On 12 January 2010, an earthquake with the magnitude of 7.0 on the Richter scale struck Haiti’s capital Port au Prince and its surrounding areas. The result of the earthquake was devastating: an estimated 200,000 people were killed, with many left injured and homeless. Material loss is reported to be equivalent to 120% of Haiti’s national income. 1.5 million displaced persons sought refuge in camps around the city, in host families and in rural areas. The humanitarian situation in both Port au Prince and of the provinces is compounded with problems associated with high levels of poverty in Haiti including limited access to clean water and an expensive and inefficient health system. In response to the earthquake a major humanitarian operation was launched, including all major UN agencies, up to 1,000 international NGOs and bilateral donors.

In view of the severity of the disaster and the magnitude of the response, the Inter-agency Standing Committee (IASC) launched an Inter-Agency Real Time Evaluation (IA RTE) at the very beginning of the operations. The Global Public Policy Institute in cooperation with Groupe URD was selected to implement the first phase of the RTE, covering the first three months of the response.

Project objectives

The IA RTE assessed the disaster response to inform decision makers at the country and headquarters (HQ) level and allow for learning and, where necessary, corrective action to be taken in real time. This first phase of the IA RTE was based on a participatory and bottom up approach: implementation and decision-making processes were traced from the operational response, especially as seen by the populations, upwards to the HQ level. The aim was to identify what worked and what did not, why and how the difficulties encountered could best be addressed. This bottom up approach was complemented by an analysis of information collected on the global and the country level to triangulate results and identify external constraints to humanitarian action and coordination (e.g., access, affectedness of the aid community, political processes, diversity of actors, etc.).

For more information, please contact Andrea Binder