Evaluation of DG ECHO’s actions on building resilience in the LAC Region

This evaluation covers DG ECHO-funded initiatives aiming to increase the resilience of communities and countries to future stresses and shocks in Latin America and the Caribbean between 2012 and 2016. Exacerbated by growing urbanization, the region is exposed to natural hazards, political crises and climate change. ECHO contributions consist of the systematic inclusion of resilience into most of its humanitarian programs as well as the funding of dedicated risk reduction initiatives. ECHO funded a total 258 projects for an amount of 220 million Euros, 60% of this in Haiti and Colombia.

Sustained risk reduction initiatives contributed to the growing commitment of regional and most national authorities to increase resilience. The effectiveness of resilience initiatives at community level depended to a large part on local and national ownership. When lacking, as often the case in Haiti, results were questionable.

The recommendations include: to improve synergy and on-site cooperation between EU and EC development actors and ECHO, to focus efforts on fewer, larger, multi-partner initiatives, to support efforts at multiple scales within a country to assure a systems approach, and to develop a mechanism to objectively measure the impact on beneficiaries of past initiatives once a major stress or disaster occurs