ALNAP | Forums

Webinar follow-up: Understanding the city better as the key to disaster response and reconstruction - UN Habitat's experiences

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 20:44:38 GMT

Posted on 24 April at 20:44 by Franziska Orphal (ALNAP).

The comments below were posted to the presenters and panelist during the webinar:

Haiti had a large NGO presence prior to the earthquake and that NGO presence expanded exponentially after the earthquake. Have we learned or put into practice any lessons learned in terms of organizing, unifying or harnessing the larger NGO context for a unified effort in responding in Haiti specifically or other disasters in the future? [posted by an American Red Cross employee]

Haiti was an unprecedented urban disaster, but the scale of people who should respond by themselves without external support was not and HLP were not so new too.. so, my point - more a suggestion rather than a question - is to focus our efforts on learning, specifically on sharing learning of past interventions, from hurricane Mitch to Haiti through Tsunami. All have a lot of learning but my impression is that we're not sharing all this learning properly and widely enough. Please I would like to hear comments on this idea: to improve how to share learning. Thanks. [posted by a CARE US employee]

A call for evidence-based decision-making in humanitarian response

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 16:02:09 GMT

Posted on 23 April at 16:02 by Riccardo Polastro (DARA).

The ALNAP 2013 Annual Meeting held in March focused on evidence following the increasing demand of donors and humanitarian agencies for evidence-based and measurable responses.

Evidence of needs and how we respond to them is important as it can contribute to improving the overall quality of the humanitarian response. It can be used by decision makers, managers of the response and by the affected population to guarantee that the response is not just based on assumptions but is grounded on the needs of affected populations as these evolve.

When tied to timely decision-making, it helps save lives in critical contexts, boosts accountability to all parties involved and helps measure the effects of a response. Building an evidence base for humanitarian action is generally a complex task as we are confronted with a number of perennial challenges.

Difficult to collect
Firstly, it is difficult to collect evidence based on conventional approaches in humanitarian settings since there is often a lack of baseline, access; the affected population is mobile and recurrently displaced. Data is very sensitive, scattered and atomised. In situations of conflict the availability of reliable information, notably statistics, is often of insufficient quality to make any reliable assessment.

What is evidence?
Secondly, there are different understandings on what can be considered evidence in terms of hierarchy and robustness. Today, the humanitarian system is confronted with two differing approaches that some qualify as wars: one that champions the use of randomised control trials, and one that champions local knowledge (see John Mitchell's blog Avoiding 'evidence wars' in humanitarian aid). Regardless of the approach, evidence should be regularly verified and contrasted as it can soon become outdated as needs evolve.

To be valid, evidence must be accurate, representative, significant and attributed to a specific response or the overall response. Furthermore as actors within the humanitarian system we need to understand the hierarchy of evidence, at least if we want to have a grounded approach and be reliable in our response.

Feedback to beneficiaries
There is also an issue of beneficiary participation. In most humanitarian responses, evidence collection tends to be very extractive and there is limited, if any, feedback to the affected population, on what will be provided, by whom and by when, or how will the response adapt or evolve following assessments, monitoring or evaluation missions of organisations. The feedback mechanism to the primary target of the international response is missing.

Participatory processes to define methods, understand changes and challenges are seldom used. The response is generally an exogenous solution that is supply-driven rather than needs- based, delivering what we have rather than what is needed and building on existing local capacities. In the long run, this limits exit strategies and self-sustainability.

Looking ahead
More needs to be done by agencies to ensure that they do their best to take decisions based on evidence, without compromising a speedy response in the process. Humanitarian organisations might want to:

   • Base their response on needs and less on working assumptions and anecdotal evidence.
   • Keep the politics out to preserve an independent and neutral humanitarian response that is needs-based.
   • Build ownership of key stakeholders and decision makers, prioritise the affected population. Evidence gathered should be shared - when this does not compromise the security of the affected population and staff.
   • Understand what and when data is needed. Fundamentally identify who needs what information and for what purpose and by when. Used in real time, it may help to save lives as could have been done during the Horn of Africa drought by tying early warning to early decision-making and response.
   • Spend more time listening to affected populations as a way of gathering evidence of needs.
   • Learn and identify context-specific good practices for data collection even in remotely managed contexts.

If you are actively gathering and using evidence data to meet the needs of affected populations, why not share your views here?

Useful DRM References

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 13:22:23 GMT

Posted on 18 April at 13:22 by Chris Piper (TorqAid).

Hi everyone,
We've just modified our ongoing Selected Disaster Risk Management (DRM) bibliography, and as well as the generic version included below, also have variants relating to Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR); earthquakes; and Australian disasters. Please feel free to share this information around interested colleagues, practitioners, and networks.

Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Selected Bibliography
Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Selected Bibliography (DRR)

Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Selected Bibliography (Earthquakes)

Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Selected Bibliography (Australian disasters)
The DRR material includes some fascinating material. It includes the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) reference, and UNISDR plans for ideas beyond 2015; terrific recent documents produced both by Chatham House (Managing Famine Risk) and the (UK) Government Office for Science (Reducing risks for Future Disasters); and the 2009 Global Humanitarian Forum, Human Impact Report (measuring climate change).

The earthquake material is particularly useful for agencies/partners supporting response and early recovery post-earthquake initiatives in Iran and Pakistan. As well as material directly related to earthquakes highlighted, other related sectors also illustrated include info on urban settlements; leadership; role of national governments; M&E; recovery; resilience; psycho-social; gender; disability; age; role of media; staffing; DRM diagrammatic framework; humanitarian principles/standards, security.

The material relating to emergency management as is carried out in Australia and NZ, particularly focuses on bushfires in Victoria and WA; as well as flooding in Queensland. Some of this material will be particularly useful and pertinent for overseas DRM/DRR government departments (eg National Disaster Management Offices) as they develop their national, provincial and district levels DRM plans..

Please feel free to share this information around interested colleagues and networks. Finally, please note that much of this material is covered in our next accredited DRM workshop in Melbourne (see http://www.torqaid.com for details). This workshop uses the following diagrammatic framework, which focuses in on four key diagrams, one of which is DRR.

TorqAid DRM Diagrammatic Framework: 4 key diagrams (summary)

Cheers & best wishes,
Chris

Case studies - Shelter Projects 2011-2012

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 12:42:13 GMT

Posted on 19 April at 12:42 by Joseph Ashmore (independent).

I would like to share this recent publication (Apologies for any cross postings):

Shelter Projects 2011-2012 is now available online. It contains thirty two case studies of shelter projects and responses to disasters and conflicts from 21 responses. PDF versions of this document can be downloaded freely from:

www.sheltercasestudies.org/shelterprojects2011-2012.html

Shelter Projects 2011-2012 is the fourth edition of case studies of humanitarian shelter programming, aiming to improve learning from past projects and responses. These four documents contain over 100 separate case studies of shelter projects from 47 organisations, encompassing examples of most aspects of and approaches to Shelter programming. They can be downloaded from:

www.ShelterCaseStudies.org

We warmly welcome any comments on how to make this document closer suited to your needs, and will be welcoming additional case studies for future editions.

I hope that you find this document (and website) useful,

With best regards,

Joseph Ashmore

Training on Quality and Accountability (Q&A)

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:24:58 GMT

Posted on 11 April at 10:24 by Sylvie Robert (Independent).

I would like to share with you all, involved in evaluation and learning, some information on this course which I designed one year ago and conducted already in Kenya, Paris and Bangkok.

In brief:
This course aims to gather professional humanitarian workers from INGOs, NGOs, UN, donors, universities and Government agencies from around the world who are leaders in promoting and implementing approaches for enhanced quality and accountability.
It also allows individuals to understand the significance of linkages between various standards and assist agencies in collaborating and coordinating with various actors towards a common goal.

You will find attached a flyer introducing the course in more details.

The great thing with this course is the feeling of satisfaction you get when you know you are addressing strong needs in the right way: Field people are struggling while trying to be compliant with and to implement so many principles, standards, indicators and all sorts of tools. As such, an opportunity to honestly and practically reflect on the opportunities and challenges based on field experiences in specific contexts is most welcome!

We have now a set of recommendations for future joint implementation, from the participants who attended these courses, as well as 2-page papers written by the partipants on their experience while implementing Q&A. Those are not nice academic papers, there are testimonies from the field written and owned by the participants. This is what I like, although making them sharable is not the easiest part of the writing workshop...

You can find the latest report from the Bangkok training here.

I would welcome any comment, ideas, suggestions, inputs and criticisms, constructive please :)

Sylvie

Attached file: flyer-training-on-quality---accountability-sylvie-robert-april-2013.pdf

Helping select 10 priority topics which need evidence in disasters/humanitarian crises: SURVEY OPEN TO 1 MAY 2013

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:04:36 GMT

Posted on 24 April at 16:04 by Claire Allen (Evidence Aid).

Dear Colleague (with apologies for any duplication),

We respectfully request five minutes of your time to help Evidence Aid to select 10 priority topics to help to identify evidence of interventions with health outcomes in disasters, humanitarian crises and major healthcare emergencies. Evidence Aid is improving access to research evidence (systematic reviews) for people who work in disasters and humanitarian crisis settings.

Please use the following URL to access the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/D2HXN76. The survey will be open until Wednesday 1 May 2013.

After the 10 topics have been selected by people preparing for or responding to natural disasters, humanitarian crises or major healthcare emergencies (i.e. you), Evidence Aid will further refine the process at a priority setting meeting in June 2013. Following that meeting, Evidence Aid and its partners will facilitate the production of evidence from the questions selected under each topic and the evidence will be made freely available (online) to those people preparing for or responding to natural disasters, humanitarian crises and major healthcare emergencies.

We would also be grateful if you would circulate this survey amongst your network of colleagues and friends who might work in this field, or add the link and information to your website.

If you have any questions or queries you'd like answered before you take the survey, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Thank you for your help.

Best wishes

Claire Allen (Knowledge Manager, Evidence Aid)
On behalf of:
Bonnix Kayabu, MD., MSc.
Evidence Aid Coordinator
Centre for Global Health Trinity College Dublin &
Cochrane Collaboration
7/9 Leinster Street South
Dublin 2
http://www.cochrane.org/cochrane-reviews/evidence-aid-project
Twitter: @EvidenceAid
Facebook: Evidence Aid

On the right track? A brief review of monitoring and evaluation in the humanitarian sector by ACF and CBHA

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 10:29:14 GMT

Posted on 4 April at 10:29 by Saul Guerrero (Action Against Hunger).

Action Against Hunger (ACF), in collaboration with the Consortium of British Humanitarian Agencies (CBHA) recently published On the Right Track? A brief review of monitoring and evaluation in the humanitarian sector.

The original aim of the review was to help ACF map current M&E practices in the sector to inform the process of refining and redeveloping its own M&E systems and process. As discussions with other humanitarian organisations began, however, it became apparent that many of them shared some the same questions, aspirations and challenges (e.g. what indicators are others using? How do others collect and analyse the data collected?). Thus, the review grew in scope and became a more coordinated effort to document the motivation behind M&E in the humanitarian sector, the choices made by organisations and the way in which M&E data is collected and used to measure quality.

The methodology used to gather the data was two-fold. First, a simple questionnaire was shared with all CBHA member agencies. The aim of the questionnaire was to understand the aspirations and motivations the drive M&E in the humanitarian sector (e.g. what are your objectives in doing M&E? what do you think your organisations' M&E indicators most commonly measure?).
The results of the questionnaire demonstrated that; 1) most humanitarian organisations want M&E systems to measure impact but; 2) almost none of them believe that current M&E systems actually measure impact. The second component of the review was an analysis of the indicators used by organisations. The review looked at a total of 1,680 indicators from a total of 11 CBHA organisations. The indicators were classified according to the Logical Framework result chain (baseline, input, process, target, output, outcome and impact). The results showed that half of the indicators currently used fall in the mid-range of the results framework, either output (38%) or process (12%), with impact indicators accounting for only 3% of the total sample.

The results of the review confirm what many already believed (humanitarian organisations generally measure what is tangible over what is meaningful) but it helped raise some important issues. For instance, the diversity of indicators used (even within a single sector) makes comparative analysis difficult. Fewer sectoral indicators must be adopted. The incentives for measuring outcomes and impact must also be increased if the balance is to shift in this direction. Shifting the balance towards outcome and impact indicators will require investments in organisations' individual (and collective) M&E systems. This in turn will require a reconsideration of the incentives for providing this kind of data.

Diagnosing the problems was the easy part. The real challenge is how to work on a way forward when the answers are already being provided by different initiatives all across the world; from the BOND Effectiveness Group, to the SPHERE Standards to the Emergency Capacity Building project.
How can we pull together the relevant lessons/outputs from all these initiatives and provide humanitarian organisations with simpler recommendations to move towards more impact-driven M&E models? How can we identify 'champions' in our organisations (beyond colleagues in the M&E unit, or in evaluation offices) who could support the work of identifying and translating lessons (such as those identified by BOND and ECB initiatives) into more actionable recommendations and advice for our organisations to shape up our M&E systems to be more impact-driven?.. And just as importantly, who can provide the leadership required?

The Humanitarian Genome project explained: an innovation for extracting evaluation insights

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 14:58:46 GMT

Posted on 13 March at 14:58 by Kim Scriven (ALNAP).

On 25 January, ALNAP attended the Test Event of the Humanitarian Genome, a project to increase the ease and speed of access to the information contained in evaluations - thereby improving their utilisation. The project has received funding from the Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF), itself a collaboration between ALNAP and ELRHA. We thought the CoP would appreciate hearing more about this initiative given that it is still only known among a relatively small number of evaluators who have been involved in the project.

So what is it? The Humanitarian Genome is a web-based search engine to define and identify individual humanitarian 'evaluation insights'. The Humanitarian Genome aims to accelerate the aggregation of these insights from evaluations of differing styles and contexts so as to assist the rapid identification and extraction of the content of existing evaluations. The system makes it possible for users to search for information on both the content and process/method of evaluations. The Genome team hopes to contribute to the improvement of learning and decision-making based on evaluation findings.

How does it work? The system relies on the work of the Genome Team to scour and digitise reports, extracting specific quotes (referred to as insights) that relate to the evaluation's process or findings (be these programme or organisation specific) and then coding and scoring these accordingly. This score (referred to as a grade) determines the "usefulness" of an insight and in turn its ranking in the search findings, in a process similar to the search ranking function of Google or other search engines. These search results can be downloaded or printed and are each linked to the original evaluation report. Currently, evaluation reports must be manually coded. Key future improvement include increasing the number of reports, and the ability of users to contribute to the ranking of search results through ranking and feedback.

For more information on the coding process see: http://www.humanitarianinnovation.org/blog/genome_project/quality.

What can you do to help? The project is still at the Alpha testing stage, and is yet to go live. Due to the current labour intensive nature of the coding, the Genome currently only contains 30 evaluations. However, the project hopes to have 100 evaluation reports coded in time for the launch of its Beta version in the coming months. An important way evaluators can contribute to the project at this stage is by suggesting evaluations to be coded and uploaded. To submit suggestions for evaluations of humanitarian action seen by the system as important and of a high quality, please send the full title, year, author, PDF or link to the online PDF to Franziska at f.orphal@alnap.org. It is important that evaluations are PDF (or Word) text files, rather than images from which the text cannot be extracted. A list of evaluations already in the system can be found here.

Many thanks for your help!
Kim

Call for participants in research project: 'professional perspectives on everyday life in collective centres'

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:12:51 GMT

Posted on 22 April at 10:12 by Sam Collins (Høgskolen i Bergen (Bergen University College)).

[With apologies for the late posting,
ALNAP Comms]

I would like to put out an open invitation concerning a research project I am conducting as part of a master programme in Community Work at Bergen University College, Norway. The objective of the study is to add more detail to the body of knowledge about humanitarian practice in collective centres. Of particular interest is people's everyday life in these centres and the support they receive from humanitarian professionals.

I would like to interview people with professional experience of working with collective centres in the last few years. Interviews would last no longer than an hour, would be anonymous, would take place via Skype, and the results should be valuable to the humanitarian community.

Do you have this experience? If so, please contact me via samcollins@f2s.com for further information.

Communication via this forum is also welcome, so feel free to have your say, even if you are not available to participate.

Humanitarian aid workers: Have your say!

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:10:17 GMT

Posted on 22 April at 10:10 by Claire Allen (Evidence Aid).

Evidence Aid is carrying out a needs assessment survey among people working in the humanitarian sector and other related areas to examine the use of systematic reviews by decision-makers involved in disaster risk reduction, planning and response. This survey will contribute to good practice and will help people planning humanitarian interventions and beneficiaries alike to have access to information based on evidence before, during and after natural disasters and other complex emergencies throughout the world. It will identify priorities for the information needed following natural disasters and other humanitarian emergencies, which will help with the identification of potentially relevant systematic reviews and of gaps in the evidence base.

The survey is available online in English, French, and Spanish at http://www.cochrane.org/evidence-aid-needs-assessment-survey.

MS Word versions are also available for download in Arabic, English, German, and Spanish.

An article about the survey has been published in PLoS Currents: Disasters and the Effective Health Care Research Consortium newsletter (European Winter 2011).