Shelter from the storm: A real-time evaluation of UNHCR’s response to the emergency in Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia

This real-time evaluation (RTE) was undertaken to review UNHCR’s emergency response to the population displacement occurring within Cote d’Ivoire and across the border into Liberia as a result of the Ivorian election crisis from late November 2010 onwards.
This was a slow-onset emergency, characterised in the early stages by largely pre-emptive displacement which began to increase in pace by the third week of December after a series of clashes in north-western Côte d’Ivoire. The RTE captures the situation as it was at the end of February 2011, a moment when the overall humanitarian situation was deteriorating, as the political and security crisis deepened. Some 40,000 refugees had already crossed the border into Liberia, and some 38,500 were believed to be internally displaced in western Côte d’Ivoire.