalition
•
The response to the Tsunami was the biggest
(and fastest) international response to a natural
disaster on record, and an unprecedented
number of countries contributed to the
response.
•
The relief phase was effective in ensuring that
immediate survival needs were met – through a
mixture of immediate local assistance and
international assistance in the first weeks.
•
The scale of the Tsunami response acted as a
giant lens, illuminating faults in the global
system for humanitarian provision.
The Tsunami Evaluation Coalition
Findings and recommendations from the five TEC
thematic evaluations against key GHD principles:
Strengthening capacity
Donor funding (flexible, timely, predictable,
long-term, proportionate)
Needs assessment
Standards and implementation
Learning and accountability
Strengthening Capacity
1.
Focus on direct implementation mitigated against
capacity strengthening
1.
International humanitarian standards cannot be met in
the current institutional set up.. emphasis needs to shift
from delivery to support.
2.
It may pay more to prepare national counterparts than
to invest in our own readiness to intervene forever.
3.
A fundamental reorientation of the humanitarian sector
is required to recognize that ownership of humanitarian
assistance belongs to beneficiaries; that local and
national capacities are the starting point and other
players’ roles are to support and build them.
Donor Funding
1.
A real system of decision-making based on
humanitarian principles was lacking. Rather, funding
was driven by politics, funds, the media and
contextual opportunism.
1.
Donors are pushing agencies into claiming they can
do more than they have the remotest possibility of
doing
2.
Donor timeframes hampered a coordinated
approach. Subsequently coordination and linkages
between relief and recovery were not wellestablished. There is a need for functional links
between relief and development within many donor
agencies.
Donor Funding
4.
At the macro level, appeals are not a coherent way of
responding to humanitarian emergencies, or of
ensuring effective and impartial allocation between
different emergencies. More flexibility is needed.
5.
Need of larger multilateral emergency fund, and a
reduced reliance on appeals. Criteria for allocation
must be transparent, accountability defined and
standardized.
6.
Funding structures need to allow for ‘pooling’ so
that agencies can transfer funds that are in excess
of their own capacity.
Needs Assessment
All studies recognise that in the immediate phase funding was
driven by politics, funds, the media and contextual opportunism
and not allocated according to need. Past this immediate phase
donors should, for example:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Join forces for the initial needs assessment – to be carried
out jointly with national authorities.
Stop dispatching their own assessment missions and
rather rely on supporting the relevant UN and national
entities to do this.
Simultaneously reform their own decision-making
processes to make the response more evidence
friendly/needs based.
Assist national authorities to make greater use of remote
sensing when access is difficult.
Past the acute emergency phase make their funding
conditional on solid, documented needs assessments.
Establish a fund exclusively for assessment purposes.
Implementation
1.
Greater use of NGO consortia, and pooled funding
through national governments, should be explored.
2.
Military logistics were invaluable in the acute phase, but
not all were essential to the relief effort.
3.
The coordinated use of cash grants and loans provided
through existing institutions are potentially a more
effective and efficient way of funding recovery and
reconstruction than direct implementation by international
and national agencies.
4.
Little evidence of cross-sectoral integrated resource
allocation.
5.
Partnerships with local communities are compromised
when key decisions made at international HQs and in
donor agencies.
Learning and Accountability
1.
Generous levels of funding provided flexibility.
- And created obstacles to field level learning.
2.
Tracking funds improved, but still difficult.
3.
Transaction costs/overhead charges not transparent
4.
Donors persisted in highlighting their own
individual contributions.
5.
Staff time taken up for visiting delegations
Change advocated by all five studies
will require a major adjustment in
attitude and practice among
humanitarian actors leading to real
accountability and cooperation.