Improving evidence-based decision-making and accountability in humanitarian response

Summary: Bayard Roberts will provide an overview of the new ‘RECAP’ project. This project seeks to strengthen the use of research and research capacity building to help improve decision-making and accountability in humanitarian response. This will be run in partnership with the American University of Beirut, the University of Sierra Leone, a number of UK universities, and some of the leading humanitarian NGOs. Bayard will discuss the rationale for the project, the planned activities and partnerships involved, and the opportunities and benefits offered by RECAP. His talk will be followed by presentations from Gareth Owen and Alice Obrecht who will discuss some of the challenges of enabling evidence-based practice in humanitarian crises.

Bayard Roberts is Professor of Health Systems and Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Co-Director of the Centre for Global Chronic Conditions. Most of his research and teaching has been on humanitarian crises and forced migration, focusing particularly on mental health and non-communicable diseases.

Gareth Owens is the Emergency Director for Save the Children and has spent the last 20 years working in humanitarian aid. Gareth has led operational responses in every major emergency over the past decade, most notably the Iraq conflict, the Asian tsunami, Cyclone Nargis, Haiti, Pakistan, East Africa, Niger and Philippines. Gareth has played a pivotal role in the strategic growth of Save the Children’s humanitarian activities over the past decade and leads a diverse department of more than 200 humanitarian staff.

Alice Obrecht: Alice Obrecht is Research Fellow at the Secretariat for the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance (ALNAP). She leads ALNAP’s research on innovation, effectiveness and adaptation and contributes to ALNAP’s workstreams on evidence and the State of the Humanitarian System report. She has extensive experience in qualitative research design and conceptual analysis across a variety of research topics in humanitarian action.