Evaluation of the European Commission's Humanitarian Action in the Shelter Sector

ECHO has not previously carried out any specific evaluation in the shelter sector. As stated in the ToR (Annex I), the main objectives of the evaluation were “to identify the main issues in global humanitarian shelter provision, including bottlenecks; and to identify where DG ECHO would have a comparative advantage in helping to address these issues”.

- The methodological approach has been based on a set of five main evaluation questions (EQs), which have been used as a basis for chapters B.2.1 to B.2.5 of the present report. EQs have successively assessed issues of overall and specific challenges, effectiveness, added value and efficiency – including cost-effectiveness.
- The scope of the evaluation was quite extensive and covered the period from 2005 to 2012, as well as shelter and closely related activities in every context (conflicts or natural disasters, DRR, emergency and more durable shelters, LRRD) and geographical areas. Data was to be collected from desk review, interviews, some field case studies and an online survey. A detailed description of the methodology can be found in chapter B.1.3 and in Annexes II to III, and VI.

Some constraints were found in the lists of shelter-related projects (Annex IV and Annex V). For the first five years, the lists had to be collected manually. From 2010 onwards, the accuracy of the HOPE database depends on the partners filling in appropriately their Single Form (SF), which may be a challenge in the case of e.g. large multi-sector grants.