Mid Term Evaluation of DG ECHO's Regional Drought Decision in the Greater Horn of Africa

 This report is written within the framework of the Evaluation Terms of Reference and particularly within that of the Evaluation Questions contained therein, as listed in Section 8. to 8.8.6 of this document.
Within the last three years, the Directorate General (DG) ECHO has become availed of a greater range of financial instruments including the General Humanitarian Aid budget, DIPECHO (Disaster Preparedness – European Commission Humanitarian Office), the Food Aid budget and part of the B Envelope of the 10th European Development Fund (EDF). De- cisions now include Global Plans, Ad-hoc, Emergency and Primary Emergency decisions and they can be on a country or multi-country basis. Regional Drought Decision (RDD) is an example of a multi-country Ad-hoc decision.
RDD has introduced some novel modalities into DG ECHO’s programme in the Greater Horn of Africa (GHoA), including:
improved, more appropriate and faster response to slow onset disaster (drought caused by climate change);
response which preserves the communities’ dignity;
enabling re-allocation of funds and re-orientation of activities within projects to re- spond to emergencies;
regional (or cross-border) intervention which recognises the mobility of pastoralists across international borders as well as the wide geographic nature of recurrent drought;
an extended period (to eighteen months) for project intervention;
a move away from reactive humanitarian response towards pro-active intervention addressing drought preparedness and pastoral communities’ resilience building in order to, not only withstand the effects of drought, but also to improve their capac- ity for recovery. Projects visited by the Evaluation Team represented high quality examples of ‘pilots’ very suitable for replication. The choice of quality, performing partners is considered to be good.