Tsunami Evaluation Coalition: Initial Findings

This is an initial report from the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition (TEC). The TEC is a collaborative effort by aid agencies (donor governments’ aid departments, United Nations agencies, non-governmental organisations, and the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement) to improve humanitarian systems by learning from the response to the earthquake and
tsunamis of December 26 2004. The TEC carried out five joint thematic evaluations; on the donor response, co-ordination, needs assessment, the impact on
local and national capacities, and the linkage of relief with rehabilitation and long-term development.

The report found that while initial needs were broadly met, in part by local actors, there is room for improvement in the way that agencies are
meeting ongoing needs. Key areas for improvement in the current agency responses are:

• their engagement with local actors;
• transparency, communication with, and accountability to the affected populations; and
• transparency towards their donors.

The evaluation found that "although local capacity is key to saving lives, this capacity is underestimated and
undervalued by the international aid community as well as being overlooked by the international media. International agencies did not engage sufficiently with
local actors, and assessed the skills of local actors relative to those of their own agency rather than in terms of skills appropriate to the local context." Those surveyed for the TEC studies reported that they were not adequately consulted. Furthermore, the studies found that there were large information gaps between agencies and the communities they were serving. Another funding was that agencies focus too much on promoting their brand and not enough on the needs
of the affected populations.

The report also suggests that rehabilitation and
recovery following and emergency is far more complex
than relief. In the tsunami response, “build back
better” has been adopted as a slogan, implying that the response should move beyond limited recovery to development.

There is concern that increasing inequity can promote conflict within society. The TEC studies found that, due in part to both poor contextual knowledge and to the pressure to act quickly, relief and recovery interventions have not promoted equity. Proportionately more assistance, especially in the recovery phase, has flowed to the better-off, to
males, and to the better organised. Marginalised groups have lost out in the assistance programmes.
Both Sri Lanka and Indonesia have been affected by civil conflicts before the disaster. While the tsunami response has provided a window for peace, this
opportunity seems to have been seized
in Indonesia, but not in Sri Lanka. The tsunami response meant that far more assistance flowed to those affected by the tsunami than to those affected by
the conflict. This imbalance threatens the sustainability of some of the recovery interventions. Such inequity is particularly dangerous in societies that are recovering from armed conflict.