Real-time evaluation of DG ECHO's response to the Haiti crisis and review

This evaluation of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (DG ECHO)’s operations and strategy in Haiti is in keeping with Articles 7 and 18 of Council Regulation 1257/96 concerning humanitarian aid and Article 27 of the Financial Regulation (EC, Euratom) 1605/2002.

DG ECHO has been running programmes in Haiti for more than fifteen years. These programmes have concerned issues related to disaster preparedness (DIPECHO programmes), the response to natural disasters and the humanitarian consequences of political and economic turmoil (different types of emergency decisions). On the basis of an analysis of the humanitarian situation carried out in 2007, an ad hoc decision was made in 2008 which allowed programmes in the sector of Maternal and Child Health to be funded, complementing the funding of projects in connection with decisions made on the Food Aid budget line. In 2009, to respond to the high levels of malnutrition following the hurricanes of 2008, DG ECHO opened an office in Port-au-Prince and established a Global Plan. In the hours following the earthquake of 12 January 2010, DG ECHO rapidly mobilized funds both through the European Civil Protection mechanism and by making funds available to its partners via primary emergency, emergency and ad hoc funding decisions. These efforts continued in response to the cholera crisis from October 2010. At the end of 2010 and during the first weeks of 2011, DG ECHO clarified its objectives for 2011 as well as its coordination strategy with other European instruments and the Member States.

The evaluation covered all these arrangements and actions at both strategic and operational levels in order to help DG ECHO and its partners to be as accountable as possible and draw as many lessons as possible from this series of operations.