Joint Programme Evaluation final evaluation report august 2016 DanChurchAid (dca) Jhamsikhel, Lalitpur Nepal Dr. Prakash Bhattarai and Dr. Dhruba Gautam

4.4 Humanitarian Response

The evaluation team has identified a number of areas of improvement for enhancing the effectiveness of humanitarian response programme of DCA. Following are some of the strategic and programmatic recommendations;
Strategic/Policy Recommendation

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  Manage stockpiles in advance: For the prompt humanitarian response, DCA should collaborate with ACT Alliance members and other humanitarian agencies for the management of minimal stockpiles based on scenario mapping. If managed well, such stockpiles would enable DCA for quick response. For this purpose, DCA and its partner NGOs should have the list of potential vendors and knowledge of price, quality, availability of the goods, and transportation options prior to the emergency.
  

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  Build capacity of humanitarian responders: In order to sharpen the knowledge of staffs and partner NGOs, DCA should periodically organise refresher trainings on principles of Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) and Sphere minimum standards for the delivery of NFIs and shelter kit. DCA could also be supportive to the translation of guidelines and customise the standards for quick use. A roster of experts (both national and international) should be prepared and develop a protocol for calling upon them, so that they could be mobilised as and when necessary. A list of potential staff at the regional and headquarters should be developed that could be mobilised through ‘secondment’ and ‘deployment’.
  

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  Effective coordination: For effective humanitarian response, coherent coordination should be continued among the ACT members. For the programmatic synergy, DCA should also collaborate with ACT Alliance members and other humanitarian agencies for the quick joint need assessment, PDM, peer review, reflection and joint programme development.
  

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  Adhere targeting approach: To get scarce resources to previously unreached sections, beneficiaries should be ‘targeted’ specifically (as DCA did during earthquake response and recovery of 2015) rather than adopting a ‘blanket approach.’ If both blanket and targeted approaches are used in the same community for certain period of time, it’s rationale should be communicated in advance. Non-beneficiary communities and families should get space during the project planning and subsequent implementation for reducing likely disputes.
  

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  Design a simple and coherent guideline: To ensure quality and accountability, DCA should design a simple and coherent guideline for public hearing and social auditing process. DCA should document good practices and lessons learnt and disseminate them as part of knowledge management. To dispel unjustified expectations, it should share plan, mandate, and budget with stakeholders on periodic basis.
  

Programmatic Recommendations

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  Provide cash vouchers instead of direct cash: Although the cash transfer modality (voucher or direct cash) depends on the local context (such as availability/access to market and financial service providers, interest of beneficiaries, risk factors), emphasis should be given to distribute the cash vouchers (as did during earthquake response and recovery phase) as it is the best option to reach cash in a transparent way. Direct distribution of cash during emergency response may invite disputes among the beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries.
  

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  Promote local resource based skill development: The programme should focus on skill development endeavours to promote income generation activities which use local resources and indigenous knowledge. The linkage of disaster affected people with local cooperatives ensures to receive easy loan and run their enterprises.
  

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  Develop the approach of volunteerism: Effective emergency response is ‘everybody’s business.’ DCA should facilitate and train local youths, schools and college students and foster the approach of ‘volunteerism’. Disaster risk management, emergency response and role of local volunteers would be some of the training agenda.
  

5. Other Recommendations

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  Revisits in the programme approaches and strategies are necessary: The evaluation team particularly commends DCA's approach to intervene in four thematic areas which all seems quite relevant to all South Asian countries where it is operating. However all thematic programmes at present are operated in isolation, rather than in a holistic or an integrated approach.⁵ This means that there is lack of clarity around how DCA’s four programme themes supplement each other during the actual operation in the field. Likewise, comparing the resources given to the partners, there are too many programme locations. Thus, the evaluation team recommends that instead of scattered interventions in various communities under separate programmatic theme, the most strategic move for DCA would be to design an integrated programme through which the selected intervened communities would receive maximum benefit from the DCA’s support. In this regard, DCA can concentrate its interventions in limited and most needed geographical locations but with integrated projects and programmes for obtaining higher impact of the project. The reason consultants come to this conclusion is because a number of women benefited from the ICAG programme interacted in the field expressed that they cannot continue their active participation in civic and political life unless their livelihood opportunities are secured. This indicates that resilient livelihood programme should be at the centre of all intervention of DCA and depending on the community needs, this programme should integrate with other interventions in three thematic areas.
  

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  Emphasis on holistic approach: Community needs are so different and diverse from one community to another. Thus only one type of intervention focusing on one particular issue/theme cannot fulfil the current needs of local communities, particularly for overcoming the caste and class based discrimination, social barriers, and injustice that exist in the society. Thus, it is recommended to work with people from all walks of life, which means not only with Dalits and Women, but also with political party leaders, bureaucrats, and youth and student political leaders at the local level who often play an instrumental role in the local level decision-making processes. To ensure equity aspects, DCA should involve all people (irrespective of caste, class and gender) in the programme through software components (capacity building, dissemination of technology) and provide hardware (livelihood) support to ultra poor, highly excluded, and marginalised sections (including Dalits). This approach will deliver positive message, reduce discrimination, increase ownership and foster the solidarity between two classes: ‘haves’ and ‘haves not’.
  

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  Emphasis on evidence-based policy advocacy: The evaluation team has found that current advocacy efforts from the NGO partners of DCA are good but not enough to bring real policy change, as they lack deep rooted understanding and analysis of the context and it is often based on emotional sentiments, popular slogans, facts that were revealed many years back. This is mainly because of the weak knowledge management practices among NGO partners and DCA is also found weak in this regard. Given this context, the evaluation team recommends for strong research based programming, and strengthened monitoring, evaluation, and learning system, which could ultimately encourage for getting involved in evidence-based policy advocacy. To build rapport with government and other stakeholders, DCA should increase its ability to engage in policy advocacy. In this regard, pro-activeness of responsible programme officers, Head of Programmes, and other responsible authorities within DCA is vital.
  

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  Foster collaboration and coordination between thematic and cross-thematic partners within and across the programme countries: Due to limited coordination and collaboration mechanisms and just one time partner gathering within a year, there are limited opportunities available for thematic, cross-thematic, and cross-country DCA partners to come together and provide direct and indirect support to each other’s interventions. Considering this gap, the evaluation team recommends for setting up at least a country level ‘coordination platform’ among thematic and cross thematic partners, which could facilitate face-to-face and virtual interactions between partners and learn from each other’s intervention. A ‘regional coordination platform’ can also be established, which could facilitate virtual interactions among partners when resources are not available for face-to-face meetings.
  

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  Need to improve partners’ selection process and strategies: DCA needs to be careful while selecting its project partners. Based on the evaluators’ observation, NGO partners who are working in comfort zone with significant budget in hand from multiple donors may not have enough motivation and enthusiasm to effectively manage project given by DCA with modest grant. Thus, the evaluation team suggests looking for small NGOs working with comparatively lower annual budget. Small NGOs, with a motivation to enhance their institutional profile, give their full efforts in obtaining better outcomes of the project even with modest amount they receive from the donor. Whereas big NGOs often put modest project in least priority, as they need to be more focused on larger grant they receive from other donors. However, big NGOs which are Kathmandu based, research driven, and also have a good access with political actors and bureaucrats, can be effective actors for policy advocacy at the national level. Thus, DCA’s partnership with big NGOs should limit for policy advocacy work rather than implementing projects at the local level.
  

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  Need to improve the staffing structure within DCA country office: Staffing structure play a crucial role to enhance the effectiveness of programme intervention. The evaluation team also found that human resources within DCA allocated for each thematic area is not enough. One programme officer for one thematic programme does not seem sufficient to handle multiple responsibilities within a short period of time and provide quality professional service. Thus, at least two staffs (including programme officer) for each thematic programme is needed on the condition of the continuation of the existing number of partners. Likewise, DCA should also recruit a separate Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEAL) officer who could support monitoring and evaluation task in all thematic areas.
  

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  Knowledge management initiatives: Over the years, DCA has generated many good practices while working in multiple thematic areas in the South Asia region. Systematic documentation, publication and dissemination could be one of the strategies for improving DCA’s programmatic holds in the region, increase visibility, and attract donors to invest more resources in the DCA’s programmatic areas. Therefore, emphasis should be given towards showcasing good practices for advocacy use. Such material should be shared to promote visibility and policy uptake.
  

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  Adhere the principle of ‘small is beautiful’: Because there were too many programme activities, the programme team was overstretched and struggled to meet targets on time, let alone follow up on completed activities and establish the sort of institutional linkages which could promote sustainability. New programmes in the next programmatic cycle need to be selective in their choices and do a few things well rather than many things superficially. DCA should also design very few trainings and workshops and more emphasis on drills, street dramas and video shows as part of capacity building of the local communities.
  

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  Develop exit strategy: DCA should mobilise its partner NGOs for the development of ‘exit strategy’ and prepare exit plans and programmes for those projects (regardless of thematic focus) which are not going to be continued in the next programmatic cycle.