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EARTHQUAKE IN HAITI

UN Photo/Marco Dormino

As donors pledge to help Haiti recover, they should draw on
evidence of what works from evaluations of past aid efforts:
Click here to find evaluations of humanitarian responses
Click here to find evaluations of aid in Haiti

Some key lessons from evaluations of humanitarian assistance and reconstruction efforts:

• Assess real needs: Needs assessments should differentiate and prioritise between vulnerabilities resulting from chronic conditions and those generated by the disaster, and, in particular, issues perceived as a priority by the 'beneficiaries' themselves rather than those development agencies assume are important. Read the evaluation
• Do No Harm: Damage caused by natural disasters can outweigh years of development assistance. Unfortunately well-intentioned humanitarian assistance can also inadvertently undermine previous gains. Read the eavlaution
  See also Human Rights and Disasters
• Prevention counts: Risk reduction and preparedness measures are needed to make communities and nations more capable in the face of future disasters. 
  Read the evaluation
  See also UNISDR Risk Reduction and Poverty
• Information is power: Local people should be provided with timely, relevant information about the relief and recovery efforts. Information about aid and development plans is the starting point for people to decide for themselves how they wish to get on with their lives. It is also their most basic tool with which to hold their governments and aid providers to account. Read the evaluation
• Keep learning:  Monitoring and evaluation of current efforts can contribute to continued learning and improvement of the effectiveness of humanitarian and development assistance.DAC Guidance for Evaluating Humanitarian Assistance
  

Why is it that short-term natural disasters so often become long-term human crises?

Check the ODI website

LATEST REPORTS AVAILABLE ON DEReC

Measuring Change and Results in Voice and Accountability Work

15-Dec-2009- Published by DFID

The paper discusses the importance of establishing a theory of change to demonstrate the causal relationship between V&A interventions and wider development impacts, but further work is required to establish the links between outcome and impact through V&A work.

Switzerland’s economic development cooperation in the field of trade promotion of organic agriculture products

08-Dec-2009- Published by SECO

"Switzerland’s economic development cooperation in the field of trade promotion of organic agriculture products”

The North-South-South Higher Education Institution Network Programme

02-Dec-2009 - Published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland

The current evaluation of the N-S-S Programme examined the five years of implementation of the programme with a view to making recommendations for the next phase.

Evaluation of the Humanitarian Mine Action Activities of Norwegian People’s Aid

18-Nov-2009 - Published by Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad)

This evaluation report concludes that Norwegian People’s Aid is one of very few organisations that is engaged in operational mine clearance programmes, development of new methodologies as well as advocacy, areas that are mutually reinforcing