Review of MSF El Salvador Earthquake programmes 13/1/01-31/05/01

Two earthquakes in El Salvador on the 13th of January and February 2001, led to a large emergency relief mission implemented by the country team. The mission worked in eight departments in one hundred and seven communities and provided a full range of emergency public health services for 258,050 beneficiaries. The cost of the mission was approximately 17.6 hfl per beneficiary, all but 2% of which came from other sources than MSF Holland.
The mission was complex, embracing many different locations, many different types of activities and 63 expatriates from all five operational centres.
It accorded with MSF policy, though it could have better targeted the vulnerable people who met MSF’s humanitarian crisis criteria. This failure was unnecessary but in the end not so critical, as the majority of the beneficiaries were appropriate. Even so, such a central part of MSF’s operations policy as defining the humanitarian crisis and selecting the target group should be instinctive in HQ and the field, and this therefore is worth highlighting.
In sum the mission was successful and overcame many challenges in delivering a high quality of services and considerable relevant advocacy.