Inter-Agency Humanitarian Evaluation of the Drought Response in Ethiopia

This report presents the results of an Inter-Agency Humanitarian Evaluation (IAHE) of the drought response in Ethiopia between 2015 and 2018. An IAHE is  an independent assessment of the collective humanitarian response of Inter-Agency Standing Committee member organizations to a specific crisis or theme.2 The global IAHE Steering Group identified the drought response in Ethiopia as a priority, and the Emergency Relief Coordinator formally launched the evaluation in late 2018. Ethiopia was selected as the focus of the IAHE because the humanitarian system has made a large-scale contribution to the government-led response to successive droughts in the country since 2015. It is the first IAHE to assess the response to a slow-onset, recurrent natural disaster.

The evaluation covers the collective response of Inter-Agency Standing Committee member organizations to recurring droughts in Ethiopia since 2015, including ongoing food insecurity in 2018. The response to humanitarian needs resulting from conflict is excluded from the scope of this evaluation. The evaluation focuses on the contributions of the international system and does not aim to evaluate the response of the Ethiopian Government. Geographically, the evaluation considers all the drought affected areas in Ethiopia. Four regions – Afar, Oromia, Tigray, and the Somali region – were assessed in greater depth (see Figure 1). This sample includes areas that were strongly affected by one or more of the droughts, covers both agricultural and pastoralist livelihood zones, and includes areas that were perceived as receiving different levels of humanitarian assistance as well as regions with different levels of administrative capacity.