Humanitarian Response to Natural Disasters: A Synthesis of Evaluation Findings

The findings of this report can be summarised in five points:
• Firstly, it is consistently found that the divide between humanitarian disaster response and
development cooperation continues to prevail despite increased emphasis on the need to
link relief, recovery and development.
• Secondly, there is strong focus on needs assessment as a prerequisite for effective, equitable
humanitarian response, but it is also commonly observed that actual assessment practice
shows substantial deviations from this norm.
• Thirdly, it is a common experience that international humanitarian response undermines
rather than bolsters local capacity, despite growing emphasis on the importance of local
capacity in humanitarian response and long-term vulnerability reduction.
• Fourthly, it is a recurrent theme in evaluation reports that there is a great and persistent
need to find effective mechanisms for coordinating the multitude of actors in the
humanitarian system.
• Fifthly, the evaluation reports show that there is growing awareness of the need for disaster
preparedness and vulnerability reduction, but there are relatively few examples of good practices.